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Which is good. I trust them to decide which threats we should take seriously and which we should simply be grateful have passed us by. And should they decide the prophecy is something we should take a closer look at; I’ll be happy to help—after Casey and I get back from our month-long honeymoon.
“Thank you,” she says later, when we’re settled in the family room by the fire, sipping our drinks and watching Sophie and Amy finish their masterpiece. “The ring is perfect. It’s exactly what I would have picked out for myself, old and pretty, just like you.”
“I’ll show you who’s old,” I say, scooping her off the couch as I stand and head for the stairs, calling back to the family, “We’ll be right back. We just need to check our bags one last time.”
“Checking the bags,” Blaire says with a husky laugh. “We should go check our bags, Darcy. It’s been a minute since we checked our bags.”
“Where are you going, Auntie Blaire?” Amy asks. “Are you taking a big trip, too?”
The last thing I hear before I close our bedroom door behind us is the sound of the people we love laughing, and it is perfect. Nearly as perfect as my brilliant, about to be fucked thoroughly enough to prove there’s nothing “old” about me, wife.
“Yes, please, clothes off, old man,” she says, grinning as I toss her onto the bed and reach for the close of my shirt.
We end up “checking the bags” for nearly an hour—the perfect end to a perfect day.
The first day of the rest of my life with my wife, our little girl, and our abundance of everyday miracles.
Epilogue
FELICITY FEVERFEW WONDERFULLY
Time is a tricky thing for me.
For everyone, I guess.
It flies when you’re having fun and drags when you’re in line at the DMV. It maintains a steady illusion of stability for months, even years, then suddenly bends in the blink of an eye, pulling you through a wormhole to your childhood when you smell the buttercream frosting your mom made when you were little.
But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t actually suck most people into the past when they get really stressed or catch a cold or eat too much buttered popcorn on an empty stomach…
At least, I’ve never met someone who believes me when I say I’ve lived a particular stretch of time before.
Growing up, my sisters thought I was teasing them or playing such an elaborate game, I’d tricked myself into believing my own pretend. That’s why I left home at eighteen and started looking for answers to my unique problem in the first place. I had to find out if there were other people like me, somewhere out in the world.
But the few friends I’ve made in my travels, are the same as my sisters. Except instead of humoring me, they fret that I might need medication or in-patient medical attention.
After a stint in a mental institution in upstate New York—a haunted one, no less, filled with ghosts who pestered me endlessly once they realized I could not only see, but hear them, too—I learned the hard way to keep my time travel troubles to myself.
So, when I go to bed safe and secure in the new Wonderfully mansion the night before New Year’s Eve, exhausted from playing in the snow all day but so grateful to be surrounded by my sisters, their amazing husbands, and my two precious little nieces, only to wake up back in a vampire dungeon in Atlantic City a few hours later, I don’t waste time crying about it.
At least, not much time.
I slam my fist into the damp stone wall as I sob, cursing the Goddess or whatever glitch in my DNA caused this stupid “gift,” then wipe my nose on my sleeve and start trying to figure out how far I’ve slid into the past. It’s cold in here, but maybe not as cold as it was near the end of my prison stint, just before Ferris worked a deal to free me from my vampire captors?
Ferris…
He’s going to be so worried. He’s been like a big brother to me, my fearless, ferocious protector from the day we met.
I promised him I was going to stop doing careless things, that I was going to think before I acted, and come to terms with the fact that I can’t save other people if I keep getting myself in trouble or catching fire.
That’s another thing I tend do…catch fire, though I’m pretty sure I only have my klutzy tendencies to blame for that. Casey and Delilah were always the graceful ones, the rest of us can’t dance to save our lives and Annie and I both trip over nothing on a regular basis.
But I’m the only one who burned her right eyebrow off in third grade and her left one off in fifth, the only one who had to stop, drop, and roll at three summer fireworks displays and my senior year bonfire.
“Cursed,” I mutter, swiping at my still damp face and continuing to feel sorry for myself just a little longer.
Maybe I am cursed. But if so, why? And by whom? I have an excellent imagination, but even I can’t imagine a reason someone would curse me to randomly travel through time, while being more flammable than the average person.
Or witch…
