Chapter Thirty-Five
After a long, weepy hug between Bri, Finlay, and me, I remembered the wolpertinger was still here, watching us. “Does this mean it’s over?” I asked it.
“Not necessarily.” It turned its imperious gaze on Finlay. “Finlay Barrow, you also are granted one wish.”
I’d never seen Finlay look more bewildered, and that was saying something. “Me?”
“Yes, you. I don’t make the rules.”
Rather than overcome with joy, Finlay looked terrified. “I’ve never given much thought to wishes,” he said, glancing at Bri and me.
“You could wish to be as strong as three men, to own a house full of gold, to be the ruler of your own kingdom.” The wolpertinger blinked. “You could wish to fly.”
I turned to Finlay, taking his hand with my free one. “Whatever you decide, we’ll be here for you. Though personally, I wouldn’t go with flying. Highly overrated.”
Finlay squeezed my hand. “I don’t think I want to make a wish for myself,” he said, as I’d expected. “But could I…” He ran his hands through his hair, biting his lip. “Could I wish for my mother to be healthy?”
(That moment, there. That was when I finally acknowledged to myself that I was head over heels in love with Finlay Barrow. Visions of sitting in trees and kissing flooded my brain, but I shoved those thoughts aside. There would be time for all that later. I hoped.)
“You could,” the wolpertinger said. “Or you could let nature run its course. Perhaps she’ll heal on her own.
Perhaps she’ll die tomorrow. I cannot say.
I also cannot predict, just as Edward Stokes could not, what will become of you either way.
Wishes work how they will, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. It is a gamble. But then, so is life.”
“I understand. But she deserves to have one, after everything she’s been through.”
“Are you sure?” the wolpertinger asked. “This wish will count as yours. You won’t have a second chance.”
Finlay smiled, his eyes sliding to mine. “Chance has worked out pretty well for me so far.”
My stomach cartwheeled straight out of my body, along with my brain.
“Then it is decided,” the wolpertinger said. “My work here is done.”
I scratched at my head, confused about wolpertinger protocol. “Ehm, what does that mean, exactly?”
“It means that if one of you with opposable thumbs would please open the door, I’ll be on my way.”
“Right.” I hurried to the front of the shoppe, and we all watched in amazement as the up-to-now immobile wolpertinger hopped down from the pedestal it had rested on for so many years and made its way through the front door.
It sniffed through its rabbity nostrils, wiggled its rump, and spread its magnificent pheasant wings.
Then, without so much as a backward glance, it leapt into the air and was gone.
We watched in silence for a few minutes, our arms around one another, none of us fully processing what we’d just experienced. Naturally, I was the first to speak.
“That was really something.”
Bri laughed. “It really was.”
“What now?” Finlay asked. “Do we just … go home?”
“Yes,” I said. “But, if it’s okay with you, can we talk for a minute?”
Bri nodded. “Right. I’ll head to the bakery. Something about having a lifelong suppression spell lifted really works up an appetite.”
“Get me some biscuits?” I asked as we disentangled.
She winked. “A whole dozen.”
“One question,” Finlay said hesitantly as Bri went to the door. “If the curse wasn’t lifted, then why did you hug me when you came back from the Sapphire Isles?”
Bri shook her head and ruffled Finlay’s hair with her fingers. “Because I took one look at you and knew for certain that there wasn’t a whiff of magical potential in you, Finlay Barrow.” She winced. “No offense.”
He laughed and batted her hand away. “None taken.”
When the door closed behind Bri, I turned to Finlay, who still had an amused grin on his face. I took his hand, waiting for him to shake it away, but he didn’t, and my heart lit with the smallest glimmer of hope. “Come with me.”
“Why? Is there something else in the storage shed I should know about?” he asked as I led him toward the back of the shoppe.
I smiled, squeezing his hand. “Maybe.”
I wasn’t sure why it was easier to confront him in this tiny space.
Maybe it was that it allowed me to feel like we were in a bubble, away from the prying eyes of the world.
But it was time to know, once and for all, what Finlay and I were without a wish or a curse or anyone else around.
I knew what he meant to me, but I really didn’t know anymore what I meant to him.
His rejection last night had felt so final, and despite all of today’s revelations, I wasn’t sure how we could move past it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, before I could speak.
I couldn’t help chuckling. “For what?”
“For behaving like an arse yesterday. Before you left, I’d convinced myself that you’d changed. That maybe after that night at the burn, you’d figured out what you wanted. That what you wanted included me.”
“It does,” I insisted.
He was still holding my hand, and he brought it to his chest, cradling it against his heart.
“But you didn’t change, Willow. You did things your way, like always.
And my stupid pride was hurt. Because all this time, I thought I knew what was best for you.
I thought that in order for you to love me, you’d have to see things my way.
” He sighed. “All this time, I should have been encouraging you, not judging you. You have a beautiful heart, Willow. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel otherwise. ”
I lowered my gaze, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m the one who should be apologizing, Finlay. I took you for granted for so long. Even worse, I treated you as though you were the one who couldn’t be trusted, when I was the one who deceived everybody.”
“Willow.”
“Let me finish,” I said gently, even though I felt like I was stripping my soul bare, and every word hurt. “I should have thanked you every day, for feeding me and keeping an eye out for me, for Argyle, for the pies! Crivvens, the pies alone! I was utterly terrible—”
“Willow.” I felt his fingertips beneath my chin, gently nudging it up.
Slowly, I pulled my gaze up to his. “Yes?”
“You didn’t need to thank me for any of that. I wasn’t doing it for praise. I did it because I love you.”
As much as my heart soared to hear those words, there was a part of me that still couldn’t accept them. “But I’ve been awful. I pushed you away every time you showed me kindness.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “You have, and for a long time I thought that I loved you despite how you push me away. But last night it dawned on me.”
“What did?”
“That I love you precisely because you push me.”
I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Oh. Are you a masochist, then?”
He smiled, a soft curl of his lips. “No, silly. What I mean is I love that you challenge me. That you never hide who you are. You always say exactly what you’re thinking, for better or worse.
With everyone else, it’s all pretense and politeness, asking each other how we are without waiting to hear the answer. ”
“What if that’s because I’m broken? What if Da’s death changed me forever and I can’t love the way I used to?”
His hand cupped my face and I leaned into it, relishing the warmth of his rough fingers, his calloused palms. “Well. We’re all a little broken, aren’t we?
Like chipped teacups. Imperfect but functional, most of the time, and we don’t discard something just because it’s imperfect.
If anything, we should love it all the more, because that’s a reminder of how precious it truly is. ”
“I don’t deserve you,” I whispered, kissing his palm.
“I disagree. But if it makes you feel better, you can try to make it up to me,” he murmured against my ear, sending a chill up my spine.
I couldn’t resist the pull of him any longer. I put my arms around his neck and looked up into his eyes. “It’s as if…”
“As if what?” he asked, kissing my jaw.
My breath caught as he worked his way toward my mouth, making it very difficult to formulate a coherent thought.
“As if I were a cup of tea, dark and bitter, and then you came along. Like milk and sugar, lightening me and sweetening me until my bitterness faded and I could finally see my true self again.”
“For the record,” he said, lips hovering near mine, “I prefer my tea black.”
I swallowed, my voice shaking as I uttered the words I’d been holding in for far too long. “I love you, Finlay Barrow. I’m sorry I ever made you question it.”
He took his sweet time replying, lips brushing mine in a way that made me want to strangle him and swallow him whole in equal measure. “I love you, too, Willow Stokes.”
Finally, finally, his mouth found mine, and just as he’d promised, he taught me a thing or two about kissing.
It was fast and slow, hard and soft, rough and exquisitely gentle.
My mind was reeling with all the beautiful incongruity, not just of this kiss, but of everything that had happened these past few weeks.
The lies I’d told in order to come to the truth.
The suffering I’d endured to find true joy.
The fact that my new life, beautiful as it was, had come only from experiencing the worst pain I’d ever known.
Love, I realized now, was as commonplace as a father spinning his daughter in circles, a son taking care of his ailing mother. It was also rare and precious and full of impossible magic. It was every wonderful contradiction I could imagine.
And as for the kissing …
Between you, me, and the rocking horse?
I enjoyed it immensely.