Epilogue — Spring
Forbes’s parents arrived on a Thursday in January, three days before the wedding.
He spotted them in the Logan Airport arrivals hall—his father steering a luggage cart, his mother scanning the crowd, both bundled in sensible wool coats against the cold they’d soon learn was somehow worse than Edinburgh’s.
They looked smaller than he remembered. Older.
And something in his chest tightened with the sudden, startling fear that he’d waited too long.
Three years since he’d seen them in person. Phone calls and footnotes and the slow, awkward rebuilding of a bridge none of them had known how to repair.
And now they were here.
For his wedding.
To a witch.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” Gwen murmured, appearing at his elbow.
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been pacing for twenty minutes.”
“That’s how I process.”
She slipped her hand into his, steady and warm. “They came, Forbes. They crossed an ocean. That’s not nothing.”
“I know.” He watched his father scan the crowd, searching. “I just—what if it’s awkward? What if they—”
“It will be awkward,” she said gently. “Awkward isn’t fatal. Regret is.”
He looked at her—this woman who always said the exact thing he needed.
“Come on,” she said, tugging him forward. “They’re looking for you.”
He stepped into the crowd, Gwen’s hand anchored in his.
His mother saw him first.
“Forbes.” Her voice cracked on his name as she hurried toward him—faster than he expected—and pulled him into an embrace that smelled like her perfume and wool and something that hadn’t changed since he was a boy.
“Mum.” His voice came out rougher than he intended.
“Just look at you.” She cupped his face, her eyes bright with tears. “My handsome boy.”
His father stood a few feet away, hands shoved in his coat pockets, expression carefully neutral in the way Forbes recognized from his own mirror.
“Dad.”
“Son.”
They looked at each other for a long moment—all the words they hadn’t said, all the silences that had calcified into walls thick as winter stone.
Then his father cleared his throat. “Your last book. The one set in the Hebrides.”
Forbes braced.
“The footnotes were impeccable,” his father said gruffly. “But the story—” He paused, swallowed. “It’s the best thing you’ve written.”
Forbes’s throat tightened.
“I should have told you years ago,” his father continued, each word deliberate, as though rehearsed. “I should have said I was proud of you. I was. I am. I just—” He made a helpless gesture. “I didn’t know how.”
“Neither did I.” Forbes closed the distance and hugged his father for the first time in longer than he could remember.
His father’s arms came up slowly, then tightened. “I’m sorry, lad. For all of it.”
“Me too.”
They drew apart. Forbes’s mother was crying openly now. Gwen was very pointedly studying something fascinating in the distance.
“Right.” Forbes cleared his throat. “Dad, Mum—this is Gwen Bishop. My fiancée.”
Gwen stepped forward, and Forbes watched his parents take her in—the honey-blonde hair, the warm smile, the quiet confidence that had dismantled every wall he’d ever built.
“Mrs. MacLeod, Mr. MacLeod. It’s wonderful to finally meet you.”
“None of that,” his mother said, pulling her into a hug before Gwen could protest. “It’s Margaret and James. And you’re the woman who finally got my son to stop being so bloody stubborn about everything, so I already love you.”
“I wasn’t that stubborn,” Forbes muttered.
“You were exactly that stubborn,” his father said. “You got it from me.”
Gwen laughed—bright and genuine—and something in Forbes’s chest loosened. The last missing piece clicked into place.
The rehearsal dinner was chaos in the best possible way.
Lilith had transformed Herrick House’s dining room with candles and fairy lights, and somehow the table fit Forbes’s parents, Gwen’s parents, the entire MacBean family, Sydney, and Courtney without forcing anyone to eat standing up.
Forbes watched his father deep in conversation with Gordon Bishop about medieval Scottish trade routes. His mother was learning the proper way to dry lavender from Iris, who had apparently decided Margaret MacLeod needed a full herbalism education before the weekend was over.
“Your father asked me about my research methodology,” Gwen said, sliding into the chair beside him. “Then he asked if I had peer-reviewed sources for the oral tradition sections.”
Forbes winced. “I’m sorry—”
“I showed him my documentation.” She grinned. “He was impressed. Said I had ‘proper academic rigor for someone outside the academy.’ That’s a compliment, right?”
“From my father? That’s practically a marriage proposal.”
“Good thing I’m already marrying his son.”
Across the table, Sinclair had convinced Forbes’s mother to help him build a tower out of bread rolls. Kinloch was explaining the historical significance of Scottish wedding traditions to Andrina, who, for once, was listening with solemn patience.
“They fit,” Forbes said quietly. “My worlds. I wasn’t sure they would.”
“Of course they do.” Gwen rested her head on his shoulder. “You came from good people, Forbes. They just forgot how to show it for a while.”
Across the table, his father looked up, caught Forbes’s eye, and nodded once—a small gesture, heavy with everything they were learning to say.
Forbes nodded back.
The wedding was small. Thirty people gathered in the MacBean garden on a clear January afternoon, the winter sun doing its best to warm wool coats and tartan shawls.
Alan stood beside Forbes—steady, grounded, as he’d been from the beginning.
“Nervous?” Alan asked.
“Terrified,” Forbes admitted.
“Good. Means it matters.”
The music began—a lone violin playing something old and unmistakably Scottish—and Gwen appeared at the end of the path.
She wore a simple ivory dress, her mother’s lace shawl around her shoulders, the luckenbooth pinned over her heart. Her father walked beside her, but Forbes barely registered him. All he saw was her.
That smile—the one that had undone him from the very beginning.
He forgot he was supposed to wait. He stepped forward without thinking, meeting her halfway, earning a ripple of laughter from the guests.
Gwen blinked, surprised—and then her smile widened, like she’d been expecting him to break the rules.
“You’re supposed to stay at the altar,” she whispered.
“I’m done waiting.” He took her hand. “I’ve been done waiting since the moment I met ye.”
They walked the rest of the way together.
The ceremony was brief. Iris insisted on including a traditional blessing that made the air shimmer faintly, though Forbes couldn’t have said what was magic and what was simply the winter light catching in Gwen’s hair.
When the officiant asked if he took this woman, Forbes said “Aye” instead of “I do,” and heard his father’s quiet laugh from the front row.
And when it was time to kiss the bride, he took his sweet time.
“I love you,” Gwen whispered.
“I love ye too. Always will.”
Applause erupted. Sinclair hurled flower petals with wild enthusiasm. Andrina declared it “the most beautiful wedding ever, except Mum and Da’s, obviously.” Kinloch nodded solemnly, as if he’d personally arranged the whole thing.
Forbes’s mother was crying again. His father had an arm around her, eyes suspiciously bright.
And Forbes stood in that winter garden, married to a witch, surrounded by family he’d found and family he’d finally let back in, thinking:
This. This is what I was waiting for. I just didn’t know it.
The reception spilled from the garden into the house as the afternoon dimmed. Someone brought a fiddle; someone else unearthed a bottle of whisky older than Forbes. The MacBean children stayed up past bedtime, dancing with anyone willing.
In the kitchen, Forbes found himself alone with his father as they refilled water glasses in the warm, happy chaos.
“She’s remarkable,” his father said. “Gwen.”
“Aye. She is.”
“The way she looks at you—” His father shook his head softly. “Your mother looked at me like that once. Before I spent too many years buried in research and forgot to look back.”
“Dad—”
“I’m not saying it for pity. I’m saying it because when I watch you with her, you’re present in a way I never learned to be.” His voice roughened. “Don’t make my mistakes. Don’t let the work eclipse the living.”
“I won’t.” Forbes held his gaze. “I spent years behind walls because I thought it was safer. She showed me what I was missing.”
“Then you’re already smarter than I was.” His father clasped his shoulder—firm, warm. “I’m proud of you, Forbes. I should have said it more. I should have said it at all. But I’m saying it now, and I’ll keep saying it until you’re sick of hearing it.”
“I won’t.”
“Good.” His father’s eyes crinkled. “Because your mother’s already planning visits in summer. And autumn. And possibly moving here entirely if we don’t stop her.”
Forbes laughed—really laughed, the kind that shook him.
His father smiled back—and for the first time in years, Forbes saw himself in that expression.
May arrived with warmth and blooming gardens.
The MacBean garden burst into color—spring lavender, new green leaves, petals drifting like confetti. Forbes’s parents returned for the May Day gathering, just as they’d promised.
Four months married. Forbes still wasn’t over it.
He stood with Alan, watching Gwen across the lawn helping Andrina with something involving flowers and glitter—a combination destined for disaster.
“She’s teaching now,” Alan said. “Three students so far. All of them thinking their magic was broken.”
“She told me.” Forbes couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice. “Turns out they were just too powerful for everyday spells. Like she was.”
“Like she was.”
Kinloch came running, Sinclair toddling behind. “Forbes! Will you read to us later? You do the voices better than Da.”
“The voices?” Alan put a hand over his heart in mock injury. “I do excellent voices.”
“You do loud voices,” Kinloch said diplomatically. “Forbes does different voices.”
“He’s got ye there,” Forbes said.
Sinclair reached Forbes’s knee and attempted to climb it like a determined mountaineer. Forbes scooped him up automatically—something that would’ve terrified him a year ago but now felt as natural as breathing.
“Book,” Sinclair announced, patting Forbes’s face with sticky fingers. “Story. Now.”
“He’s very commanding for someone who still needs help with shoes,” Forbes observed.
“Welcome to fatherhood,” Alan said. “Get used to it.”
Forbes went still.
“Forbes!” Andrina shouted. “Come see what we made!”
He handed Sinclair back to Alan and crossed the lawn. Gwen brushed glitter off her hands and smiled.
“It’s a fairy house,” Andrina declared. “For the sparkly friends.”
“It’s beautiful,” Forbes said.
Gwen was watching him with that soft expression she used sometimes—the one that still stole his breath.
“You’re good with them,” she said quietly.
“I have excellent teachers.” His arm slipped around her waist. “And excellent motivation.”
“Oh? What motivation is that?”
“Practice.”
Her breath caught. “You’ve been thinking about that?”
“I’ve been thinking about nothing else for a week.”
“Mum said to tell you lunch is ready,” Olivia announced from the doorway, twelve and unimpressed by romance. “And to stop being gross in front of the children.”
“We’re not being gross,” Gwen protested. “We’re being affectionate.”
“Same thing.” Olivia rolled her eyes. “Also, Forbes, your mother called. She wants to know what you’re bringing for the summer visit.”
Your mother called. Like it was ordinary. Like families just… did that.
His parents called every week now. Sometimes twice. Turned out they’d been trying for years—Forbes had just been too prickly to notice. Gwen had seen it immediately. She’d built the bridge without him realizing.
She’d given him back his family. Among everything else she’d given him, that might’ve been the most miraculous.
“Tell her I’ll call after lunch,” Forbes said. “And aye—we’ll bring the shortbread.”
Olivia vanished.
“Happy?” Gwen asked.
“Deliriously.”
“Good.” Her hands slid up his chest. “Because I have news.”
Something in her eyes made his pulse jump. “What kind of news?”
“The kind where my mother made me take a test this morning.” Her smile trembled, eyes shining. “The kind where those ‘someday’ conversations might be happening sooner than we thought.”
Forbes’s brain emptied.
“Ye’re—”
“I’m.”
“We’re—”
“We are.”
He kissed her.
Thoroughly, completely, with zero concern for small witnesses or cooling lunches or anything except the woman in his arms and the future she’d just handed him.
“Gross!” Andrina shouted. “You’re being gross!”
“Worth it,” Forbes murmured against Gwen’s lips.
“Absolutely worth it,” she breathed.
Across the garden, Alan let out a delighted whoop—which meant the news would spread in thirty seconds.
Forbes didn’t care.
“Mo chridhe,” he whispered into her hair.
“I love you,” Gwen said, voice thick with happy tears. “You believed in me long before I believed in myself.”
“And I always will.” He cupped her face, memorizing her. “More than I have words for. And I’m a writer, so that’s saying something.”
She laughed, watery and bright, her hand drifting to her stomach.
Forbes covered it with his own.
He’d come to Salem looking for a story.
He’d found something better: a home. A family. A love that made the impossible feel ordinary.
Because home wasn’t a place.
It was her.