Chapter Twenty-Five
The elevator doors opened onto the lobby, but Josie didn’t move.
Her brain had latched on to the stupid idea that if she remained in place, the world would pause, and nothing could move forward.
If she left the elevator, it would be to find Amos, because Amos was missing. If she stayed here, whatever happened to Amos would be suspended.
“Stay,” Pax said. “Stay and I will find him.”
A stalwart paladin had replaced the terrified man looking to smash someone with his sword.
No vestigial anger or fear remained on his face.
Pax stepped out of the elevator, and as his foot touched the marble tiles, his clothing changed.
His legs were encased in rough woolen pants tucked into black boots, one with a knife peeping from the cuff, his broad shoulders covered by what looked like a linen tunic with a thick leather vest over the whole.
Across his back lay a leather belt with two scabbards attached, one of which held a broadsword.
He looked at his hand, which now held a mace, then over his shoulder at Josie.
“Did I do that?” she asked.
Shrugging, Pax crossed the lobby and peered through the windows of the common area’s double doors. Josie followed, staying a few feet away from the huge blade strapped across Pax’s back.
“I just want him to be okay,” Josie whispered.
The wrought iron vines wrapped around the balustrade had turned green and began flowering as she passed them, pink flowers with gold thorns, dark green leaves with veins in the shape of complicated designs.
The birds flew in and out of the vines and the scent of violet overwhelmed her.
“I hear voices,” Pax said. Josie tore her attention from the vines and joined him at the doors to the common area. “Stay behind me. Whatever happens, my aim is to get you to Amos. Once you have him, run.”
“Run from Number Five, you mean?” she asked.
Pax nodded.
“And afterward?” she asked.
He canted his head to the left as though she’d said something unintelligible and frowned.
“If we leave, will Number Five stay sick? Will she die? If she does, what happens to you?”
Pax frowned. “It must be difficult enough to be the only humans in a building full of other beings. Knowing some of your neighbors saw your lives as less valuable because of that difference, how could you stay?”
“Because…”
Number Five had given them roses and a Spider-Man quilt. There had been kisses and snowball fights.
“Because this is our home,” she said. “Because you made us welcome.”
Along the baseboards, purple and white violets sprouted while the mailboxes for the sixth floor burst open and iridescent pink sand poured out onto the floor.
Pax shook his head quickly as though her answer stung, then pushed open the doors to the common area.
The fluorescent lights remained but beneath them lay a black-and-white-tiled floor. Small side tables flanked the windows, atop which sat brass vases full of cabbage roses. Like the moment before the cymbals crash in a symphony, a low, promising vibration hummed through the air.
Right when Josie thought she might fall over with dizziness, a high-pitched scream split the air.
· · ·
Josie and Pax ran across the room toward the glass doors that led out into the courtyard but stopped short before they reached for the handles, shocked into stillness at the sight greeting them.
The courtyard had been transformed.
The garden boxes and warning signs were gone.
In the center of a mossy lawn stood an enormous magnolia tree with yellow blossoms. In the back corner where the broken bench had been, water tripped down a stack of shale stones and fell into a small pond full of water lilies and large rocks upon which sat albino turtles.
The Fate siblings gathered on a blanket next to the pond, laughing at something Joey Z.
was telling them. Close by, the owl shifter was doing Tai Chi with Bert and Ernie, the djinn twins were engaged in a fierce game of hearts at a small table, and a nymph sat beneath the basketball hoop playing a fife.
“Amos.” Josie was out the door as soon as she spotted him doing summersaults with the faery cheerleaders.
“Mom, Mom!” he cried when Josie grabbed him and squeezed his tiny body, then set him down to check and make sure nothing was broken or bruised.
“Did you know we have a backyard now? And did you know I can hears the birds from the staircase sing a song? Did you know if we wish together, we can has more gardens?”
Pax watched Josie fly unfettered to her son—the collision of two pieces of light.
The sight left him…affected.
Sharper than hunger, more than lust, Pax longed for what connected Josie and Amos. Whatever that was called, he wanted it so badly it left him hollow and shaken.
“Love,” said a voice.
While he’d been staring at Josie and Amos, someone had come up behind him from the ballroom. Pax cursed himself for the inattention and swung round to examine the person.
A woman, a human woman.
She wore a green T-shirt and ripped jeans. Her plain brown hair was twisted into two braids, and beneath her thick eyebrows she’d a pair of unremarkable pale blue eyes.
“It’s called love, what you see there,” she explained, gesturing to Josie and Amos.
Ah.
No wonder Pax hadn’t known what to call it.
Love.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Momma?”
Josie stood, holding Amos in her arms. She took a step toward the woman, her mouth opening and closing.
“Momma?” The words came out high and tight, pushed out from a place of pain. Or joy.
“Hey, baby,” the woman said in greeting.
“Is it really you?” Josie asked.
Pax turned his gaze to the woman, searching her worn face for a hint of truth.
“Sort of, if that’s what you want.”
The answer wasn’t what Josie had expected. Her shoulders sank. Pax frowned.
“It’s kinda complicated,” the woman continued. For an instant her image sputtered, in and out like a candlewick at the end of its use. “Aren’t you a treat? Lookit you and your boy, there. You done good, little Jo.”
“Mom, Mom, I’m gonna go feed the turtles.” Amos was halfway to the pond before he finished the sentence, his feet barely touching the ground.
Josie watched her son, then turned back toward her mother. Pax thought maybe she would run to embrace her, but Josie took a step then stopped.
Certainly, there was compassion on Josie’s face, but also something that looked a lot like regret. A palpable misery came off Josie in waves even from a distance.
“What do you want?” Josie asked, her voice thin and hollow.
“Wanted to ask you to stay,” the mother said.
Josie winced as though her mother’s words had sharp edges. “You didn’t stay.”
Although her tone was level, Pax heard a note of censure. A broken home is what Josie’s mother had left her daughter. He doubted he would be half so calm as Josie were he in her place.
“No, we both know it was for the best. If I’d stayed, you’d have learned to take care of someone at the expense of yourself. This way, you learned to take care of someone who can love you back the right way.”
Josie’s mother looked as though she would smell like laundry detergent and cigarette smoke, but instead she smelled like nothing at all. Again, she winked in and out of existence.
“Number Five?” he asked.
The image canted her head and lifted her palms as though weighing the truth.
“Sort of,” said Number Five.
“Why?” Josie asked. She came closer now that she knew it wasn’t her mother, turning her head every so often to check on Amos’s whereabouts.
Number Five smiled. “I don’t know, little Jo. You’re the one who decides how to see me.”
Josie frowned and Pax rubbed his chin.
“I’ve never seen you,” he said, trying to keep it from sounding as though he was jealous.
He wasn’t.
Not really.
“You have,” said Number Five. “You didn’t know it.”
“For Pete’s sake, Cindy!” a faery cheerleader hollered. “How should I know you’d be dumb enough to stick your finger in there? Someone, go get Naliti.”
A scrum of residents formed over where the faeries had been practicing their moves. No one seemed to notice Number Five or even to glance over to where the three of them were standing.
“Anyhow, I’d be real grateful if you ’n’ your boy could stay for a while,” said Number Five. “I’m in some trouble and I need your help.”
“How?” Pax asked. A strange reluctance to hear her answer pressed on his breastbone. What if it was a simple fix. Where would Josie and Amos go?
How could he leave them?
“How do we fill you back up?” he asked.
“You know already, Pax Nomen, Paladin of the Ways, Protector of the Light,” Number Five said, thrusting one angular hip to the side and setting her hand on it, nodding toward Josie. “It’s what you saw when those two found each other.”
Oh.
So.
Simple, but not easy.
Number Five cocked her head. “What do you say, little Jo?”
Josie looked over at the other residents, who had somehow conjured up a ball and were kicking it around while Cindy argued about something with Denis.
“I have to think of Amos,” Josie said.
Number Five nodded. “Wouldn’t it be nice for him to have a community like this?”
Josie’s mouth opened and closed. Pax watched her for clues, slowing his breathing so he could hear her words.
“What about the magic part? Amos couldn’t keep a secret if you tied it to him,” Josie said.
“Eh. We’ll come up with something. I’ll watch out for him, make sure no one does anything too dangerous around him,” Number Five assured her.
Rather than answering, Josie caught Pax’s gaze.
“A lot could go wrong,” she said to him.
What he should do was agree with her, then show her the size of his sword. Threaten to behead anyone who looked twice at her or Amos. Nod without saying a word, implicitly promising his eternal vigilance.
He opened his mouth to say something to that effect, but these words came out instead.
“Sometimes, I dream about us. I dream of waking beside you, having spent the night before making love with you. I dream your hair is messy and you are wearing my shirt, and my heart pounds with such longing I fear it might pound out of my chest.”
Number Five disappeared and the raucous cries of the tenants’ kickball game faded.
“Sometimes I dream about us. The three of us, eating tofu scrambles and discussing the evolution of Sonic the Hedgehog—I have a few thoughts on that.”
Josie’s beautiful gray eyes shone extra bright, but Pax was sure he knew why those tears had appeared.
He kept going.
“I dream about love. I dream you and Amos teach me the different ways of it, that you have patience when I cannot speak of it or grow frustrated and want to beat it into a shape I recognize.”
“Love?” she whispered.
“That’s what sits here, isn’t it?” Pax rubbed his chest. “That’s what aches when I see you and when I don’t. What pushes against the walls of my skin when you wear your blue hat, or talk to Joey Z. without acting disgusted, or lie to the faeries about how you like their outfits.”
He took a step toward her, but his knees shook too much, so he stood like a fool as she approached him.
“I didn’t lie,” she said. She closed the distance between them and reached up to set her hands on his cheeks. They held each other like an Ouroboros, with no end and no beginning. “I like the green-and-pink color scheme.”
“Please,” he begged, “don’t tell me something horrifying when I am making a declaration of love. It unsettles me.”
“I beg your pardon,” she said, laughter creeping into her voice. “Continue, please.”
She smelled like candy and sweat and the triumph of spring, so Pax kissed her because he had to, then finished his thought.
“Please, stay so I can learn how to love you.”
Josie swallowed, tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes.
“What happens when Number Five is able to leave?” she asked, the words coming out thin and reedy, as though her throat were tight around them.
“You will decide,” he said. “If you and Amos want to stay in Number Five, we will visit the sirens’ home world together.”
Josie gasped and her hand flew to her chest.
“That would be wondrous indeed,” he said. “The universe is a vast and marvelous place. I would be happy to travel through it with you.”
A bank of clouds pulled apart over their heads and a warm spring sun poked out.
“And if I don’t want to take Amos away from this world?” Josie asked, the two lines between her eyebrows deepening.
Pax faltered. He’d already told her he loved her. Why was it hard to say the next part?
“I would stay with you no matter what you chose, if…if you want me?”
With a laugh reminiscent of her son’s, clear and pure like the sound of a stream or the dawn chorus, Josie wrapped her arms around his chest. Pax took a deep inhale of her hair, relishing her soft body clasped to his.
“Oh, I want you,” Josie declared, pulling back and looking up at him. “I’ve never wanted anything more. I love you.”
Pax lifted her up and the crowd around them began clapping in appreciation for the enthusiasm of their kiss.
It wasn’t only Number Five who had been empty.
This woman, this child, this love—this was the magic that would save them all.