Epilogue Helena
I wore a flower crown crafted from real, deep pink roses, yellow daisies, lavender, and baby’s breath. And I did look queenly.
My new killer, smash-hit Halloween costume, a floor-length chiffon dress of a softer complementary pink, even had a short train.
Grim looked mouthwatering (as ever) in head-to-toe black and a spiky ebony crown. A sweeping black cloak, knee-high boots, and Gothic belt completed his own guise, and instead of his scythe, he now carried a dark staff topped by a crimson globe.
Hunter had come up with the idea for a couple’s costume, but it had been my idea to dress as Hades and Persephone—perhaps the OG power couple.
I hadn’t even had to convince Grim, either. He’d just said “sure” when I’d asked him if he wanted to attend the costume party with me—to return to the place we’d met roughly one year before.
Now, on Halloween night, we stood together amid the crowd of fellow partygoers, our contrasting figures bathed in the glow of colored lights, swirled in the mist of the fog machines, swathed in our faux finery, our hands linked.
“Do you ever miss it?” I asked him while spooky, techno-themed music pulsed and revelers frolicked on the dance floor, their costumes ranging from elegant to absurd, grotesque, and ironic.
“The job?” he guessed, glancing down at me, his tattoos poking through the sexy open collar of his tunic.
I gave him a soft smile. I’d asked him this question before and he’d given me a very Grim version of “no,” but now he’d had some time away, some distance to think and reflect… more fully adjust.
“I think I miss it the way you do Gus the Bus,” he said.
I snort-laughed, catching the unladylike sound in one hand. Then I grinned, basking in his attention and glowing under his ardent gaze.
He smiled, too—just a smirk. Grim rarely smiled big, but I had made him laugh, too.
Like when I’d stepped in the paint pan while helping him to redecorate his new apartment, the one he’d rented in my same complex.
We still spent most nights together, either Grim at my place, or me at his, but my apartment was small, and he hadn’t wanted to cramp me by moving in while he, very literally, rejoined the land of the living.
He wouldn’t have cramped me but since he lived only a few doors down (much to Ms. Lynn’s dismay), I could let Grim do things his way without complaint.
In addition to getting to keep his misty shadow powers, his smoke skills, Grim, it turned out, got something of a pension. Enough to help him comfortably get on his feet in the “real” world, which he had through his music.
Understandably, practicing the modern guitar since the instrument’s inception meant he had acquired a certain level of skill.
And one afternoon, after hearing Grim play during a special teen program I’d roped him into, Hunter immediately lost all fear of him—and began hounding Grim to form a band with him and a few of his friends.
Now they were Death’s Obsession, a metal band (of course) with an alternative rock flair.
Grim said he’d named the band after me—after us. Though Grim hadn’t expected the band to go anywhere, Hunter’s prowess with social media had ensured otherwise.
Now it seemed everyone knew him as “Grim.” Except, of course, for the people who called about car insurance for The Judge, credit cards, and bogus extended warranties.
On paper (and his new driver’s license), he was the man he’d once been, the man he’d spent time reconnecting with and remembering—Renwick Loxley.
I loved both versions of him equally and deeply.
“Oh my gosh,” I said when the pumping music died out and the DJ filtered in a new song, slower and far more melodious than the techno. It was also a song I knew well—David Bowie’s “As the World Falls Down” from the movie Labyrinth.
I seized Grim’s arm, wrapping it with both of mine. “Can we dance?”
Grim only gestured to the dance floor with one sweep of his arm, inviting me to join him there just the way the king of the underworld would.
Giddy, I squeaked and stooped to gather my train while Grim propped his staff against the wall.
After securing the train to my wristlet, I looped one arm again through Grim’s and let him lead me to the floor.
He grasped my hand, and I parked my free one on his shoulder as the warm palm of his other hand came to rest on my upper back.
As we started to dance, his gaze strayed to something over my shoulder—and narrowed.
“What is it?” I asked, checking—and glimpsing a strange man in a hooded black cloak, matching Renaissance regalia, and a Venetian Carnival-style red devil’s half mask complete with horns just before he vanished behind a group of Nintendo characters. “Grim?”
“Sorry,” he said, trading his attention between me and the figure as we turned again. “I thought… I saw someone.”
“Someone?” I asked, my gaze bouncing back and forth, even though the devil man seemed to have disappeared.
“It’s nothing,” Grim said, shaking his head, his attention returning to me. “Just my mind playing tricks, I’m sure.”
“Halloween does that,” I said. “Plays tricks.”
“So do I,” he leaned down to whisper in my ear.
I giggled and pressed myself closer to him while we swayed to David Bowie’s voice.
“Have you seen this movie?” I asked.
“Honestly, there are a few parts I’d like to unsee. If you know, you know.”
Another peal of laughter broke forth from me as he turned me yet again, swaying me expertly as pale opalescent confetti rained over us, catching in his hair and on his robes.
“At least it’s not glitter,” he grunted as the lights chased one another, David’s voice echoing around us, crooning about the stars, love, and a world undone.
“Flora told me about the glitter,” I said, mildly chagrined but… not really. “Did you ever get it out of your robes?”
“Cedric’s probably still sporting that shit right now,” he said, and this time, we both laughed, a rare bright smile lighting his face, prompting me to touch his cheek, savor the image, the moment.
“I should also let you know,” he said, “that a certain… garment of yours was still in one of the pockets.”
My smile dropped, my face flaming bright red. “No.”
“Can’t you see his face when he checked for loose change?”
I blanched. “God, I feel like I’m about to see him since I’m this close to dying of embarrassment!”
“You want me to ask for them back?”
“No!”
“Good,” he said. “You don’t need them anyway.”
I shook my head, my smile fighting its way back onto my face. “Grim, I love you.”
“That’s good, considering,” he said.
“Considering?” I tilted my head at him, but instead of answering, as the song faded into its final refrain, the garbled clock from the movie tolling thirteen in the background of the music, Grim took my hand and led me off and then away from the dance floor, the swirling lights, mist, and people.
From there, we entered the hall that ran parallel to the restored balcony.
“What are you doing?” I asked when Grim opened the sliding glass door, because this time there was a sign. Instead of warning partygoers away from the area, the fancy folding sign designated the balcony as “Reserved.”
Grim placed a finger to his lips. Then, at my first shudder from the October cold, he swept his cloak from his shoulders before settling it around mine.
Taking my hand again, he led me out onto the balcony, to the site of our first meeting.
I hung back a little, gulping at the stretch of stone balcony that had so easily crumbled away last time.
“If you look hard enough,” Grim said, tugging me closer still, all the way to the balcony, which he touched with one ring-lined, tattooed, flesh-and-blood hand, “you can see the cracks where they mended it.”
I glanced over my shoulder, half expecting security to come rushing out after us because, if there hadn’t been cameras installed before, after my incident here, they’d surely mounted at least one.
“I know the same could be said about me,” said Grim, drawing my attention back to him just as he sank onto one knee before me, an open jewelry box proffered in one hand, a sun-shaped diamond ring embedded in the velvet. “But… I still hope you’ll say yes.”
My hands leaped to my mouth. Tears sprang to my eyes.
“Helena,” said Grim, “will you marry me?”
My throat squeezed itself closed, allowing for no words to pass. So I nodded, and nodded, until finally, after once again being able to draw breath, I could answer.
“Yes,” I told him. “Yes.”
Grim rose, and he slid the ring onto my finger, the diamond surrounded by a halo of spiky gold, its band embedded with tiny stones that formed a rainbow.
“I bought a house, too,” he said.
I gasped. “What?”
“That one you like on the hill. It has a library, by the way.”
I beamed at him. “And a music room?”
“Different floors, I promise.”
“Like that will muffle anything!” I shouted at him, laughing again as the tears streamed down my face—tears of joy. Overwhelmed in the best way possible, I launched myself at him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders as he lifted me and spun me.
My flower crown toppled free, flying over and off the balcony, down to the flagstones below, as though in commemoration of the death that never was.
Setting me on my feet again, Grim kissed me. Taking his face in my hands, I kissed him back, ready for this newest chapter of life, and fate, to unfold.
From here?
Well, we just had to set a date.