Chapter 18
LEO’S NOTES
Place: Used bookstore, Searsport, ME
Favorite quote: Do not cross a brownie, those household sprites that adore to scrub and dust through the night. For they will curse ye with their silent ways and shape-shift to beguile ye and you will never rid of them.
Misc: Were all magical creatures so temperamental?
The most extraordinary book he’d ever seen lay open on the table, yet Leo couldn’t stop watching Pan.
A tendril of curly hair bobbed above her furrowed brow.
She swayed as she played the same melody over and over and over, and Leo felt magic gather in the room.
He felt her intensity, her intelligence, her passion in every note she played.
Then he felt her step into her gift.
Her swaying turned more ardent, almost unbalanced, so Leo settled his hands around her waist to keep her from stumbling.
He held her as she continued to play. And yeah, after this was over she’d probably still argue she never needed a gift.
Of course she would. But watching her blossom into her full self, watching her step into her gift, was simply magical.
He lost track of time, holding her, listening to the song. But eventually the trill and whisper of music softened, and Pan said his name. Then she collapsed, which was a pretty normal reaction to getting your gift.
He lifted her in his arms bridal-style, and her eyes fluttered open. She smiled for a brief beautiful moment, then fell back into a stupor.
He laid her gently on an uncluttered table in a side room and sat snugly beside her to ensure she didn’t roll off.
When she settled into a deep sleep, he started making phone calls.
First he called her parents, to ask for help bringing her home, but Grace instructed him not to move her so soon after getting her gift.
The older you were when you found your power, the more recovery time you might need before being wakened from the change.
“We’ll bring home to her!” Grace announced. “Oh my stars, I’m so happy!”
He’d barely finished calling his dad and Pan’s friends when Grace burst into the room like a portly tornado.
After checking on her daughter, her gift settled over the room in a way Leo didn’t understand.
The light grew warmer and the space more comfortable as she began redecorating the shelves and windows, pulling things from the overstuffed bag in her husband Frank’s arms.
Deja arrived a few minutes later, with bouquets of flowers and aromatic herbs.
Albert fussed about library hours, but Leo’s dad dealt with him out of earshot.
Frank was beaming when he returned from his cart with three baskets of household goods and fresh-cut lavender and pine, and Grace constructed a whole Sleeping Beauty setup on the tabletop.
Jamar and Sheila arrived together, which made Grace perk up with interest, for some reason.
Shrig brought an ornate, hand-lettered sign saying “Laurels and Laudations!” the traditional congratulations said to a faerie-kin who’d just received their gift, only he’d translated it into, like, fifty languages.
Even Philip came, and erected a little boulder statue in the corner.
Then Gabe arrived with a gorgeous pair of earrings he’d made for Pandora years earlier, to celebrate her gift when it finally woke.
He seemed so genuinely pleased for Pan that Leo swallowed his jealousy and didn’t chuck Gabe’s present out the window.
Hours passed, and Pan murmured and shifted, but didn’t rouse.
Visitors came and went, bringing food and drinks, and Leo shared shifts watching Pan with her parents.
He would’ve left, except he didn’t. Instead, he nodded off in a reading chair in the corner, eased by the comfort of the room and the perfumed air.
He woke refreshed when Deja returned, looking sleepy-eyed.
She handed Leo a coffee—because it was now early morning—and settled beside Pan with her own.
She murmured a few words that Leo didn’t hear, then they sat silently together in the transformed library room.
Grace had draped the windows in sheer sparkly fabric, and created a bed for Pan with colorful quilts, silk pillows, and mosquito netting she’d hung from the ceiling despite Albert’s protests.
“I don’t know what Pandora’s gift is going to be,” Deja eventually murmured. “But I’m so glad it finally happened.”
“Yeah, I’m—” Leo groped for a word that expressed his bone-deep delight. “I’m glad too.”
Deja eyed him up and down. “You’ve been here all night?”
“Um.” He flushed with embarrassment. “I, uh, fell asleep in the chair.”
“What’s going on with you two?”
“I don’t know,” Leo admitted. “And this changes everything.”
Deja’s mouth twitched. “Can I give you some advice?”
“Please,” he said. He wasn’t dumb enough to turn down intel from Pan’s best friend.
“You’re the reason that Pan didn’t want her gift.”
Leo felt a pang in his chest. “What? No. Why?”
“Because you told her you wouldn’t stay with her if she never got it.”
“I was so stupid. How did she hold onto that this long?”
Deja laid a hand on his arm. “This is Pandora we’re talking about. Are you really surprised she’d decided to prove to the whole world that she didn’t need a gift? That she was special enough without one?”
“She is!” Leo ran a hand through his mussed hair. “I never meant that she was no good without it.”
“Just not right for you,” Deja said.
“I only—” He didn’t want to have this conversation with Deja instead of Pan. “Dames, I wish I’d shut the fuck up.”
“I only told you because… well, tread lightly, if you want any chance with her.” Deja sipped her coffee. “Also, if you break her heart again I will personally see to it that you never find a solution to your magical itch problem.”
Leo smiled wanly. “What if she breaks my heart?”
“Then it deserves to be broken.”
“Hah,” Leo said. “That sounds about right.”
She gazed at him with uncharacteristic seriousness. “You realize that you’re even more screwed now?”
“Why, because she got her gift? No way. This is the best thing ever.”
“Especially if you say things like that, Leo. She’ll never trust that it’s really her you love. She’ll think you love her because she got her gift.”
“She won’t.”
Deja just looked at him.
“Oh, god. You’re right. Fuck! I’ve loved her for—” Leo took a calming breath. “It’s okay, I can explain.”
“Explain what? That it’s nothing personal, you just deserve better than a normal?”
He felt his shoulders tighten. “No! To explain that I wanted my kids to feel like they could tell their mother anything. That they didn’t have to hide who they really were for fear of hurting her.”
“Okay,” she said. “She might understand that.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. I’d already decided I love her no matter what happened.”
Deja sighed. “Good luck getting her to believe that.”
“Yeah,” he said.
The two of them sat in silence together for time. Which, come to think of it, was the longest he’d ever seen Deja go without talking.
Eventually she couldn’t bear the quiet. She took Pandora’s hand. “So what is your gift?”
“Magic,” Leo told her.
“Obviously.”
“No, I mean, her gift is about magic, somehow, the way mine is about books and yours is about scents.”
“Huh. So what’s the story with the manuscript?”
“I’m still not sure, but I got an email back from a professor I know.
She thinks it’s part of a shipment of goods that left Lisbon for New York about three hundred years ago.
A lost shipment that faerie-kin historians call, well—the Lost Shipment.
Apparently there was a push to transplant old world stuff to the new world.
Mostly books and I guess seeds, but there’s never been a trace of the stuff since it was lost.”
“Until it showed up in Gabe’s grandfather’s house?” Pan murmured.
“You’re awake!” Leo said, spinning toward her.
“PANDORA!” Deja said, finally speaking at her normal volume again. “LOOK AT YOU, ALL GIFTED NOW!”
Pan frowned in her tabletop princess bed. “I am?”
“Tragically, yes,” Deja said, with mock sympathy. “You poor thing.”
“I’m gifted?” she blinked.
“Even more gifted than before,” Leo said, which he thought was pretty smooth.
“You probably want to be left alone to cry,” Deja said.
“We know you never wanted a gift—” Leo started.
“Never needed one,” Pandora corrected. “Though, they sometimes look kind of fun.”
“Oh, is that right?” Deja asked.
“But completely unnecessary!”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“No reason.”
“Look at you, Pan,” Leo smiled back. “You’re positively glowing.”