Chapter 37
CALLIE
Two Months Later
Seated in the offices of the title company, I signed the last page and slid it across the table.
The closing agent collected the paperwork, and I handed over the keys to the young couple across from me. They were both beaming, thrilled to purchase their first home. His hand was on her knee, her fingers linked through his. They seemed like a charming pair, very much in love.
Maddox and I must have looked the same when we first bought this house.
I wished them well and headed out onto the street.
This was probably my last visit to this community that I had lived with Maddox. Completing the sale of the house severed my last tie here. I doubted I would ever have another reason to return.
I hated to admit it, but when I had teleported to the house this morning for the final walk-through, I had been disappointed Maddox wasn’t there.
Of course, it was silly to think he would be. Obviously, he had taken his few things and gotten his own place in the last two months, exactly as I had asked him to.
I’m sure it was unhealthy to want to see him anyway. I should be moving on and healing, like I told him I would do.
But the love I felt for him simply hadn’t faded yet.
I just had to give it more time. I may still love Maddox, but his cheating had put an irreparable crack in the foundation of us. I couldn’t live that way for the rest of my life, always fearing a return to his cheating ways, always wondering if I was being crazy or not.
Enough thinking about Maddox. Focus on the future. I had some promising job interviews lined up for the next two weeks. It was time to stop being so fixated on finding a purpose and just get a job.
Especially since Astrea was due to give birth to the twins any day now, and I was eager to have a job and my own place when that happened.
Brie was happy to have me crash with her, but I felt like too much of a third wheel around her and Brady to actually stay there. She and her familiar had such a strong connection. They enjoyed each other’s company so much, and they were true professional partners on the familiar-rights cases.
It was ashamed to admit it, but seeing them together was a painful reminder that I may never get my own familiar. Spending my twenties as I did, I may have missed my window forever on that.
I shook my head. Maybe this walk through the old neighborhood had been a bad idea. It was putting me in an overly wistful headspace.
And up ahead was some kind of angry street preacher. Standing on a crate, wearing a shapeless, dirty sack, with close-cropped, jagged hair that looked as if hedge clippers had cut it. Gesticulating wildly and yelling at pedestrians.
I wanted to cross the street to get away from whatever this was, but there was too much traffic. I resolved to walk by as briskly as possible.
As I approached, I looked straight ahead, determined to avoid any accidental eye contact.
I was close enough that the ranting became intelligible.
“Infidelity is the plague of our times! Cheaters and home-wreckers, your judgment approaches! The adulterer rots his soul from within!”
It was a female voice. I hadn’t expected that. The sack she was wearing was so oversized, her physique was completely camouflaged.
A female voice that sounded oddly familiar the more I heard of it.
It couldn’t be…
“Gwen!?!” I exclaimed.
Gwen looked to me, eyes widening in shock. “Callie!” She immediately jumped off the crate and fell prostrate to the ground at my feet. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
This was an overwhelming experience for many reasons, and the first one was smell. The stench coming from Gwen was eye-watering. It was like a corpse that had spent a week rotting in the sewer.
“Gwen, please, get up.” I left unsaid: so I can put some distance between me and your nauseating odor.
She rose to her feet, and I stepped back a few paces.
“So… new look?” I said.
Her eyes sparkled with manic energy. “Yes. My time in the snow globe transformed me.”
Well, yeah. That’s what I’d been trying to do. I felt a flicker of satisfaction that it had worked, though clearly not exactly as envisioned.
“I’ve sworn off men and taken a vow of celibacy,” Gwen continued. “But that didn’t seem like enough. I had to be sure I repelled any man who looked my way.” She gestured at her hideous appearance. “I’ve stopped bathing as well. I’m dedicating the rest of my life to atoning for the sins of my past.”
“By preaching on the streets?”
“Only until I get my master’s degree. I’ve taken a vow of poverty and given away everything I own—I live in a tent under the bridge now, right by the sewer overflow pipe—but I kept just enough to pay for my schooling. So I can get to a place where I can do some real good.”
I was afraid to ask. “Do good how?”
“I’m going to become a couples therapist.”
I actually staggered. “A couples therapist?!?”
“Yes. After how many marriages I violated, I feel called to this. I want to dedicate myself fully to helping other relationships heal.”
I doubted any marriage could survive forty-five minutes in a room with Gwen’s current smell. “When it’s time to open your practice, you may want to take up showering again.”
“Oh, there’ll be no need. I plan to do my sessions online. Pro-bono!”
She had an answer for everything. I guess she’d had plenty of time to think it out in the snow globe. “How long were you in there?”
She giggled hysterically. “Oh, not that long at all. Just a week.”
“A week in real time? So inside the snow globe, that was—”
“10,000 years, give or take.”
“Gwen… I think I might have overdone it with your curse.”
“No, absolutely not!” Gwen interrupted, her wild eyes growing even more intense.
I blinked. “I’m surprised you say that.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. The first 9,000 years or so were rough, and did I ever hate you!
But the truth is, I was still completely fixated on seducing married men all the way up to year 9,137.
I clearly needed every minute.” She shook her head frantically.
“The last millennium in there, that really did me good. I’m so grateful to you, Callie.
You gave me enough time to grow into a decent person.
It’s not your fault I started so far back it took me 10,000 years to get there. ”
Her high-strung energy abruptly downshifted into something reverent. “And think of how much you’ve done for others. If you hadn’t stopped me, how many more victims would I have claimed? How many more marriages would I have broken?” She shuddered. “I get chills thinking about it.”
I began to back away. “Well, glad it worked out for you.”
“Is there anything you want from me? Can I do anything to atone for how I wronged you?”
“No, Gwen, nothing. It’s good that you’ve given up being a mistress, but I don’t ever want to lay eyes on you again. The next time you see me coming, run the other way.”
“As you wish,” Gwen said.
“And you’re never to go back to Nightshade Cove.”
She bowed her head. “I will never set foot there again.”
“Good. Now please go.”
“Anything you say.” Gwen grabbed her crate and scurried off, low to the ground and rat-like.
I stood there processing for a moment. When Kyra had explained the snow globe curse to me, I never would have predicted this outcome.
After that bizarre encounter, there was clearly no chance of having the relaxing afternoon stroll I had hoped for. With a resigned sigh, I conjured a teleportation spell and zapped myself back to the front walk at Astrea’s house.
Before heading inside, I paused to take a breath. Fallen leaves scattered the path, and a light drizzle misted the air, cool and clean against my skin.
It was good to be back. I felt steadier as I climbed the steps to the door.
“Mother, I’m home!” I called out as I crossed the threshold.
“We’re in the conservatory,” Astrea called back.
We? I wondered who she was with.
Walking briskly down the corridor, the murmuring of Astrea and another voice grew louder as I approached.
As I entered, I saw immensely pregnant Astrea talking to a man with his back to the door.
I would recognize those massive shoulders anywhere.
Maddox turned to face me.
Astrea caught my eye and gave me the most mischievous, devilish smile. “You’re just in time, dear!” She looked to Maddox. “Do you want to tell her, or should I?”
Maddox didn’t immediately respond, and my patience was zero.
“One of you better start talking. Now.”