Epilogue Jasper
If Goldie hadn’t broken up with Dusty, none of this would have happened.
She wouldn’t have been at Maggie’s house. She wouldn’t have come to my cottage when I got sick. And somehow, impossibly, all of our lives would still be broken in different ways.
I still haven’t properly told her I love her. Not in words, anyway. But I think she understands my difficulties in expressing how I feel because she’s the same. I try to show her in the way I make love to her and in the small things I do for her.
We spend all our spare time together, planning what the old house will become once the renovations are finally finished. Some days, I catch her standing in one of the empty rooms with an iPad, making notes.
Goldie worked as an interior designer before Driftwood Pointe. Once my other developments are finished in New York, she’s going to handle the interiors professionally. She says she’s nervous. I’m not. Goldie could make anywhere feel like home.
Mrs. Chalice eventually discovered her own name stitched into Maggie’s embroidery cushion, which explained her miraculous personality change toward me shortly afterward.
To this day, I strongly suspect Goldie had something to do with that revelation, though she denies it with entirely too much innocence.
Maggie and I have settled into something resembling peace now.
Not perfect, but real. Sometimes, she comes to inspect the building work with Onyx marching beside her like an angry little supervisor.
She complains about everything while secretly being pleased that the house is being cared for properly again.
And every evening, when work is finished, I go looking for Goldie. Because she’s become the center of my life so quietly, I hardly noticed it happening.
When the restorations are complete and we finally move into the house together, I’m going to ask Goldie to marry me. Not because I need proof that she loves me—I already know she does—but because for the first time in my life, the future is bright instead of heavy.
And every good thing begins with her.
Goldie
I think about that sometimes—how close it came to not happening at all.
One different choice: if I’d sent a letter instead of coming in person, if Goldie hadn’t opened the door, if she hadn’t agreed to meet me at the Hex that first night against every sensible instinct she had.
Such a small chain of events to carry so much weight.
The house will be finished by autumn. Our house. I haven’t said that out loud to her yet, but she knows. Goldie always knows the things I haven’t found the words for.
I’m relieved that Maggie isn’t going to live alone in the house and possibly fall down those perilous stairs any longer, and I know Goldie is too.
She’s even encouraged her to part with those ridiculous knee high socks so she doesn’t trip over them.
She won’t admit it, but she loves living in her bungalow, where she can see so many people around her.
She even invites a few of the locals in for coffee occasionally, which is a massive step forward for Maggie.
Goldie visits her most days, and the conversation inevitably turns to magic and healing.
She’s learned so much since Maggie moved into her new place.
I do my best to look after my girl, bringing home fresh ingredients for our dinner. I enjoy making dishes for Goldie, which is just as well because she’s never been an enthusiastic cook.
I’m taking great pains to make the house as beautiful as it once was.
It’s for Goldie’s benefit as well as mine.
I haven’t explicitly said anything about our situation, but I have no doubt that she’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.
Goldie said she was going home after Halloween, but she’s still here, at my cottage every night, sleeping in my bed and in my arms. It truly doesn’t get any better than that.
Some evenings, when the market is quiet and the light sits low and golden over the harbor, we stand at the window of the cottage and talk about the woman in the green coat. Cara, my grandmother, walking her lonely moorland. Searching for something. Finding her way to us.
I think she’d be glad about how things turned out.
I know I am.