20. Evangeline
Evangeline
There was a lot of cursing on the other side of the mirror. Colorful phrases that Evangeline had never heard strung together before reached her ears first, as thick swaths of fog dampened her skin.
Then there was Jacks. Her heartbeat started to race, recognizing the strong, cool touch of his hands as he grabbed her arm and pulled her the rest of the way through the mirror.
“Little Fox—” He rasped her nickname as if he had been afraid he would never say it again, one part prayer, one part plea, and then he was holding her more tightly than anyone had ever held her. Until she began to remember other times when Jacks had held her in his arms.
She remembered when she’d been poisoned by LaLa’s tears and Jacks had held her through the night like a grudge that he had no intention of letting go of.
Then she remembered the night that they’d jumped off the cliff and he’d carried her out of the freezing water, and she’d known that he would have pulled her through fire if he’d had to, he’d have hauled her from the clutches of war, from falling cities and breaking worlds.
That was the moment she’d started her fall.
And Evangeline felt as if she were falling for him all over again, as memory after memory of the two of them came back.
She remembered the Hollow. She remembered their first night there together and then all the nights they’d spent there since. She remembered sneaking up on him in the mornings, baby dragons, her pies, and then she remembered visiting the Emporium of Else and stepping through the mirror.
And suddenly, she was herself again. The Evangeline of this world instead of that one.
She could still remember the day she’d spent on the other side of the mirror, but the rest of the other Evangeline’s memories no longer felt like her own. They felt more like a story she’d once read.
But if she had waited another minute, if she hadn’t stepped through the mirror before the sand in the hourglass ran out, would she have ever made it back? Or would that world have turned into her story? Would she have lost her Jacks forever?
“Oh, Jacks—” She pressed her head against his shoulder, as relieved tears spilled from her eyes. “I’m so sorry I went through the mirror.”
“It’s all right, Little Fox. I’ve got you now. I’m not letting you go.” He spoke between kisses that he pressed to her head, holding her more tightly with every word.
She held him back just as tightly, until it became hard to breathe. And Evangeline had never felt so good about not breathing.
“Ahem.” LaLa cleared her throat.
Evangeline hadn’t even noticed her there.
All she’d seen was Jacks, but now she could see that he had not been the only one who’d worried.
LaLa’s eyes were glassy, and although she was smiling, her warm brown skin was pale gray.
“I was so worried! I’m so glad you made it back.
Please don’t do anything like that again. ”
“I won’t, LaLa, I promise,” Evangeline said. Although Jacks was the one she never wanted to part with, she felt a pit in her stomach as she realized that she and LaLa had not been friends in the other world either. “I didn’t know you, but I saw you there—in the mirror world. You slapped Jacks.”
“Oh, we saw,” said LaLa. Her grin was getting wider, but Jacks’s hands had stiffened around Evangeline.
“Did you see everything?” she asked.
The pained look on Jacks’s face told her all she needed to know.
“I think this is my cue to leave,” LaLa murmured. “Chaos asked me to pass along his goodbyes, which was pretty much just the word goodbye. But I’ll see you both at the Hollowfest tomorrow.” She waved her fingers before slipping through the door.
Evangeline turned back to Jacks as soon as she was gone. “Jacks—I’m so sorry. When I was there, I was someone else. I—I didn’t remember—”
“It’s all right,” Jacks said softly. “All that matters is you’re back.”
But he didn’t look as if that was all that mattered.
He looked the way she felt, as if they had almost lost each other.
He hadn’t stopped touching her since she’d come back through the mirror.
He always touched her, but this felt different.
Usually, his fingers played with hers when they held hands, but right now, he was just gripping her tightly.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Jacks assured her. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But it was painful for you to watch. I can’t imagine what that was like. When I was there, I didn’t remember any of this life, and it still killed me seeing you talk to Donatella.”
Evangeline didn’t know if those feelings had been echoes of this life that she had brought with her through the mirror, or if the feelings would have been there even if that had been her only life.
Just thinking about it now made her angry.
The hand that wasn’t holding on to Jacks formed into a fist.
Jacks saw it, and immediately one of his dimples appeared. “I actually rather liked that part. I think it was the most jealous I’ve ever seen you look.”
“I think it was the most jealous I’ve ever felt. And it was awful.”
“It was awful,” Jacks agreed darkly. “I loved that moment and I hated it because it made me fear you might not come back. And it would have been all my fault.”
Evangeline looked at him, perplexed. “How could it have been your fault?”
A cold gust of wind blew into the room.
Jacks squeezed Evangeline’s hand. “We should go.”
“Ah, ah, ah—you may not want to run out just yet,” chimed a light and airy voice.
The wind grew stronger, kicking up the fog that covered the floor until it began to form the figure of a willowy woman in a long flowing dress, dark hair full of flowers swirling around her as she smiled at Evangeline and Jacks.
It was a lovely smile, a little crooked, a little mischievous. But it was the pointed tips of her ears that drew Evangeline’s attention.
She was another fairy.
“Congratulations! You have both passed,” the fairy said in the same light, beautiful voice.
“Passed what?” Evangeline looked at Jacks, expecting him to be just as confused as she was. But the only expression on his face looked a lot like thinly veiled anger.
“Jacks, what’s going on?” Evangeline asked.
Jacks remained silent.
“Oh, that’s right!” The fairy laughed and it sounded like chimes in the wind. “I told him he couldn’t say a word about any of this to you, or he would forget all of it.”
“Are you now saying that’s no longer true?” Jacks asked tightly. He wouldn’t meet Evangeline’s eyes.
“It is,” the fairy said solemnly. “The tests are done.”
“What is she talking about?” Evangeline pressed. “What tests?”
The fairy smiled at her. “You and Jacks needed to fall in love in another life, and then you needed to find your way back to your own Jacks. And you, my dear, did beautifully.” She gently clapped.
“It was riveting to watch. Near the end, I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it in time.
Hardly anyone passes this test, you know.
There is so much love in the world, but the loves that go untested just aren’t very strong…
” She trailed off as pieces of her started to fade.
“Oh my,” she sighed, her voice turning lighter. “I think my time is almost up.”
“Wait,” Jacks said, as if he could somehow stop whatever appeared to be happening to the fairy. “You said there were multiple tests.”
“There were.” Another breeze blew in, and the last locks of her hair vanished.
“The first test was when I mentioned that you might lose her. If you had been willing to put her at risk, you would have immediately failed. But since you so nobly refused, you passed.” She held out a small glass box, tied up with a ribbon. “This is for the two of you.”
Jacks eyed the box warily.
The fairy huffed as her face turned transparent. “We’re not all evil, Jacks of the Hollow. However…” She turned to Evangeline. “We’re not all good either. If you ever see another magic mirror, stay away.” She finished with a wink.
There was another gust of wind, and the box that had been in the fairy’s hand clattered to the floor.
Somehow, the glass didn’t shatter. Evangeline bent down to pick it up. The box was perfectly square, just larger than her palm, with bits of gold lining all the edges. Inside were two pale pink sugar cookies shaped like two halves of a broken heart.
Jacks regarded the box as if it were a joke that he couldn’t decide if he thought was funny or not.
Evangeline knew there were probably a number of questions she should have been asking. But her head was spinning from living two lives and traveling between worlds, and all she could seem to manage was, “Do you want to tell me what this is?”
Jacks wrapped an arm around her waist. “Let’s go home. Then I’ll tell you everything.”