Page 55 of The Wonder of You

“Where did you go? I was getting worried.” Lukas is quick to ask as Henry walks back to his own cabin.

“He took us to bloody Lucifer’s mansion house. He couldn’t give us answers to anything really. Just told us if the curse worked, it’s likely that Renée will be in the mortal world. And a reminder that she may live and die there if we don’t find out what’s going on soon enough.”

“How can we find out what happens next, though?” Lukas asks panicked.

“We can’t. We’ve just got to keep going to the mortal world and hope that we find her.”

“And do what? Wait to see if she turns up? Knock on every door in every city?” Lukas looks as if he is about to burst into tears.

Henry put his finger on his brow and sighs. What a stressful day.

“I have no idea.”

“What about Gabriel?”

“No. We can’t risk telling him anything. If he takes away our ability to go there, we’re fucked. We’ll lose Renée. We’ll lose Phoenix. We’ll lose it all.”

Henry watches as Lukas throws his hands up in the air and then walks away without a word. He can’t blame him. The situation is painful, and impossible to find an answer to.

They can only hold on to hope.

Chapter 39

Everyone but Phoenix sits around a table in the circus tent. It’s late, and a long hard day of entertaining guests is over. Finally. Henry sighs. He hates how his passion for one of his favourite things hasn’t been the same since Renée was taken from them.

The circus is not the same anymore. The happiness feels false. Everyone is acting, whereas before it was always their truest form. How can they all smile and be happy when they’ve lost one of their own?

“If Renée ever returns, what do we do? If she just turns up one day?” Lukas questions. His eyes are tired. His voice is weak, as if he doesn’t believe Renée will ever turn up again. The years have gone by slowly and the days only get longer without her. How long should they wait? What if they’d already missed her quick turn on the mortal world?

“We do our best to act normal.” Henry instructs.

“I’ll run and hug her!” Maudie smiles as she cuddles a teddy bear. She’s sitting in her pyjamas, insistent that she is part of the meeting. Lukas happily agreed as he hates her out of sight since the witches turned up. Even with them gone, it seems impossible to trust that they’ll never return.

“You can’t do that.” Henry says firmly. He instantly regrets it as Maudie sinks down into her chair, ready to cry. “I’m sorry, Maudie. If Renée ever shows up, she might not remember all this and we have to go gentle onher. Acting like we already know her might scare her away, you see?”

Maudie nods.

“It’ll be really hard!” she squeaks and Lukas takes her hand. Toni rubs Maudie’s back.

“It will be, but we need to try going at her pace.” Toni smiles, but her gaze redirects back at Henry. “But… if that doesn’t happen?” She tries to lower her voice, to prevent Maudie from hearing the possibility of Renée never coming home. “What do we do? How long do we wait? Phoenix… he’ll waste away. I don’t think he has much longer in him.”

Henry sighs. He doesn’t want to be the person to answer all these questions. He doesn’t know what to say. Why is everyone looking at him? Is he failing them all? He supposes it is because he knows what happened at Lucifer’s place. He was there, so they think he has more answers than he actually does. He feels frustrated, like he wants to throw the table up in the air and scream at everyone to shut up.

“I don’t,” a voice from behind startles the group.

Phoenix stands looking at them. His body wobbles as if he can’t hold his own weight.

“I don’t have much longer left without her. I can feel it in my bones.”

“It’s impossible to just die, Phoenix. You know that. It doesn’t work like that in this world. You can’t just die.” Henry tries to hide the frustration in his voice, but it’s too hard.

“Well, someone will have to kill me.” Phoenix looks at them all as if that is the obvious answer. As if that’swhat he will want regardless of what they say, whatever they plead. How can they expect him to live like this? It would be cruel.

Maudie cries out and Lukas rushes to pick her up and carry her away from the scene unfolding.

“I won’t kill you, Phoenix,” Henry huffs.

“I’ll ask Lucifer,” he responds casually.

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