Page 75 of The Vanishing Bookstore
‘Is my hair…?’
‘Whiter than the driven snow, my dear. An English trait, I’m afraid, when we go into battle. If it’s any consolation you look stunning, darling, and it will save you a fortune on hair dye when it started to go grey.’
Ambrose took out his phone and turned the camera on, snapping a quick photo and turning the screen for Dora to look at. She stared in wonder at the beautiful white hair that fell about her dirty, mud-flecked face. Her eyes were also the most vivid green she had ever seen, even brighter than Sephy’s.
Lenny smiled at her. ‘Well, there is only one way for an English woman to come to terms with this kind of shock.’
Sephy began to laugh. ‘Of course there is. We all need a little black magic to celebrate our freedom, don’t you think?’
Lenny clapped and let out loud, ‘Ouch.’
‘Don’t be so dramatic, dear, it’s just a few cuts and bruises. A little bit of my arnica salve and some black magic, you’ll be as good as new in a few days.’
Dora reached out and took hold of Ambrose’s hand, and they watched as Sephy helped Lenny to the van. The gates were open.
‘Did you cut them open?’
‘No, they never lock them. Sorry, I should have told you.’
‘They don’t?’ She smiled at him, and he grinned back.
‘Dora, I have no idea how we’re going to get that dress back to the museum. Have you seen the state it’s in?’
She looked down at the filthy, singed, torn dress and laughed.
‘We might have to get Sephy to work a little bit of magic on it before we do.’
Lenny’s voice called out. ‘Get a move on, I’m injured and need medical assistance.’
They looked at each other and smiled again, then ran to help Lenny into the rear of the van.
‘Why the hell have you got a dead crow on the seat?’ Lenny asked when Dora opened the door.
‘I thought it was Hades.’
At the mention of his name, he appeared in the sky, soaring above their heads and circling.
‘Well, I can assure you it isn’t, he’s alive and well. It must be one that went rogue, and Corwin thought it was our beloved bird.’
Sephy gently took hold of the crow and carried it to the cemetery where she bent down and dug at the earth with her fingers. She placed it in the shallow grave and said a prayer while they watched. Dora still felt sad that it had died at Corwin’s hands, but she was grateful it hadn’t been Hades. Tired, aching and looking as if they hadn’t had hot baths in a year, all three English women got into the van. Even Ambrose, who hated cars, climbed in and sat next to Dora. He clasped his fingers around hers and she smiled at him. Maybe now they could get to live their lives as they should, together. Maybe there would even be kids somewhere in the near future. Dora had never thought about that before, but someone had to carry the English line on, and she would love to share all of this history with a little girl of her own one day.
Lenny let out a sigh.
‘This lifetime was the hardest. Can we make a pact or something not to let it get to this stage ever again? You know,a pinkie promise or something would do. I don’t want to go through this next time around.’
Sephy nodded. ‘Let’s get you and Dora cleaned up, make those cocktails and then we’ll stand around the fire naked in the back garden and make a pinkie promise under the moonlight while chanting to the goddess.’
Dora stared at her aunts, horrified. She wasn’t doing that for anyone.
Both Sephy and Lenny turned around to look at her with huge grins on their faces. ‘Gotcha.’
And then they all began to laugh, Dora a little slower than her aunts who she had decided were crazy, wonderful, magical, but above all the most beautiful human beings she had ever met, and she was never going to let them go ever again.
EPILOGUE
The bookstore had been left open. The priceless first editions were there for anyone to find. In her haste to return Lucine’s book of spells to Sephy, Dora had forgotten to shut the door. So it stood, uncloaked, unable to vanish again.
The woman had been sitting on her porch with an ice-cold glass of peach tea, rocking back and forth in the chair that had been in her family since she was born. The wood smoothed to a silky finish by all those hands that had gripped the arms as they rocked in it for hundreds of years. She loved this chair and thinking about her ancestors all sitting doing the same thing on a warm, muggy New England day made her wonder what they had been like.
