Page 116 of The Last Wish of Bristol Keats
The Willoughby Inn. The great oak tree. The abandoned parking lot. Zandra leapt through the portal. Bristol’s insides were jumbled, everything floating in all the wrong places. When they emerged on the other end and raced toward the town, heads turned, wondering at the unusual appearance of a woman on a great white horse. Where had she come from? Bristol sat back in the saddle, signaling Zandra to slow.Bowskeep. She gulped in a sobbing breath. She had done it. Main Street. The giant fig tree was still a massive umbrella casting its shade. A gaggle of Georgie’s chickens on the sidewalk flapped their wings at her. Starky’s neon sign still glowed in the window.She was back. But then she noticed that every storefront had a new paint color, new shutters, new touches. Was Georgie on another one of her sprucing-up campaigns? And then she saw that Miriam’s Nail Emporium had gone out of business and was replaced with a trendy hair salon. Best Threads was gone too. Her heart sped, and she galloped toward Oak Leaf Lane.
The house was still there. But now it had a fresh coat of paint and a manicured green lawn, and the porch no longer sagged.Of course, she thought, trying to control her panic,they used funds from the art to fix up the old place. Everything else was the same. Even the lace curtains in the front window. She dismounted and whispered against Zandra’s soft muzzle. “I thank you for your service, sweet queen. Now it’s time for you to go home too, return to your family where you belong.” Zandra lowered her head, like she was bowing to another queen, and disappeared.
Bristol turned back to the house and dashed up the stairs. The front door was locked, so she ran to the back steps of the mudroom and found the key, still in the same pot by the door. When she threw open the door, she slowed. A pile of envelopes lay atop the washing machine, and a dusty bicycle was propped against the wall just beyond it. Every envelope had her name on it. She desperately ripped them open. Birthday cards. Every single one.
We miss you, Bri.
Happy Birthday, dear sister.
We still hold hope that one day you will come home.
And then a switch to,I still hold hope that one day I will see you again.
Thirty birthday cards.
Bristol heard screeching brakes, and then the front door slammed. She stumbled out to the hallway. A middle-aged woman with dark hair stood there with a small child. She had fine lines fanning from her eyes, and her hair was gray at her temples. But her big dark eyes and lashes—minus the glasses—were the same. The eyes of their father. “Bri,” she said breathlessly. “It’s you. It’s really you.”
Bristol stared. Her voice. “Harper?”
She nodded.
“How long have I been gone?”
“Thirty years.”
“Cat? Where’s Cat?”
Harper’s eyes creased. She shook her head. “She’s gone, Bri. Cat died nine years ago in a plane crash.”
Even though the coming days and weeks would pass in a blur, years later, Bristol would still remember every detail of that moment like it was burned somewhere behind her eyes. A permanent record of what had happened so she wouldn’t think it was just a dream.Thirty years.In the blink of an eye, they were gone. Bristol’s old life was gone. Her knees had given way, and Harper had to help her up off the floor. For a long time, she couldn’t quite grasp it, or maybe she just couldn’t accept it. Her younger sister was now her much older sister, and her oldest sister was dead. Harper nursed Bristol back to health.
There now. Eat this. Drink this. Do this. Rest. Breathe. You can do it.
Harper put Bristol back together, one day and one piece at a time, always knowing just what to do, what word to say. She was older. More experienced. Harper found the time to care for Bristol among all of her other responsibilities. She had four children. A doting husband. And she was principal of Bowskeep High School. She was a wonder. Apparently, Cat had been a wonder too. She’d gone back to her music and became world-famous for her pitch-perfect voice. She performed at opera houses all over the world, making audiences cry, the same way she used to make Bristol tear up.
Her sisters had both lived full lives in the few months Bristol was gone.
Harper told her about Sal, dead from a heart attack just weeks after Bristol left, and Sonja, in an elder care facility. Harper visited her regularly. And they had a new mayor. Georgie Topz was called home after her mother passed to help with the family business. Between all of Harper’s news, Bristol confessed her own grief and shame over the promises she didn’t keep. It poured out in ragged breaths and fits and Harper tried to console her, reminding Bristol that she wasn’t responsible for their parents’ choices. “In their last moments, they were together. You honored them, Bri. Focus on what you did do. I know you’re grieving right now. It’s all fresh for you and hitting you all at once. Go ahead, grieve, cry, scream, but do not take on the weight of guilt. You don’t deserve that.”
But on one particularly bad day, when grief crashed over her again and Bristol couldn’t stop crying and saying she was sorry, Harper grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a good shake. “Stop feeling guilty! Do you understand? Cat and I were the ones who felt guilty! You ran so we didn’t have to.You did that for us.Cat and I built lives. Good ones, even though we missed you. Everything you always said you wanted for me, I have it here, Bri. I’m happy.”
She ran to get a letter and pulled it from its envelope. Bristol recognized the paper. Her stationery from Elphame. “Listen to this, Bri. This is what you told us.While I’m gone, I hope you’re putting down the deepest roots ever, because we are never going to have to run again.” She smoothed the letter in her lap. “That’s whatyougave us. Roots so we could build dreams. You sacrificed everything for us. It’s your turn now—your turn to have dreams.”
She looked back at the letter, skimming to another part. “And this:We can’t choose every road we’re destined to travel—and we’ve been down a lifetime of roads together.” She grabbed Bristol’s hand like she would never let it go. “We’ve got this road too, sis. Hold on to me. Let me be the strong one for a while.”
When a new memory, misstep, or numbing guilt would send Bristol into a downward spiral, she held Harper’s words tighter.We’ve got this road too.She’d been home three weeks, still dazed and unable to keep food down, when Harper looked at her strangely and asked, “When did you last have your period?”
Bristol was stunned by the question. “Oh god,” she finally whispered. “The aspirin.” The High Witch’s words slammed into her.Because of the changes in your body, the aspirin no longer works. Her body had changed. Her other pills hadn’t worked either.
The new reality sent her into another nosedive, but Harper was there for that too. She taught Bristol how to move forward, one step at a time, because there was no going back.
CHAPTER 88
EIGHT YEARS LATER
Over the weeks and months as Bristol healed, she thought a lot about choices. Sometimes when you were afraid or hurting, you only wanted the fear or pain to stop, and you made a decision that would forever alter your life. You might wish you could go back and make that decision over again with your new eyes and new self, but that moment was forever gone.
Sometimes there was no going back. You had to move on with what you had left, but without forgiveness, there was no moving forward.I will never forgive myself or you. She had felt every one of those words to the depths of her soul when she said them, but somewhere along the way she had found forgiveness for both herself and for others.
