Page 117 of The Last Wish of Bristol Keats
Julia was right, forgiveness was a thing of the heart, and her heart was wounded and mended in its own way.
Harper had found her happy ending without Bristol’s help. Even through the hardships and sorrows, Harper had found her way. Happy endings can’t be given—they have to be claimed. And that was what Bristol was doing now.
One corner of that happiness was the Menagerium, the coffee shop she had once dreamed of owning. It had everything she had imagined, from gourmet doughnuts to handmade mugs, to local art on the walls to flowers she had grown in her own garden. And yes, books that Harper curated. Bristol had stayed on in the old house on Oak Leaf Lane. Some things from the past she didn’t want to let go of. Harper and her family were in a newer house closer to town—along with Angus. He was old and gray and mostly slept his days away now. Though Bristol tried to coax him, he never once turned into Fritz. She guessed that part of his life was behind him, just as she had left things behind too.
Bristol also claimed another corner of happiness by acquiring an advanced degree in art history at the local university, something she had dreamed of but never thought would be possible. She taught two courses there now, on Renaissance art. When she covered the unit on da Vinci, she always smiled, knowing the secrets about him that she could never share.
And sometimes the deepest happiness was found in acceptance, and embracing the things you never planned to be. Bristol welcomed the beast in her now. Every scale, tooth, and claw. She breathed in the beauty and power of the animal inside her, and drove to a remote mountaintop once a month to practice the full depth of her magic—and to shift. She was no longer afraid. She was prepared.
She had something vital to be fierce for now. Something that mattered to her above all else: Her greatest happiness and the light of her life. Her son. Tyghan’s son. Rían Trénallis Keats.
Bristol had just finished grinding a pound of Jamaican Blue for one of her regulars when the bell on the door jingled. It was Harper, with Bristol’s son in tow. Harper picked him up from school two days a week and dropped him off at the coffee shop. He held an ice pack to his cheek.
“Rían Trénallis Keats!” Bristol snapped. “If you got into another fight—”
“It wasn’t my fault,” he cried. “They were making fun of me again. They don’t believe that my father’s a king.”
Bristol knelt and hugged him to her chest. She sighed. “All right. Let me see.” He stepped back and removed the ice pack. It was only a small bruise, but his second scuffle. Rían was curious about his father, as any child would be. She had never wanted to lie to him the way she had been lied to, so she told him his father was a king but lived far away in another world. The other children teased him about it. Sometimes a lie, or another version of the truth, was necessary.
“I told you, tell them he’s a soldier instead and works far away. Now, go get your sprinkle doughnut,” she said, “then start your homework.”
Harper shook her head as he went to the doughnut case. “He’s only seven. The questions aren’t going to go away. He asked me on his way here if his father was ashamed of him. If that was why he never comes to see him.”
Bristol’s stomach caved. How could she tell her son that his father didn’t even know about him? That they weren’t just separated by magical portals and distance but by time? Maybe centuries. Tyghan might even be dead. Even considering the possibility made her chest ache. Rían was still too young to understand it all.
Harper’s left brow rose—that principal’s brow of hers when she wanted to discuss something serious. “I found something. Yesterday when we were going through the pockets of the clothes you donated for the rummage fundraiser, I went through your old backpack too.”
Bristol grimaced. “Sorry I didn’t clean it out first. What was in there, old moldy jeans?” She had thrown it onto a shelf in the hall closet under the stairs when she returned and forgot about it when other things, like a new baby, were more important.
“I found this.” She pulled something from her wallet, hiding it in her hand. “I looked it up today in Anastasia’sEncyclopedia of Faerieland.”
Ah, Bristol thought.The infamous book by Anastasia Wiggins.Bristol had left her copy behind in Elphame, but Harper found another one in a used bookstore. “Well?” Bristol asked.
Harper opened her palm. “Is this a timemark?”
Bristol gasped.
“So itisone,” Harper said.
Bristol took it from her. This was in her pack all this time? How? She had thrown it away. She had—
This will keep us connected in time.And then she remembered Reuben’s odd smile as he handed her the pack. She tried to retrace her steps, his steps, but in that chaotic moment, she had been too distraught to remember her own moves, much less anyone else’s.
“I read all about it in the encyclopedia,” Harper said. “This is your chance, Bri. Rían deserves to know his father. And maybe there could be a second chance for you two.”
Bristol’s breath caught for a moment. “What? It’s been eight years, Harp. Stop being such a romantic.”
“I just know what I see. I know you’ve never stopped loving him. You’ve never had more than a single date with anyone. No one else measures up to him.”
“You’re wrong. I’m just busy,” Bristol answered, but it was true. Once the broken parts inside her healed, she still had feelings for Tyghan.Yes, no one else even comes close. She watched Rían happily eating the last bite of his doughnut, colorful rainbow sprinkles pasted around his mouth. He was her whole life. Going back to Elphame was impossible. She couldn’t take a chance mixing the two worlds again. It was too risky—even with a timemark. Timemarks could be stolen. She already found that out the hard way.No. Absolutely not.She wouldn’t risk losing her son, not after what she had lost the last time. She shook her head. “It’s been eight years, Harp. It’s too late.”
“But it’s not centuries like you thought. Eight years isn’t that much. I waited thirty years for you.”
“We’re different people now. He could be married.”
“Or he might not be.”
Bristol looked back at Rían, the same blue eyes and black hair as his father’s. He was the most beautiful, joyful thing in her life. Tyghan would never forgive her for not telling him. It wouldn’t go well.
