Page 69 of The Last Wish of Bristol Keats
“I can take care of myself, Reuben.”
“No doubt. You are your father’s daughter. But be judicious with your risks. During my early days with Willow, I thought I owned the world. Now I can see I was only hanging on to its edge all along.”
Be judicious now? Bristol could almost laugh. She’d been reckless ever since she decided to stop running from unseen monsters and return to the Willoughby Inn. Now wasn’t the time to put on the brakes. “Willow said my father was nowhere. Does that mean he’s dead?”
Reuben’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t know. It probably means he’s out of her reach, but I don’t know if that is a good or a bad thing.”
“Neither do I,” Bristol said, “but the last thing my father needs right now is an unstable fairy exposing where he’s hiding.”
Reuben tapped his knuckle to his chin, thinking. “Agreed. I’ll go to her shanty today. I visit there every few years—my own pilgrimage of sorts—even though it’s mostly been reclaimed by the woods now. Without Willow, its magic is gone.” He sighed wistfully. “Chances are slim that she’d be there, but I’m due for a visit anyway.”
“Thank you,” Bristol said quietly, then added, “I’m sorry about burning your robe.”
A pensive smile pulled at his mouth. “It was my least favorite.”
She stood to leave, and Reuben reached out and touched her arm. “He was a good man, at least as good as any man can be.”
Bristol leaned against the cottage door after she closed it behind her, still thinking about Reuben and his long-ago life, one she never would have dreamed existed. A life he still grieved for, like it had all happened yesterday.
Of everyone in court, she had hated Reuben most of all, and with good reason—but she had also understood him the least. He had offered her a stiff, shallow mask, and she had assumed only more of the same lay beneath it. Was it possible to know anyone at all?Reuben, a broken man?Impossible. A man trying to redeem himself by making it hard for Bristol to stay in Elphame? A man who regretted his fateful mincing of words and now spent a lifetime firing them out like bullets instead?
She tried to imagine Reuben and Willow living in a forest shanty, entrenched in a steamy affair. Reuben, a stuffy, ambitious scholar enamored with a quirky free spirit who only lived in the moment, star-crossed lovers who had been perfect for each other—at least in his faded, bejeweled memory.
Maybe that was why he understood her father so well.
He was a good man. A good man forced to become a hated one instead.
CHAPTER 50
Sonja walked from her gallery to Cat and Harper’s new apartment in the heart of the village, a small, secure complex that gave Sonja less to worry about. They were wealthy young women now, and Sonja and their attorney had tried to keep their new status as quiet as possible. Sonja still had concerns over their sister’s disappearance, but there was no evidence of foul play, and Bristol was a capable and clever adult. More than capable, apparently. She looked at the letter in her hand. It was addressed to the house on Oak Leaf Lane, which was why it had been forwarded to the gallery. She had compared the handwriting on the front of the letter to the script on the consignment papers Bristol had filled out for her father’s painting. The handwriting matched. She was alive, but Sonja still wondered about all the secrecy.
Faerie.
Sonja smiled and shook her head at the Sisters’ half-hearted answers about Bristol’s whereabouts. Perhaps there were stranger explanations. She remembered when Bristol came to her at the gallery, intent on getting the money she needed.A sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. Someone wants to give it to me. Sonja had laughed. A slightly nervous laugh. But then on the heels of Bristol’s disappearance, the da Vinci sketch actually came, then the Escher sketch, finally followed by the offer for Mr. Keats’s painting. Everything had checked out, and the commissions brought a windfall to the gallery, but Sonja still carried some unease about it. She just wished she knew with certainty that Bristol was all right.
She walked up to the apartment complex gate and punched in the security number, and when the girls didn’t answer the door, she tucked the letter in their mailbox, hoping it contained good news from Bristol.
Hurry home. We got another letter,Harper texted.
Leaving. Be there in 30. Don’t open til i get there.
Harper didn’t have to say who the letter was from. There was a shorthand of knowing between them. Only one person was worthy of an urgent text to hurry home.
In twenty-eight minutes, Cat burst through the door.
Harper stood in the hallway waiting, the letter in her hands.
Cat dropped her purse and keys in the entry and took the letter from Harper, her finger grazing the handwriting. Bristol’s handwriting. Her eyes welled.
The sisters immediately settled onto the couch beside each other.
Dear Cat and Harper,
I’m sorry I closed the portal. I wish I hadn’t done that. I miss you two terribly. Cat, I know I told you in my last letter that I was sorry for my harsh words to you. I still wish I could take those words back. If I had a magic spell to wash them away, I would. I know now, it wouldn’t have mattered what you told me, I wouldn’t have believed you because this world didn’t yet exist for us—until now. In the end, none of it really matters. I think I was meant to come here. I have a purpose.
It may not have been my first choice for a little getaway, but life deals us curves, right? This was some curve, but us Keats girls have always been good at navigating those. I’m embracing new challenges here daily, and those challenges include change. There may be more changes in me by the time I see you—more than blue nails. I hope not, but again, we can’t choose every road we’re destined to travel—and we’ve been down a lifetime of roads together. I’ll deal with it, just like you always do. That’s something we learned together.
Now I have something else to tell you. Are you sitting down? (Don’t roll your eyes, Cat.) Because you really should be sitting down when you read these next words. I’ll give you a moment.
