Page 71 of Samhain
Before I could linger too long on that tender glint in Lex’s eye, I held up my glass of wine. “Cheers to the ones that came before us. May they never be far from our hearts. May the good memories see us through the bad.”
Everyone held up their chalice and sipped to our departed family members.
“To last dinners,” Lex added.
“Here, here,” Ivy and Carter said together.
It should have sobered me and made me pause to consider how we planned to get out of this. There was no telling when Ashley would be around to check on us again, and time passed differently on this side of the veil. Twelve hours here meant twenty-four out there. Three days could be a week. We might get back to our world to discover years had gone by. But the magical side effects of the wine dulled my reasoning, and when Lex made a crack at Carter’s expense, Ivy and I burst into hysterics.
The night went jovially on around us. We laughed at old stories from our college days and talked about things that had happened since then. In that tent with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no control over what happened next, the four of us rebuilt what we had created and torn apart two years ago.
This…This was what the gift was meant to be. Stripped of titles and pretense and the weight of the world’s expectations, we were free, so joyful and light.
A momentary thought passed through my mind, there and gone in a heartbeat.
What if we didn’t leave? What if we stayed like this forever? Would that be the worst thing?
For the life of me, I couldn’t think of a reason why it would. Yeah, I wouldn’t see my family again. Perhaps I would miss my grandparents and Edward, and maybe Carter’s family, too. Other than that, most humans were disappointing. I could just as easily come back to this tent with my spouses night after night. I’d cook vegetables I had harvested myself and raise our children surrounded by people who understood what it was between us, who wouldn’t judge or try to keep us apart by tearing us down. Other humans lived here successfully, right? Would it be difficult for us to blend in?
“If we do make it out of this,” Lex added, returning my attention to the conversation, “I want to buy a house in the country, far away from everyone.”
“Agreed,” Ivy said. “Somewhere that’s ours. All of us.”
“If we make it out of this, I won’t go another two years without being together,” Carter said, squeezing my hand tighter. “I don’t care what I have to do to my filming schedule. I’ll figure it out.”
“We can have a big garden out back for our princess”—Lex shot me a wink—“and a gym in the basement for Weeds and Chicago.”
“And a darkroom for you to develop your prints,” I added, remembering those gorgeous shots of Ivy.
“Every night, we’ll make dinner together,” Carter said, “and then we’ll fuck in our hot tub overlooking the mountains.”
Ivy laughed, and the noise warmed all the parts of me that had frozen over while being in Faerie. I realized, as we sat there discussing our paradise, that I wanted it with a fury. I wanted it more than I wanted anything else in my life. If we left this place intact, if we went back to who we were, we may never get it. My life would be the royal family. Ivy and Lex would go back to their politics in DC. Carter would go on to be the next EGOT winner.
“It sure is a pretty picture,” I said, a small bit of melancholy creeping into my blood.
22
Carter
The food was amazing, even better than it smelled, and several bladders of wine later, we made our way to the bed. The four of us cuddled together under the furs in the order we preferred—Lex and me on the outside, the girls in the middle. Despite the fact this could be our last night alive, depending on how the queen felt when she woke up in the morning, a sense of lightness and joy hung over us. Like nothing mattered and never would again because we were alive in this moment.
“You don’t think one of us should…I don’t know…stand guard?” Miri asked with a small slur and a giggle.
“If they wanted to kill us,” Ivy said, leaning to kiss the princess, “they wouldn’t have to wait until we were asleep to do it.”
“It’s just—” Miri sighed. “It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s all so strange.”
I settled into the straw mattress, which was the most comfortable bed I’d ever been on. The cushioning pooled in all the right places. I had a ten-thousand-dollar Tempur-Pedic at home, and all I needed was this foamy shit. Go figure.
“Jesus, everything’s better in Faerie, isn’t it?” I murmured, crossing my arms under my head.
Ivy and Miri laughed, pulling back from their kissing to glance at me.
“The beds, the wine,” I continued.
“The sex,” Lex cut in, pulling one side of his mouth into a wolfish grin.
Ivy chuckled harder and rolled into me, draping her arm around my waist and leaning her head on my chest to bring her lips tenuously close to my neck. A moment of silence fell on us where the atmosphere shifted, like whatever was going on out there had finally crept its way in here. The mood grew heady and stifling, pushing the four of us closer in this bed together.
