Allie Beckstrom 09 - Magic for a Price (36 page)

“Please,” Sunny said, rolling her eyes. “Most of the ‘different’ about magic is that spells are less powerful rather than more powerful. Chicken.”

Davy nodded. “Smart chicken, thank you.”

“Allie,” Sid said, “have you checked in with the others?”

“No. Are there other Hounds here?”

“A few. Want me to call a meeting?”

“How about tonight. Is the den still standing?”

“Like a rock. I’ll let you know when I have the meeting nailed down. But first, I’m going to get in on that free food.”

Sid and Jack and Bea headed off, stopping occasionally to talk to members of the Authority in the crowd.

Davy watched them go and grinned. “So much for the Hounds staying out of the Authority’s business.”

“Not such a bad thing,” I said.

“Not such a bad thing at all,” he agreed. “See you at the meeting, boss. Oh, and Allie?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. For everything. For making sure I was alive for all this.” He waved his hand at the room.

“You were the one who made sure you were alive,” I said. “You never stopped fighting for it.”

“Still.” He let go of Sunny, then stepped over to me and gave me a hug.

I was so surprised I forgot to hug him back for the first second or two. Hounds avoid contact as much as
possible. With pretty much everyone. The only safe way to stay untrackable, and therefore alive, was to have as little contact as possible with people.

I didn’t think that was true anymore. The only way to stay alive was to rely on each other, to trust your friends, and your pack.

“You are welcome, Davy,” I said. And I hugged him back.

I
t had taken a month for things to feel normal again. Well, maybe not normal, but new, solid, real. Cody healing everyone in Portland with magic had some unintended side effects. One, the healing had spread out around the world, which was a good thing as far as I was concerned. Two, all the people who had been Closed by the Authority and had their memories taken away had regained those memories.

That had been every kind of not fun.

I was the exception and hadn’t gotten any of my memories back. I didn’t know why but most of my life was still filled with big, black blankness.

Which was pretty much normal, so I tried not to let it bother me.

Zay and I had spent most of the next month at the coast doing nothing more than eating seafood, walking the beach, and spending lazy, luxurious days in bed together.

Summer had slipped by too quickly.

Still, I’d had a chance to catch up with everyone. Nola had decided to sell the farm and move into the city with Detective Stotts. I was just waiting for Paul to ask her to marry him any day now. Maeve and Hayden had given the keys of the inn to Shame, while they headed off to
spend a year together at Hayden’s home in Alaska. For a “proper courtship,” Maeve had said. Victor was still the Voice of Faith magic, and I wasn’t sure he was ever going to choose his successor.

Cody couldn’t use magic, but his paintings were nothing short of amazing, and he already had a backlog of buyers lining up for his next piece. He was also working on a statue to honor my dad. “Something permanent,” he had said, “so the city will remember Daniel Beckstrom as a great man who changed magic, and really, gave his life to save the world.”

Eli Collins was missing, completely disappeared off the map. Maybe that was for the best.

As for the Hounds, I’d called a meeting and told them I was stepping down. I didn’t want to be the leader anymore, not for the Hounds, not for anyone in Portland. I was done making the big life-or-death decisions for a while.

I thought for sure Jack or Bea, or Sid or Jamar would step up and take over the den, and deal with the Hounds working not only with the police, but also with the Authority. But it was Davy and Sunny who said they’d take on the responsibility.

Pike would be so proud of that kid.

And I’d talked to Violet. Told her dad was gone, really and truly gone. I’d told her, in detail, everything he’d done, and everything he’d said during the fight, and anything else I could remember from the time he’d been possessing me. He had loved her. I told her I knew that was true because I had felt his love for her. That had made her smile a little.

Then Kevin had come in the room, interrupting us. Her smiled had brightened.

From the way she had looked at him, and he had
looked at her, it was clear they’d finally talked about their feelings. Their relationship. He had admitted he loved her. And it looked like she loved him too.

It was good to see her moving on. Kevin was going to be a great dad for little Daniel.

“Allie?” Nola said from the front seat of Paul’s car. “Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you?”

I pulled free of my memories and looked out the window. Paul had stopped by the park, and the arch of the St. Johns bridge speared the clear blue sky.

“No, I’m good. Zay’s going to pick me up for lunch later.”

“Are you sure?” Paul asked. He and I had sat down over a couple pots of coffee and I’d given him a full rundown of everything I knew about the Authority and magic and things that he’d been tracking in the city for years.

Oddly, he seemed pretty happy with the way things had turned out, and was currently coordinating his efforts toward the safety and crackdown on illegal spells with Sam Arch, the Authority’s Ward of the region.

It wasn’t just the Hounds who were working closely with the Authority. It was the police now too. Being a little less of a secret organization was benefiting everyone.

“I’m sure,” I said. “Thank you both for the ride. Have a lovely time on the river.”

“We will,” Nola said. “See you Saturday for the movie.”

I opened the car door and walked out into the sunny day. Autumn may be around the corner, but it hadn’t browned the backs of leaves or put a chill in the air yet.

There were probably twenty or so people in the park. I made my way along the concrete path, and finally
found a bench a little out of the way, covered in an equal spattering of shade and sunlight.

I had brought something with me. Something that I hadn’t been brave enough to open before now.

My box.

ALLISON ANGEL’S BOX OF DREAMS.

Hayden had helped me spring the lock. The box had been sitting unopened in my apartment for months now, on my dresser where I’d left it.

I didn’t know why it worried me, but I had a huge case of the butterflies thinking about what might be in it.

I took a deep breath, let it out, then opened the lid.

The lid hinged back smoothly, as if it had last been used yesterday, instead of almost twenty years ago. I exhaled, like I’d been holding my breath for years. Suddenly, the trees didn’t seem so close and crowded, and the park took on an even more spacious and sunny feeling.

Inside the box were papers. Letters, photos, little origami cranes. I smiled, remembering some of these things—the origami in particular—but most of it was unfamiliar. I picked up the photo on the top.

A woman and child were smiling in the picture, both holding dandelion fluffs in their hands. The child—a girl—was probably only one year old, wearing a pink dress and striped tights. That must be me. The woman had dark hair, soft eyes, and a smile that set a cascade of memories rushing through my mind.

My mother.

She was so pretty, so young. Maybe about my age. We were in a park I think, even though I would have been too little to remember that day. I smiled. We both looked really happy.

I realized I didn’t have any photos of my mother. Why hadn’t I thought about that before?

Beneath the photo was an envelope. It was my dad’s monogrammed stationery, and written in his handwriting across the front: “Allison, open first.”

I turned the envelope, opened it, and pulled out the letter.

After all these years, he finally explained…everything. Why did it make me so sad?

“Sitting on a park bench alone, Allie girl?” Mama Rossitto said.

I looked up away from the letter. I hadn’t heard her approach, too lost in the reality of this letter. These truths.

“Is this true?” I asked, holding the letter out to her. “Is any of this true?”

She studied my face for a moment. I realized I had been crying, and wiped at my cheeks.

Then she took the letter. After reading the first bit, she sighed and sat on the bench next to me.

“The accident,” she said after she read the entire thing, “is true. He was so afraid to lose you, his sweet baby daughter. And so broken with your poor mama’s death.” She shook her head. “He was a good man once. Before her death. Before his soul snapped in half so you could live.”

“Why me?” I asked, both miserable with the knowledge, and on some levels, not surprised. I think, somewhere in the back of my mind, buried deep in my memories, I had known my mother was dead. I had seen
it in my father’s eyes, heard it in his voice for a long, long time. “Why didn’t you try to save my mother instead? Give her the magic.”

“St. Johns chooses its own. All the people here are called by its magic. They may not know it, but still, they come. They are nurtured by it, and in return nurture it. The guardian of the magic here is chosen by the magic. Touched, changed, healed by it.”

“Are you its guardian?”

“Yes. But not forever, Allie girl.” She gave me a knowing smile. “Not forever.”

She shoved the letter back at me with a grunt. “Is this all in that box of yours? One sad letter?”

I looked down at the box of memories on my lap. “No, there’s a lot more.” I started digging. “Pictures of my mother.” I handed her the first one. “Finger paintings, origami, a drawing of something that looks like a turkey.” I shook my head.

My dad had packed these things away. Little bits of my life he had tried to keep safe for me. Little bits of my life that were mine again.