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Catching sight of my reflection in the full-length mirror after Cas steps away, I finally feel like the real me even dressed up as Mattie. It doesn’t feel just shy of being right anymore, because it really is just a costume, a persona I enjoy embodying more than ever, because the real me beneath is someone I understand.
In or out of a skirt.
I touch a hand to the amulet, gleaming gold and purple in my reflection, just a part of my costume now too, and warm to the touch. Like Odai. Like he makes me feel every day. Like I want to make him feel every day. I want him to feel the same freedom and empowerment that he and SJ helped me find.
And it’s then, seeing Odai stroll over to me, with everything else in my life practically perfect, right for the first time, that a possible answer hits me. Or rather, questions.
“Odai?”
“Yes, Jeffrey?”
“Let’s take a walk.”
Odai
We say goodnight to Cas and Mr. Bevilaqua but remain in the underground when they head upstairs. Jeffrey leads me into the tunnels. It is fitting, because I have something to tell him too, something I hope makes it easier for him to put me back where he found me.
“I assume Mr. Bevilaqua told you he wants you to take over Madame Mattie’s?” I ask.
“You knew too?”
“He was very excited about it. As am I, and the surprise I have for you.”
“Surprise?” Jeffrey turns to me. We’ve only made it as far as the wall with the hole in it where Cas frightens patrons every midnight tour by grabbing their hand.
My outfit today includes the same harem pants I often wear with very deep pockets. I pull out the certificate I printed. I will print another on better paper to frame, for I am sure Jeffrey will want to frame it. I hand the paper to him, and as he reads what it says, his beautifully painted eyes go wide.
“You… you got Madame Mattie’s declared a historical landmark? But I didn’t even wish—”
“You wished to save this place,” I interrupt. “Everything I have done has helped toward that end, but this ensures it for the long term, for as long as you choose to run these tours, and afterward too if you pass it to someone else.”
Jeffrey claps a hand over his mouth, breath shuddering behind his palm and eyes growing damp. When the tears are happy ones, the way they make his eyes sparkle is truly breathtaking. “How? It takes 90 days to even—”
“I was able to convince them to waive the usual timeframe based on your previous submissions.”
He clutches the paper to his chest, and then throws himself at me with his free arm twining around my neck. “Thank you. Thank you. I am so glad I found you, Odai. Not only because you’ve given me so much, but—well yes, what you’ve given me, but mostly because you gave me you.”
I hug him back, his lovely, smaller frame that I would hold forever if I could. “I am glad too.”
“But I don’t want you to give me things anymore. I don’t want you to have to. I want you to be your own you. I want you to be free.”
“Jeffrey, I feel free with you,” I remind him. “I have never lied to you. I have never granted one of your wishes and regretted the ask. For you, I would give anything. But I know you do not want anything. You do not want the darker more vicious side of me that one day you will not be able to ignore. To avoid that—”
“I know.” Jeffrey pulls from our embrace, eyes still shining. “But even if I can’t wish for you to be free, or wish for you to be human again, maybe it doesn’t matter if I can wish or not. What I want is for you to have what you want. I want you to find what I did, the truth of the real you, on your terms, even if that means… someday you’d want to leave me.”
“I would never—”
“But, if it means you’d want to stay, then stay. Because I have a couple questions for you. I just need to ask the right ones, right?”
“Yes.” I stare into Jeffrey’s eyes as they clear, and a resolve seems to settle in him.
Still holding the crumpled paper that gives him part of his freedom too, he asks, “Can you be your own master? Do you want to be your own master?”
Did he…?
“Because, if the answer is yes, Odai, that is all I’d ever ask for, all I’d ever wish, and my answer would be yes too.”
I feel the tears on my cheeks before I recognize the weight on my chest. Jeffrey gasps, clutching at his now empty neck, because the amulet is around mine. Slowly, its weight begins to lessen to a more benign heft as its glimmer fades.
