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Okay, time to replicate as many variables as I could. I wished up the black Anne Taylor cocktail dress I’d been wearing. Or a version thereof, as the original had long since been destroyed. I added my heels as best as I could remember them. That would have to do. The Black Dog had been present then, and no way to add in that brand of magic. The cat, smug, stirred inside. Okay, I did have her.
I reached under my hair, cut a lock from as near the same spot at the nape of my neck as I could manage. With the dagger, I sliced the tip of my finger and wiped the blood on my hair. Separated from me, the hair changed back from my favored shiny black to the dull, dark blond I’d worn most of my life. It seemed appropriate—looking just as it had that day at Devils Tower.
With nothing to tie it to, I held my hand over the draftiest point and let the hair go. It caught in the unseen wind and spiraled up.
Pulling at me. Taking me with it.
*
Into a blizzard.
“Well, shit!” I exclaimed, clapping my hands to my bare arms. You’d think I’d remember what Wyoming winters were like, having lived most of my life bitching about them, but wow—that wind cut like a dagger.
I wished up a cloak. And nothing happened.
Goodbye, powerful sorceress Gwynn. Welcome back, Dr. Jennifer McGee, PhD in being an idiot. I did the only thing I could do. I started walking.
That first morning, I’d made it most of the way around the tower, starting at the west end near the parking lot, passing around the sunny southern face before rounding to the shadow side. So, I kept going that direction, completed the circuit I’d started so long ago. Really wishing I’d been smarter about what I’d worn.
Of course, in this world, wishes did little good. Evidenced by all those beggars not riding horses.
My heels skidded on the slick path and my skin went numb, stinging only when a sheet of ice pellets bulleted against me. I suspected that, in this realm, even my whatever percentage of fae blood wouldn’t lend me any level of immortality. Otherwise we’d have changelings living forever. Hmm.
I knew—really I did—that my Honda would not still be sitting in the parking lot where I’d left it. Who knew how many years had passed in my absence? Plus, my car keys had stayed behind. Still, I felt a stab of disappointment when it wasn’t there. When no cars were there.
Because who visits Devils Tower in a blizzard? Probably the park was closed. I couldn’t possibly walk out, dressed like this. I wasn’t even sure I could get back to Faerie, which was the wrong direction, anyway.
The whistling wind let up briefly and the buzz of a snowmobile drifted through the pause. Or was that more wishful thinking?
No—there it was. Puck on a snowmobile, wearing a sandstone Carhartt insulated coverall, strawberry-blond curls whipping behind him, tangling with an improbably colorful and long scarf.
“Finally!” he exclaimed. “I don’t know why you people keep it so cold here. I guess it doesn’t bother you though.”
To my credit, I didn’t throttle him. But I did make him give me his coat. Hopefully I wouldn’t lose any toes to frostbite. I climbed onto the snowmobile behind Puck and tucked my skirts under my thighs, pressing up as tight against his back as I could to protect myself from the wind chill, wishing it was Rogue instead.
Wondering if I’d ever see Rogue again. My longing, no longer formless as it had been that long-ago day, now squarely centered and focused on him and our daughter.
“Where are we going?” I shouted in his ear.
“To fetch what’s yours.”
It didn’t surprise me a bit to pass the sign I remembered from before. Devils Tower Lodge: Friends and Guests Only. For the owner, Frank, the distinction wasn’t a tautology. We pulled up in front, disembarked and I rushed inside, forgetting my manners and that I wasn’t—on this occasion—anyone’s guest. Perhaps Puck and I could skate by on the technicality of putative friendship.
A woman stood in the center of the room, Devils Tower looming blackly dramatic out the windows, dramatically framed by the billowing snow. She whirled in surprise at my bursting in on her.
And the baby in her arms wailed.
“Oh my God!” The words wrenched out of me on a sob and—I knew this was exactly the wrong thing to do, but I couldn’t stop myself—I tore my daughter from the woman’s grip. Only after seeing who it was. “Blackbird!”
“There, there, Lady Gwynn. Don’t fret. Sit yourself down and comfort yourself that your child is all right. Here now.” Blackbird adjusted my grip so that I cradled the baby more gently and my daughter stopped fussing, staring owlishly up at me with deep, sapphire-blue eyes. She waved a little fist, with perfect tiny fingers when one of my tears splashed on her cheek. My heart cracked open and I wept harder, barely noticing when Blackbird urged me into a chair.
I’d never quite gotten why new mothers did this, but I couldn’t stop myself. I unwrapped her, laying her on her blanket on my knees and inspected every bit of her. Her round belly with the raw end of the umbilical neatly tied off was otherwise perfect. All her fingers and toes. No bite marks. I placed my cheek against her velvet-soft chest and the 3/4 rhythm of her heart answered.
Mine. My family, forever.
“See there?” Blackbird set down a cup of steaming tea. “She’s just fine. You did the right thing, to send her away.” She touched the baby’s cheek. “I remember how it feels. I never did get to hold little Brody.”
“You remember?” The baby started to fret, so I wrapped her up and cuddled her. So happy to hold her. So at a loss at what to do with her.
