The Book Man, Chapter 87 (Revised)

87 DEPARTURES

They walked in silence back to the rose garden, except for the soft words of the more open Fair-folk to the hellhounds, spiders, night-mares, and banshees accompanying them. As they walked, the bodies of those left dead on the Fairgrounds sank into the grass.

Christian was saddened by the sight. He felt Graham Chelsea, the contortionist from Rowan’s troupe, and the Fair-folk who had come to the fight with Neva deserved burials and markers just as much as Tirion.

“It’s as if they had never been,” Minerva said softly. He slipped his hand into hers. She squeezed his fingers.

When they reached the trellis, Neva turned to the crowd and said, “I will open the portal shortly. First you must choose: to stay or to go on.”

“What do you mean?” Conrad asked. He leaned against his wife; his good leg trembled under the weight of his body. Liza put an arm about his waist but leaned her head against his cheek wearily. Her own face was streaked with dirt and blood.

“All the creatures must return to the Otherworld, of course,” Neva said. “They will be too conspicuous in your world. There is nowhere for them to roam freely. But you humans, you have a choice. I warn you it is a costly one.”

He fell silent and then said, “Because my brother has been removed from Earth, the fairies shall return to their home as they were promised. Their magic goes with them. All those of you who have survived the centuries by sleeping in the Sunforest and coming here at night may stay on Earth or return to the Otherworld to dwell in the Sunforest. If you go, you will live out the rest of your natural life as it would have been had it not been prolonged. If you stay, all the years of your life will catch up with you and you will die with the dawn, for there will be no magic left in this world to keep you alive.”

The Fair-folk looked at each other uneasily.

“If you choose to live in the Sunforest,” Neva said, “a portion of land will be set aside for you and your descendants. I will see to it you have access to food and adequate shelter for the first year. After that it will be up to you.”

“Those are our choices?” Rowan asked.

“Those are your choices.”

“Not much of a choice at all, then, is it?” Finn said. “We’ll go, of course.”

There were murmurs of agreement from the others.

“Then I will open the portal,” Neva said. The space beneath the trellis wiggled, waved, and stilled. The Fair-folk lined up two by two and walked forward to disappear into it.

“You’ll come with us, won’t you, Barty?” Rowan asked her brother while Finn looked on anxiously. The old man smiled.

“My dear sisters, I wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.”

Conrad looked at Christian and pulled the bronze key to the park gate out of the pocket of his waistcoat.

“Here,” he said. “You’ll need this more than I will. I’m sorry to leave you, lad, but even after these past couple of nights, imminent death is a little too much for me to face.”

Then he turned to Liza and lowered his voice.

“I owe you more apology than I could ever give,” he said. “When we were married, I thought I’d be happy because I’d had enough of magic and wonderment, and I just wanted to settle down and have a normal life. And then I started missing the magic and the wonder, and I took it out on you sometimes, and then the secrets I kept, well—”

“What are you saying?” Liza asked. “Are you going with them?”

“I must. I’m—well, I’m a hundred and twelve, to tell you the truth. I’d say that’s enough years to catch up with me, wouldn’t you?”

The balloon-artist bit his lip as he gazed at his wife, but it took a moment for Liza to respond. She twisted her wedding band around her finger as she searched for the right words. It glinted in the light of the gas lamps.

“It’s not so much that you lied,” she said, and then amended, “Not only that you lied. It’s that you told him—”gesturing at Christian, who flushed—“after a few months of friendship, and never me in thirty-six years of marriage.”

Her husband’s face scrunched up in an anxiety Christian had rarely seen there before.

“It wasn’t anything like—it’s just that—well, you saw the kind of life he was living,” Conrad said at last. “He was stuck, and I—”

“So was I, Conrad. I’ve been stuck for years, waiting for something exciting to come along. I should’ve gone out to find it myself, instead, but I waited and waited and nothing ever came of it.”

The balloon-artist looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Then he said, “I never knew.”

And then, nervously: “I know I can’t ask you to start over, but that’s your waiting done, if you want it to be.”

“I don’t understand,” Liza said.

Her husband took a deep breath and said, “Dearest, I’m asking you to come with me.”

“Asking—” Her face broke into the first smile Christian had seen from her in a long, long time. “You mean it?”

“So you’ll come?” Conrad said hopefully.

“Of course,” Liza said, and she kissed his nose. And though he was sad to see them go, Christian was all smiles as the Smithsons hugged him and Minerva goodbye and disappeared through the portal. Then a wail rose up behind him. It was the two ringmasters, clinging to Morrow’s shoulders and weeping bitterly. Tears dripped from the end of the Rover’s nose.

“Aunties, don’t cry. I love you both more than I can say, but—” His voice caught in his throat; he coughed until it was clear. “I’ve never yet come back from a fight without him.”

“Aunties, you cruel boy!” Rowan said through her tears. “Good heavens, how long has it been since you called us that?”

Finn dabbed at her monocle with a handkerchief. “Thirty years, at least—”

“At least, yes—”

“Aren’t you—aren’t you going with them?” Christian asked over the ringmasters’ renewed sobs. Morrow shook his head. One by one, the sisters straightened, righted their top hats (much battered from the battle), and dried their eyes.

“Well, Mr. Abernathy,” Rowan said with a sniff. “You’ll take care of him for us, won’t you? We’d feel so much better.”

“Certainly,” Christian said, turning pink. He nodded to Morrow. “You’re welcome to stay with me. I’ve always lived alone, so I haven’t got an extra bedroom, but—well, we’ll figure something out.”

Morrow smiled crookedly. “Thank you.”

The ringmasters lavished his face with kisses and fresh tears. He kissed them each lightly on the forehead, wet-eyed and weak-chinned. Then he watched with a sigh as the friends he had known since his infancy vanished into the portal behind their brother.