*
A COUPLE OF weeks later, Liam sat in Bertie’s, morosely drinking a cup of coffee and pretending to read the newspaper so no one would come over and try to talk to him. He’d spent the time since his return from the Otherworld tying up loose ends, taking statements, and filling out endless stacks of paperwork. Every time he reached the bottom of one pile, Molly magically produced another out of thin air.
He should be happy that things were finally getting back to normal. But ever since the day after he and Baba had made love, when he drove out to Miller’s Meadow and found it empty, his life had seemed empty too.
Katie, the waitress working his section, stopped by to refill his cup and plop a piece of apple pie with homemade caramel ice cream down in front of him. “Here,” she said. “You look like you could use this.” She peered at him more closely. “You seem different, somehow. Did you get your hair cut?”
He had, finally, but that wasn’t what was different about him. He’d discovered the existence of an entire magical world, and in the process, rediscovered his own heart. His entire reality had been turned upside down and inside out by a beautiful cloud-haired woman who’d disappeared as suddenly as she’d shown up. Little wonder Katie thought he seemed different.
“Yup, I got a hair cut,” he said, giving her a wry smile. “That must be it.”
He ignored the pie, doodling a few notes on the margins of the crossword puzzle, and trying to decide which stack of folders to tackle when he got back to the station.
Until the bell over the door jingled cheerfully and someone pulled out the chair across from him, saying, “You know, Sheriff, it should be against the law to waste a piece of Bertie’s pie. If you’re not going to eat that, I will.”
He looked up, heart skipping a beat painfully, and there was Baba, forking up a bite of pie with a mischievous look in her clear amber eyes.
Liam straightened, staring at her as if she were an apparition who might vanish if he started to breathe again. “I thought you were gone for good,” he said, forcing his voice to sound as relaxed and casual as hers.
“Without saying good-bye? Never. That would be rude.” She ate another bite of pie. “Didn’t you get my note?”
“Note?” he asked. “What note?”
Baba shook her head, the curly mass of dark hair floating around her like an undeserved halo. “Damned carrier pigeons. They’re so unreliable.”
With great effort, Liam restrained himself from banging his head on the table. “Baba, you have got to get a phone, damn it.”
“Sorry,” she said, still calmly eating his pie. “I had some things I had to take care of. I didn’t mean to worry you.” She glanced around the room, waving at a few people she knew. Once word spread that Maya had been behind all the trouble, the people in town had felt terrible about how they’d treated her. They would have apologized, if she’d been around.
“So,” she said brightly, trying the ice cream. “What’s been happening while I’ve been gone?”
“Well, to start out with, Peter Callahan disappeared, along with every cent in the company bank accounts,” Liam said, glad for a neutral topic of conversation. “And since Maya went missing at the same time, everyone is assuming they ran off together.”
“Huh. Is that good or bad?”
“Mostly good,” Liam said. “I’m not happy he isn’t going to pay for his crimes, but let’s face it, Maya was really behind most of it, and we’ll never know how much he was involved. Not to mention that his actions have made it next to impossible for his company to push forward with their drilling, which is a huge relief to everyone who was against the fracking.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure he isn’t being punished,” Baba said thoughtfully, licking a dab of whipped cream off the tip of one finger. “He wanted the power and the influence a lot more than he wanted the money, and he’s lost his wife and son. I guarantee you, wherever he is, he’s not a happy man.”
Liam snagged a tiny piece of crust, suddenly feeling his appetite return. “The kids are all doing great, although none of them remembers their time in the Otherworld. So how is little Babs adapting to her new life? It must be quite a change for her.”
A shy new smile lit Baba’s face, making her even more luminous than usual. “Remarkably well, all things considered. She’s a very clever child, and amazingly tough.”
“Now who does that remind me of?” he said with a laugh.
She wrinkled her long nose at him, but otherwise ignored the comment. “Still, I didn’t think it would be a good idea to make her move around the country when there are so many things she has to get used to. So I took your suggestion and went to talk to the other two United States Baba Yagas about splitting up our territories.”