“I will,” he said. “But first, I will take you home, to our home.”
But the best of all surprises awaited us when we reached my parents’ apartment. I expected to see only my father there, for my mother and sisters had said they were going to live with Aunt Lydia. But when I knocked on the door, it was opened by another man, tall and gaunt and far younger than my father.
“Jack!” I said, and fell to embracing him. “Jack!”
“It was the strangest thing,” he said. “Two days ago, I was in a Nazi prison camp. Then, yesterday, I was free and walking along Whitehall. I went into the War Office. I was worried they’d think I was a deserter, but strangely, they seemed to know I wasn’t.”
After I introduced Jack to Phillip, I said, “So many odd things have been happening.” I preferred to wait to tell Jack the whole story. “Haven’t they, darling?”
“Yes,” Phillip said. “Yes, they have, my love. But happy things.”
“Yes, happy things.” To Jack, I said, “You must come to see us, at our home. I am a grown-up woman with a house now.”
Jack laughed. “I cannot imagine that. I just remember the silly girl who laughed because Ethel and Esther would not share their dolls.”
At that moment, a man who had been sitting on the sofa cleared his throat.
“Oh!” Jack said. “How rude of me. I found a friend when I was at the War Office.” He gestured to the man, tall and handsome, with dark-auburn hair.
“I’m sorry. I hadn’t seen you. Jack, introduce me to your friend.”
“Grace, this is James Brandon. He was the bravest man in our unit, saved hundreds of lives in battle, volunteered for every dangerous mission, and he’s planning to go back for more. Brave as he was, you’d have thought he had a death wish.”
James laughed. “Perhaps I’m immortal.”
“It would explain a lot,” Jack said. “James, this is my baby sister.”
“And my husband, Phillip.” I squeezed Phillip’s hand, and he smiled.
There was a knock at the door, and I ran to get it. It was Kendra. “Oh, Kendra! He is back! He is back!”
“I thought I’d see you here.” She was carrying a mince pie. “Your father said you and your Phillip were back, and I thought I’d just . . .” She stopped, and the pie nearly slipped from her hands.
I caught it. “Kendra, are you all right?”
“James?” Her voice was a whisper.
“Kendra? Is that you?”
PART 4
Kendra Speaks
“Yes.” I was trembling. “Yes.”
“I have looked for you for so long,” he said.
His hair was shorter than I remembered, likely a product of being a soldier, but still the same copper color. He never truly changed.
“Not long enough,” I said. “I found you once, in London. About to be married.”
He took my arm and pulled at it. “Perhaps we should talk out in the hallway.”
Once out of earshot of the others, he said, “Aye. I was once married, for a time. For forty years’ time. She was a mortal, and I had to watch her age and die. I used magic to pretend I was doing the same thing too, while folks marveled at my longevity. Poor Lucy—sweet woman. She never knew our life together was a lie. A man gets lonely when he doesn’t find the woman he loves. But I learned it was just as lonely to be with someone who doesn’t understand. Poor Lucy has been dead nearly a hundred years. Our son has been gone for more than fifty.”
I knew what it was to be lonely. I had not lacked for male companionship either in that time, but I wanted to marry someone who would be with me for eternity. I wanted to marry James. I nodded. “And since then . . . ?”
“No one. I have been waiting for my equal, my darling, my mirror image.”
I didn’t quite know whether to believe him, but a moment’s thought told me I should. “So we can be together forever? And never be alone?” I could wait no longer. I threw myself into his arms and kissed him.
He kissed me back, and in his arms, I found every bit of the passion, the danger, but also something else that I had never had in Salem. Safety. I was safe. No one was hunting us. We could be together.
“Yes, darling, after the war is over, we can be together.”
“After the war?” I drew back from him.
“I’m off on another tour in two days’ time, this time to France.”
“But why?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s a theory I have, that someone who has been given the dubious gift of immortality, as I have, should use it for good. I’ve enlisted in every war, always fighting on the side of good. I’m a paratrooper, and nothing can kill me. I could be the one to get Hitler.”
I had to admit that this was a worthy goal. I pushed back in my mind the idea that something could happen to him. Of course he would survive a war where people were stabbing one another with bayonets, but planes could explode in a ball of fire.
“You have two days?” I pressed my lips together to keep them from quivering. I had only just found him. It wasn’t fair.
“I leave Tuesday.”