Livy read the text from Skye as she walked to the front door after work.
Arrived and moved in! Btw, look behind the winter coats in the front closet ;)
“Hmm.” The intrigue lightened Livy’s melancholy at coming home to an empty house. She leaped up the front steps and unlocked the door.
Against the closet wall behind the coats she found a two-foot-tall framed picture wrapped in brown paper—no, four framed pictures stacked together, she realized as she tugged them out.
Kneeling on the front hall tiles among dried muddy boot-tracks, Livy unwrapped the framed paintings, and laughed aloud even as tears rose in her eyes.
Skye’s art took vintage-travel-poster style this time, and featured an intrepid Livy in each frame.
In the first, she wriggled through a black and brown tunnel of dirt with roots stretching into it and spotted red mushrooms sprouting above. THE EARTH LOVES YOU IN OLYMPIC NATIONAL FOREST, said the allcaps hand-lettering.
In the second, a shining blue sea-star path led her into the Sound with the green water parting magically around her boots. Skye had lettered DIVE INTO BEAUTIFUL PUGET SOUND in the night sky above.
The third showed Livy dashing through red and orange flames with her coat pulled over her nose and a dragon soaring past, with the title WESTERN WASHINGTON, THE HOT PLACE TO BE!
The fourth, captioned CLIMB HIGH IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, featured her ascent into the dark green tree canopy, her hair streaming in the wind, white snowflakes and ice-colored hummingbirds hovering around her.
Livy sniffled, still laughing, and dialed Skye.
“Oh my God, I love them!” she said in lieu of “Hello” when Skye answered.
“Yay!” Skye said. “It was so hard to keep them hidden from you while I was working on them. Jamie let me keep them in her house and do the painting in her garage.”
“I am so hanging these in the hallway. But you kept copies for your portfolio, right? You’ve got to.”
“Definitely. I took scans. In fact, during my job interview I showed them those, and they were some of their favorites. I kind of think those pieces got me the job.”
Livy laughed again, tracing her fingers across the air-poster lettering with pride. “They must think you have one weird-ass imagination.”
“Eh, artists. We’re like that. Plus I told them we have a family tradition of some pretty crazy stories about the woods.”
“Yeah. Don’t we, though.”
It was summer in Bellwater—or nearly, since it was late June, and everyone knew summer in western Washington didn’t truly start till the 5th of July. A layer of clouds hovered over the Sound, but the air had warmed, sunsets lingered until ten p.m., the town had filled with vacationers hauling speedboats, and in the evenings Livy frequently heard the whistle and crack of fireworks.
Today Livy finished work early and showed up at the garage to hang out with Kit until it closed. She helped bring in wind chimes and movable sculptures. He had finished the mermaid months ago and it had sold, and so had the dragon, the mushroom gnome, and the oversized hummingbird he had followed it up with.
“How’s she coming along?” Livy asked, running her hand along the rust-speckled green hood of the 1967 Barracuda he was restoring.
“Slow, but I’m loving every minute. I finally found the tires I wanted, and ordered them. I’ll show you the picture over dinner.”
“Sweet. I’ve got travel ideas to show you.”
After he had anonymously returned as many of the gold pieces to their proper owners as possible, the value of the remaining gold, cashed in, had still come to almost half a million dollars. Livy had insisted he set aside enough to fund his house, shop, and vacation dreams, then helped him choose environmental charities for the rest. One of his dreams had been to buy this battered muscle car and restore it to prime condition. A car of that vintage, she noted dubiously, did not possess an environmentally friendly engine, but he promised with a grin that it wasn’t really for driving around much anyway. It was all about the joy of making it look pretty and run smooth.
As for vacation dreams, they were planning to go to Hawaii together in the fall. And from there, on to Japan perhaps, or New Zealand, or elsewhere in the South Pacific—Livy had bookmarked several options to discuss with him tonight.
“Oh, and check this out,” he said as he locked the garage office. He fished out his phone and swiped to his texts, and handed it to her. “Grady’s latest creations.”
Livy stepped into the shade of Carol’s Diner to view the screen, and examined the three photos Grady had sent: clams arranged on greens with some sort of lovely red garnish, a delicate dish of ravioli, and a pork slider with an artful zigzag splash of sauce around it on the plate. “Oh my God, can’t he just FedEx us the food instead of torturing us with pictures?” she said.
“I know, right? We’ve got to learn to cook. Meanwhile—shall we?” He tilted his head toward Carol’s.
She handed him back his phone. “Yeah. I’m starving.”
They’d been fulfilling their promise to get together often with Grady and Skye. The four of them met for dinner each month. On the evening of every full moon, Kit and Livy drove to Olympia to see them, so they could celebrate Kit not having any goblin obligations that night. Grady cooked for them, and Livy always got to choose the menu. It made her self-conscious, but the other three insisted, and she’d come to enjoy browsing ambitious recipes and emailing them to Grady. So far he was never daunted and turned out all the dishes fabulously.
She tried not to choose recipes involving sweetened fruit, though. Neither Grady nor Skye wanted to eat them, even though Grady had the skill and willingness to make them. “But we’ve worked our way back up to eating fresh fruit,” Skye told her brightly, “so that’s something.”
Livy didn’t blame them. She still had the occasional nightmare about cave trolls and centipedes, kelp tangling her legs underwater, a forest fire trapping someone she loved, or a fall from a stratosphere-high tree branch. At least when she did have those dreams, she now usually woke up next to Kit, and snuggled into his warmth and remembered she had been sufficiently brave after all.
Carol brought Kit and Livy their menus. “Dang, Sylvain,” she boomed, “good to see you sticking with the same woman for so long, though I’m hearing lots of weeping and wailing from all the others who had their eye on you.”
“Stop.” Kit smirked, scanning the menu.
“I’ve had death threats,” Livy confided to Carol.
Carol laughed. “Bet you have. It is cute how your hands match up. Shows you’re meant for each other. Even though you and Skye were born that way, and he lost his finger being careless with a chainsaw.”
Kit scowled. “It’s just insulting how you all believe that.”
“Like we don’t remember it, Sylvain? Nice try.” Carol winked at Livy. “What’d you do to get him to settle down, anyhow? Put a spell on him?”