by Alex Bledsoe
“No. It’s really not about you and me.”
“Then let’s hear it.”
Deep breath. It struck me that I was more scared of this than I’d been of the dragon. Yet I not only felt I owed her honesty; I also had taken something fundamental from her that day on the mountain. It can’t be easy to know you’ve lost a god, and I could see the sadness of it burgeoning in her. I felt obligated to try to restore it, to convince her that just because one god proved false, it didn’t mean there was no magic in the world. And to believe the story I was about to tell meant she’d have to accept anew the reality of magic, and goddesses walking among us.
Still, it took all my courage to get those first words out. “It’s about your sister.”
“Jessica?”
That was her older sister, married with a bunch of kids and, now, grandkids. “No, your twin.”
It took a moment to register; then her eyes opened wide. “Cathy?”
“Yeah.”
“Well… what about her?”
Here we go. “I knew her once.”
Under different circumstances, the look on her face would’ve been funny. “When?”
“Years ago. I was… well, I wasn’t exactly there when she died, but I… was there.” I sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“Then she really is dead,” Liz said deliberately. It replaced a long-standing question mark with a period.
“Yeah.”
She took a moment to absorb it. “And you knew that, and never told me.”
“Yeah.”
She just stared at me. It was almost fully dark outside now, and the light from the candle reflected from her eyes so that they seemed to burn with contained emotion. It also made her look exceptionally beautiful.
“Okay,” I said, unable to bear the scrutiny and silence. “I’ll start at the point it all got resolved, which was just before you and I met.”
“That sounds like the end of the story.”
“It is, but it’ll make sense.”
She took a drink of ale. A big drink. “And you love me?”
“Yes. And this won’t change that, for me at least.”
She wiped her lips, burped lightly and said, “You know I’m pretty hard to run off, too.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” I took another deep breath, leaned back in my chair and began the long, complicated story of Epona Gray, Phil of Arentia, the scariest dwarf ever and Queen Rhiannon, the sword-edged blonde:
“Spring came down hard that year…”
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