It wasn’t until the pancakes were almost ready that he realized he’d forgotten to worry about the day ahead. By then, there was really no point. The moment had passed.
Fran sat at the kitchen table, nursing a mug of coffee and trying not to think about what was going on outside. She was in her wedding dress, and Jonathan wasn’t meant to see her before she came out to become his lawfully wedded wife. Still, she wanted to know if the minister had actually shown up, and whether he’d been willing to stay once he got a look at the carnival--which was attracting townsfolk like honey attracted basilisks. Enid had been shooing them off since mid-morning, telling them to come back the next day when the midway would be open.
“Closed for a family function,” muttered Fran, and snorted. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Priestess?” It was a small voice, next to her shoe. Fran looked down to see one of the junior mouse priests sitting there, tail wrapped tight around his feet to keep it from being accidentally trod upon. “May I trouble you?”
“Why, sure,” she said. “I’m not doin’ anything until Mr. Healy comes to get me.” She’d have to start calling Alexander something other than “Mr. Healy.” One more adjustment in what was sure to be a lifetime. “What can I do for you?”
“We understand you are to be Wed today, becoming forevermore the Priestess of our beloved youngest God.”
“That’s right.” Mouse theology was pretty simple, once you got down to the bones of it. And that was just one more sentence she’d never thought she’d have the cause to put together.
“We wished to thank you.”
Fran blinked. She couldn’t really stoop to the mouse’s priest, but she leaned forward as much as she could, and said, “Come again?”
“We feared, once, that he would never find Love. That his Priestess would be forever denied him, because he did not journey. He did not seek. And when you came before us, he did not claim you.” The mouse twitched his whiskers. “He became joyful when you came. His joy has only increased in these last days. Gods bring the Heavens to us. Priestesses bring the Gods to Heaven. So we thank you. You have brought about the continuation of our faith.”
Fran sat back in her chair and blinked at the mouse, struck dumb. She was still sitting there, fumbling for something to say, when the back door swung open and Alexander Healy stepped inside.
“Frannie?” he said. “It’s time, if you’re ready for us.”
Frances Brown looked down at the mouse priest, with his eyes so bright and his whiskers pushed so eagerly forward. Then she smiled. “Oh, come on,” she said. In a flash, the mouse was up her leg and climbing up the outside of her skirt. He raced along the swell of her stomach to her chest, and finally vanished into her hair.
Alexander--who knew more about the ways of Aeslin mice than most, although not as much as his wife--smiled indulgently. “Good choice,” he said.
Fran took a deep breath and levered herself out of her chair. “I’m ready,” she said.
“I’m glad.” Alexander offered her his hand. She walked over and took it, and he bent to place a kiss atop her head. “I’m also glad you’re going to be my daughter. I couldn’t have asked for better.”
“Thank you,” Fran said. The room felt like it was suddenly too small, or maybe she was suddenly too big; there was no way it could contain her, and all the things that she was feeling. She clung to Alexander’s arm like an anchor, and step by careful step, he led her out of the kitchen, into the bright afternoon sunlight and down the stairs, to where the guests were waiting.
It wasn’t much of a wedding setup, in the traditional sense: the minister--who hadn’t run, despite Fran’s fears, and had instead been happily eating funnel cakes for the better part of an hour--stood on a fruit crate at the end of an aisle formed by folding chairs and rickety boxes. They had been arranged in the vaguest semblance of an audience, although half the guests sat on the ground, or stood, or perched on one another’s shoulders. Almost all of them were from the carnival. The guests from Jonathan’s side of the family--a few cryptozoologists, bounty hunters, and hedge witches--were gathered together, toward the front.
Fran froze when she saw the crowd. “I can’t do this,” she said. “Let’s go back to the kitchen. I can be a woman of loose virtue. I don’t mind.”
“Weren’t you the star of this show when Johnny found you?” asked Alexander, amused.
“That was a long time ago,” Fran said faintly. “At least nine months, for one thing.”
“Just shift your focus.” Alexander pointed to the end of the aisle. “Look.”
Fran looked.
Jonathan Healy could have been more nervous, he supposed; he could have been hyperventilating, or bleeding. Either of those would have made an already nerve-wracking moment even harder on him. He stood, in the suit that his father had been married in, tangling his fingers together until it felt like he might break something.
Something moved out of the corner of his eye. He turned toward it, and stopped, all thought of nerves forgotten, as he saw Fran hanging on his father’s arm, her hair gleaming golden in the sun.
She was wearing plain green cotton that Enid had helped her to sew, cut to allow her to stay comfortable despite the heat and her condition, while still hiding an assortment of knives beneath the bodice. A crown of braided green and white ribbons topped her head, and her hair hung loose around her face, and she had never been more beautiful.
The minister followed Jonathan’s gaze and smiled before motioning for the guests to stand. Someone pulled a lever, and the calliope groaned into life. Fran blinked, startled. Then she laughed.
“Not a wedding march, but this is better,” she said, taking her first step forward.
It was all easy from there.
Alexander beamed as he led her down the aisle, past the assembled guests. Some were smiling, some were crying, some, who had joined the carnival after Fran’s departure, simply looked politely confused. This was one of the stranger site fees they’d paid, but it was more affordable than most.
At the end of the aisle, Alexander kissed Fran’s head again before letting go of her arm. She smiled at him, and kept smiling as she turned to face Jonathan.
“Howdy,” she said.
“Howdy, yourself,” he echoed.
The minister cleared his throat. They both turned.
“Dearly beloved...” he began.
The ceremony suited the wedding, and the wedding party, perfectly: it was short, accompanied by the cheerful, slightly atonal tinkle of the calliope, and the minister’s fingers got stuck to his Bible twice, due to an excess of funnel cake. When it was over, Jonathan kissed Fran with the kind of enthusiasm that made it quite clear why she was already expecting, and she kissed him back just as firmly.
Enid had baked a wedding cake, of course--two, actually. One was placed outside, for the guests, and one carried up to the attic, for the mice. Some things transcend tradition.
It was a good day, and like all good days, the details didn’t matter as much as the picture when viewed from afar, like the memory of life’s one perfect summer. The bride was beautiful, for all that she was married in green, and the groom was besotted, and the baby had the good grace not to arrive while they were having their first dance.
It was a good day.
That night, Fran and Jonathan lay curled together in the bed that was finally theirs, not his, their wedding rings strange and new on their hands. Jonathan buried his face in her hair, breathing in the smell of flowers, fried sugar, and sunlight, and felt the last of the tension starting to leave his back. They had survived their wedding day. Whatever might be ahead of them, they would face it together, now and always.
“Johnny?” mumbled Fran sleepily.
“Yes, dear?” he asked.
“You still glad you went to Arizona?”
Jonathan paused, trying to imagine a lifetime where he’d done anything else. He had an excellent imagination. Shuddering, he pulled himself closer to h
is wife, and said, with all sincerity, “You have no idea.”
Fran laughed, and rolled over just long enough to kiss him. Then, finally, the two of them stopped talking and drifted off to sleep, soothed by the faint sound of squirrel-skull drums being pounded in the attic overhead.
Not every story can have a happy ending, especially not in the strange space where the known and the unknown are forced to forge alliances.
Leave this story be.
Married in Green Page 3