by Dawn Metcalf
“And have an art gallery showing and get higher than kites,” Joy said. “They would have loved that.”
Luiz started crying. “Now you get it, Cabana Girl.” Antony hugged her next, stoic and solemn, then Tuan, who clung to her and openly sobbed, but it was Nikolai who brought out the laughing tears, because Ilhami was right—he did smell like beans.
One by one, the Cabana Boys melted into the throng.
“Joy,” Ink said, accepting her back into his arms. “I am sorry.”
“It’s done,” Joy whispered. “It’s over.”
“Not quite,” Ink said, tugging her closer. “I must now give you back what you have given me.”
A sudden fear crept over her. What is he saying? Is he leaving? Am I losing him now? Joy blinked back startled tears. Her fingers tightened in his sleeves.
“I—” she began, and swallowed, mouth gone dry. “I don’t—”
He smiled, both dimples. “You gave me your heart,” he said slowly, shyly, drawing his fingers down the silver wallet chain, back to the trifold wallet in his pocket. He lifted out the silver quill, its every fletching etched delicately by hand. Tilting the point above his heart, he swept it expertly in a graceful design—a looping circlet with a hook at its center, a pictograph in profile: a flame-winged bird taking flight. Joy recognized it instantly. My signatura. My True Name. He slipped his hand through the sigil, passing from one plane to the next, and drew an object out of thin air, placing it in her hand. “I kept it safe for you.”
The wax simulacrum was warm to the touch. Joy stared at its brown hair and the red bump at its heart. She almost said, How? but then remembered Monica stuffing it in the ouroboros box, her birthday present from Ink—their private way of sending each other letters full of I love you and I miss you, exchanging distant secrets across time and space.
It had sent him her heart. And he’d kept it safe.
Ink’s fingers traced the tiny face, the curl of hair, and the tiny red flower bud waiting to bloom.
“You!” Briarhook’s snarled. Joy jerked in Ink’s arms. The fetid hedgehog stood in his tattered rags and dirty chest plate, bits of leaf and mulch sticking to the ends of his quills. He squinted piggy eyes at her and curled his lip from rotted teeth. “Have business, you, I. Promised you. Know this promise, mine!”
Joy could feel the nearness of the Cabana Boys and Monica, Dmitri and Stef, and Ink steady at her side. Inq slipped through the masses, the Folk parting to make way, and behind her, Kurt, her lover, followed carrying an iron box. He presented it formally to Joy. It felt lighter than ever. Briarhook hissed, drooling, his quills quivering as he watched it exchange hands.
She knew what she had to do. The nightmares were over.
“You’re right,” she said. “I understand.” And she did. “I know what it is to be without a heart.” She offered him the box. “Take it. It’s yours.”
He hunched back, wary, sensing a trap. “My heart—?”
“Yes.”
“Price, you?”
“No,” Joy said. “I give it to you, willingly.” Her arms shook slightly. The box wasn’t that light, and Briarhook was still scary. “Let us finish this between us.”
Briarhook snatched the box greedily in both hands. Flipping the lid, he grabbed the last morsel of his heart and stuffed it into his cheeks, barely chewing, gobbling, swallowing it down. His eyes closed for a moment. Joy waited, patient, tense. His body shuddered and he stood a little straighter. He no longer looked quite as grubby, quite as pallid, quite as ill. His eyes opened slowly. Wiping his sticky hand across his belly, he smiled.
“Ah. Promised you, I,” he said, coyly. “When my heart, mine, then you die slow.”
Several weapons appeared as their small circle tightened around Joy. Ink shoved the wax doll into her hands, the jagged razor reappearing with a flick of his wrist. The hedgehog glanced at them, past them, then around the joyous chorus of the Imminent Return. He shuffled forward, raising one hand, spreading his claws like an umbrella; a strange heat blossomed, stirring the thing in her hands. Joy felt something wriggle beneath her thumb.
Then, all at once, her doll’s heart bloomed.
Joy gasped. The tiny flower had pushed itself out of the wax and opened. She pressed her palm against an answering thud in her chest. Joy inhaled like she’d been underwater, her cheeks flushing with heat, her eyes sparkling, her ears pounding: Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump!
“I can feel it!” she said, tears spilling out her eyes. She grabbed Ink and pulled Monica close. She felt both of them laughing. “I can feel you! I can feel my heart!”
Ink pressed her to him, smiling. “Now you know what it is to feel Joy!”
Briarhook gave a dismissive sneeze and swatted the air with his claw. “Is done. Promised you, I.” He scratched at his snout. “Die, you, old age,” he muttered. “Mortal death, eh? You die slow.” Hunching, turning away, he curled into a tight, prickly ball. Briarhook rolled past the others and crawled into the briar bush, melting among the thorns, and vanished with a rattle of quills.
Joy stumbled on her feet. She could breathe again! She could breathe!
“Well, now, that one certainly knows how to play his cards!” Filly quipped, stepping up with a clatter of finger bones. She grasped Joy’s forearm, giving an extra squeeze. “Well played, indeed!”
“Well played, yourself,” Joy said. “Ink scared me to death when he said that Kurt was dead. I wasn’t sure if he meant the glamour or you!” Kurt nodded politely. Filly laughed.
“Oh, I’m fine,” the Valkyrie said with a wink. “No worse for wear after walking around looking like this ugly brute.” She cocked a thumb at Kurt, who didn’t even flinch. Filly’s face split in a slit-eyed grin. “I wonder how much fun I’ll have with a glamour that looks like you?”
Kurt smiled. It was scary. Inq chuckled.
Oh boy.
The King and Queen raised their arms, their long hair fanning behind them like wings. Ink and Joy turned with everyone else to hear their twined voices, crisp and sharp and clear as a sword cleaving the sky:
“And so it has come to pass that all those gathered here bear witness to the miracle of an ending, the joy of reunion, the chance of rebirth—” and Joy might have imagined their ancient gazes seeking her out, smiling in Ink’s arms “—as has been prophesied, the Old Worlds of Man and Folk have been destroyed—they are divided no more. That Age is past, its blemish gone. Now our futures shall be forever entwined, for today begins a new era, a new magic, a new Age. Together, we shall explore our world and its wonders, discovering what our children and our children’s children can dream beyond imagining.”
Their faces were rapturous, their voices raised in song:
“Behold the Age of Miracles!”
EPILOGUE
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND,” Shelley said as she took the roast out of the oven. “Where is all this coming from?”
“Joy decided she wants to major in Governmental Law at Georgetown,” Dad said with a shrug. “She says she’s interested in diplomatic relations or something and qualifies for some obscure scholarship, so who am I to argue?” He tossed the roasted Brussels sprouts and grabbed the pepper. “She’s excited about it, and I’m just glad she’s made a choice.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Shelley said, setting napkins around the table. “Has anyone heard from Stef since he got back?”
“He lost his housing placement,” Joy said. “But he and Dmitri found an apartment off campus.” Ink ha
nded her cups and she poured the lemon water. He was mesmerized by the cascade patterns splashing against the glass. “They said we can come visit once they’re settled in.”
“We just got back from traveling,” Dad said, sitting down. “And now this trip to California?” He speared a sprout with his fork. “Some of us still have to work around here.”
“Hey,” Joy said, pointing at herself. “Paid internship girl.”
Ink sat down and passed the potatoes like a pro. “She is doing very well in her new position,” he said with a smile. “She is already indispensable.”
Dad smiled, “That’s my girl.”
Joy laughed and Ink took her hand under the table, threading their fingers together. She leaned forward and kissed him full on the lips. Her heart pounded happily.
Ink caught her sleeve, tugging her closer. “Again, please.”
She kissed him again—an everyday miracle.
And he tasted like rain.
* * * * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS IS IT—the end of my very first series, my own Age of Miracles. Thanks, as always, to my editor, Natashya Wilson, for allowing me to share my journey through the winding, wonderful world of the Twixt, my agent, Sarah Davies, for wisdom and support, and everyone in my life who volunteered to help keep me sane as I struggled to keep track of just how many characters, plots, subplots, red herrings and loose threads I’d written over the course of three books, including Jenny Bannock, Nicole Boucher, Maurissa Guibord, Shari Metcalf and Kate Smith. My wall of Skittle-colored Post-its would be lost without you!
Deep, sweeping bows and heaps of roses for the Harlequin TEEN Dream Team who made the dream of the Twixt a reality (on paper, ebook and audiobook!)—kudos to Shara Alexander, Evan Brown, Bryn Collier, Ingrid Dolan, Kristin Errico, T. S. Ferguson, Amy Jones, Siena Koncsol, Margaret Marbury, Ashley McCallan, Suzanne Mitchell, Bradley Myles, Kathleen Oudit, Reka Rubin, Anne Sharpe, Mary Sheldon, Lauren Smulski, and Anna Baggaley of the UK Mira Ink team.
Finally, to the people who made all of my dreams come true from infancy to parenthood and whatever passes for adulthood these days: my parents, Holly and Barry, who filled my life with love and words and play, my other parents, Marilyn and Harold, who always support their crazy daughter-in-law with laughter and open arms, my siblings by birth and marriage, Corrie (Crunchy Parent), Richard (Suave Sir), Adam (Music Man), Michelle (Awesome Aussie), David (Gamer Mensch) and Shari (Riddle-Me-Miss) and to Jonathan, my beloved partner-in-crime in the starched pajamas who whacks people with pool noodles for a living and whom I love beyond words—thank you for your patience, your humor, your support and love...and for not whacking me with a pool noodle while I was busy typing. And, of course, to my two greatest contributions to the world: Maestro and The Pigtailed Overlord—I am so proud of who you are and who you’ve been and who you are becoming; I love you more and more each day! (And thank you, my darling daughter, for being old enough to be my very first, very best beta reader!)
And to all of you who have read this saga from beginning to end—my crazy only exists inside my head until I write it down, and then you read it, and now it exists inside your head! Treat it well. Pay it forward. Eat more chocolate. And thank you.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
WHEN I’VE BEEN asked what inspired the Twixt, I remember Richard Peck saying of book ideas, “As if we can’t think of them ourselves?” And although I’d love to claim credit for the whole kit ’n’ kaboodle, I’m a big believer that the best ideas are cocreated, inclusive and influenced by the brilliant, creative, insightful and oddly weird and wonderful people who share our little blue planet. So, bottom line—there are lots of things that inspired the Twixt.
The idea for the books themselves began with a rant, which seems to be where I get a lot of fuel for my fires. I had been getting a little tired of the glut of stories that featured an immortal guy falling for a sixteen-year-old girl and sweeping her off her feet to “show her the way to love.” (Cue eye-roll here.) I thought, “Why not flip it?” I remembered how much I loved my literary crush, Peter Pan, and later Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands and Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black. Wild, boyish and innocent, these otherworldly heartthrobs were clueless, cocky and a little bit dangerous. There was something sorta sexy about the mysterious, guileless guy with both power and principles who wore his heart on his sleeve! These were the first seeds of Indelible Ink. (And, of course, I flipped every single one of them to create his sisterly foil, Invisible Inq.)
I named my main character “Joy” because, while she’d been through a lot, at her core she was a happy person who was gleefully expressive. I wanted her to be very physical, and aware of herself, someone who belonged to something bigger—a group that she’d lost along with her mother—and have that be a huge part of her identity. Her journey back to that place of happiness is a return to who she truly is, as well as a decision about who she’d like to be—as always, it’s a choice. Additionally, as Wendy to Ink’s Peter Pan, I wanted Joy to know the difference between “a thimble and a kiss” so she wasn’t as innocent as some of those other clueless characters out there. I think of Joy as being like a lot of real girls; someone who knows something about herself before she goes looking for another person to tell her. And I hope that the whole prude/slut dichotomy burns a horrible, fiery death.
As for, “Why gymnastics?” I’d had experiences being on a sports team with soccer and basketball, skating and martial arts, but I decided to give Joy something different so she didn’t come off as too “Buffy” aka “every other paranormal heroine on TV who just happens to know kung fu.” I spoke with a lot of young gymnasts, instructors and an Olympics-level coach in Australia who helped me translate Joy’s world into something I wanted to use and Joy Malone sprang out of those initial conversations and multiple links on YouTube.
Most of the other characters were made up as I went along, coalescing out of the weird, twisted miasma of my brain; notable exceptions being Avery, who was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans; Filly, the youngest Valkyrie, whose bravado was heavily influenced by Zeetha of Girl Genius by Phil & Kaja Foglio; and the Bailiwick, Graus Claude—whose name sprang fully formed out of nowhere—who is an amalgam of an old RPG character, the voice of James Earl Jones and Baron Von Greenback from the British cartoon, Danger Mouse. (I never claimed these made sense, it’s just the way my mind works.)
The world of the Twixt is a collection of all the myths, legends and fairy tales I know and love; everywhere I thought magic might exist in the world was a part of it, strung together like an archipelago, inhabited by everything other-than-human so that everyone’s Other Thans had a toehold in truth. The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and the Emerald Isle’s “fair folk” coexisted on the same plane as Romanian vampires, Japanese Kodama, Danish mermaids, Hindu Rakshasa, Greek satyrs, Islamic djinn and ancient Egyptian gods—I wanted all of our stories from all over the world to conceivably originate from the Folk of the Twixt because this is everybody’s world, and therefore this is anybody’s story. For this series, I focused on one local chapter anchored in a place that had special meaning for the Folk, so I invented the Glen, a small patch of the sacred First Forest, that later became known in America as Glendale, North Carolina. (Apologies to all North Carolinians if I messed up the geography. I invented the entire city and all surrounding environs with the exception of Lake James State Park. Sorry, folks, there’s no Carousel. Pity.)
Nods and/or blame should be shared with early influences including, but not limited to, Jim Henson, Spider Robinson, Neil Gaiman, Joan D. Vinge, Connie Willis, William Gibson, Tim Burton, Wendy & Richard Pini, Phil & Kaja Foglio, Brian & Wendy Froud, Alan Moore, Nick Park, Cirque du Soleil, Monty Python, Guillermo del Toro Gómez, Hayao Miyazaki, and, of course, my parents, siblings and friends, which should come as no surprise to anyone.
If you loved Invincible, be sure to c
heck out all titles in the Twixt series by Dawn Metcalf!
Somewhere between reality and myth lies...The Twixt.
Indelible (Book One)
Invisible (Book Two)
Insidious (Book Three)
Invincible (Book Four)
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ISBN-13: 9781460399026
Invincible
Copyright © 2016 by Dawn Metcalf
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