“I’m not alone,” Lydia said defiantly, as if she wanted to fight with the world. “I have Theodore and Annabelle.”
“That’s right. You do.”
The silence just hung there.
Finally Lydia spoke. “Who did you have left?”
“My father and my uncles.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
Margaret shook her head.
“Oh.” Lydia pulled an orchid from a nearby stem and absently twisted it in her hand. After a moment, she began to pluck off the thick pink petals, letting them drift to the jungle floor. “Did they know you were scared?”
“I don’t know. It must have been difficult for my dad. He had to worry about me when he was still grieving himself.”
“Did he cry for her?”
“I think so.”
“Did you cry?”
“Yes. Sometimes I still do.”
“You do?” She sounded surprised at that. “How old were you when she died?”
“Seven.” Margaret looked off at the flowers around them. “Too young to remember very much about her and too old to forget she had been there.”
“I’ll always remember them,” Lydia said with quiet fierceness. “Always.”
And Margaret sat there, a little raw and open herself. In trying to make Lydia see a pathway out of her grief, she understood the path her own had taken—the knowledge that the memories were still there soothing the loss after time. A dead parent was never truly gone because they lived forever in your memory.
She looked at Lydia as something kindred passed between them. “Yes,” she said with a quiet certitude. “You always will remember.”
19
“Let me see if I have this straight. You want me to hold hands with a guy in earrings, purple pants, and toe bells, then fly around in a cloud of smoke and shrink so I can fit inside this bottle?”
Muddy kept a straight face, but it wasn’t easy. Hank was making his mastership more interesting than most.
“I don’t know what else we can do.” Margaret threw up her hands and watched Hank pace. “Theodore won’t come out.”
Hank ran a hand through his hair and turned, winced once, then slowly began to walk a new path, favoring one leg.
Margaret frowned at Hank. “Are you hurt?”
He stopped suddenly and pivoted with the rigid motion of a German soldier. He gave her a black look. “No.”
“Then why are you limping?”
His look turned incendiary and shifted to the goat, gnawing on some grass behind Margaret. Lydia stood over the animal, stroking it like one stroked a pet cat. “I’m just stiff,” he barked, then glared at all of them, his expression warning them to drop the subject.
Not that Muddy was foolish enough to bring it up. He had survived for two thousand years, after all. Besides which, Hank could barely look at him without getting a wild look in his eyes that warned Muddy to stay away.
“Hank, we need to find out why Theodore refuses to come out of the bottle. He told the genie he wants you. You have to go into the bottle with Muddy. The only way to do that is to take hold of his hand.”
“If you’re lying, chump, it’ll be your last lie.” Hank gave him a hard stare.
