Following the rivers of twinkling lights, we stopped at one side of the door. Jean kissed me on the cheek. “No crying.”
Myra kissed me on the other cheek. “Your vows are in your pocket.”
Then Odin was there. “Blessings, child.” He kissed my forehead before taking Jean’s arm, wrapping his other around her so she didn’t have to take her crutch.
Then Crow was there. “Blessings, Boo-boo.” He kissed my temple and took Myra’s arm.
There was music, I thought there had always been music, but now I heard it, a sweet orchestral quartet that paused. Voices hushed.
New music began.
Jean and Odin stepped through the door.
Myra and Crow stepped through the door.
There was a hand at my elbow, encouraging me forward. I thought it was Bertie, but when I looked, she was gone. Only a twinkling of light and flowers surrounded me.
I floated.
The music changed, or maybe it just flowed, like a river of lights, note after note rising and tumbling, creating song out of joy.
Everyone stood, and it was endless, a sea of friends, an ocean of family spread out in a room that was twice as large as I remembered. Impossibly, three times. A room transformed.
It was no longer a gymnasium. In the back of my mind, where logic might still be working, I knew it was magic. A lot of magic.
The walls were gone, and instead, the shores of Ordinary spread out from sand to horizon. The sky was blue, soft, a few white clouds towering like castles in the sky. Sunlight glittered against waves, turning the curl and bow of rushing water into emerald, jade, turquoise, laced white with foam.
There were people on the beach I could see through the magic, which was probably explained as technology, some kind of new virtual reality thing, people of my town on the beach, all of them holding single flowers. They watched a big screen set in the sand showing a beautiful room, a beautiful wedding.
This room.
This wedding.
Everything else was swathed with green boughs and lights that flitted, as if butterflies or fairies were dancing in the green.
Flowers and ribbons wove up and up to the ceiling which was draped in huge gauzy canopies where the blue sky somehow flowed, shifting in the gentle sea breeze.
Magic. Some of the decorations were solid, real, but augmented with very subtle magic.
“Gnice gnuptials,” a muffled little voice said from my pocket.
Part of me wondered if I should deal with that, but then there was a gentle pressure at my elbow again, bringing me back to the ground just long enough to know I had paused there in the doorway.
Everyone was watching me, they all held single flowers too. I recognized their faces, people I loved, but then the song lifted, and the light shifted, sunlight falling golden on one person. One man.
He wore a deep charcoal jacket and slacks, cut to fit his powerful body, his wide shoulders, his trim waist. Under the jacket was a white shirt, a jade vest the color of the curling waves, with what I thought was a golden pocket watch chain, and a dark bow tie.
His shoes were black and shiny.
I knew Crow stood, dressed in a lighter gray suit behind him. I knew Odin wore a lighter suit behind Crow. I knew Myra and Jean stood across from the men, both my sisters glowing like flowers.
With me in white, we looked like the ocean, like the water and waves and flowers and sand and sky that made this place what it was. I didn’t know if Ryder had done that on purpose, didn’t know if Bertie had somehow picked up on that lovely echo, but it was there.
Ordinary, the magic of it, the beauty of it, in all of us.
But that thought was only a second. Fleeting.
Because all I could see, the only reason my heart was beating, was the man who stood, with stars in his eyes, at the altar at the end of the room.
