“Well, then we’re good.”
I sat back on the park bench. An owl was hooting in the distance.
“Really?” I asked.
“Really,” Eddie said. “Actually, I kinda hoped something like this would happen. I mean. I knew you guys knew each other a while back. I was hoping you could get something going, take some of the pressure off me.”
“I didn’t know I knew her,” Vic said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I don’t know. You mentioned it a few decades back.”
“Umm, I’m not even thirty yet,” I said.
“I know. I thought it was weird at the time, too. I guess time and distance are only so much when it comes to love, right?”
“You’re being way more open-minded about this than I thought you’d be,” Vic said.
“Look, you called dibs on her half a century back. You told me how we’d meet. You said she was special, to protect her, that she’d be a good girlfriend to me. I don’t remember half of it, but if it weren’t for you, none of her and I would have happened.”
“My brain hurts,” I said.
“Mine too,” Vic said.
“Yeah, mine’s been hurting for a while,” Eddie said. “We should probably coordinate schedules. Less confusion for everyone, am I right?”
“Like they’re work shifts,” I said.
I laughed because I wasn’t sure what else to do.
Chapter 13
That night, I dreamed. I dreamed that I was an ancient heiress, standing on a tall ivory parapet overlooking a vast woodland. A lake shimmered in the distance. There were four vast towers in each direction I cast my eyes, and the sky was an ethereal azure.
Two of the beacons had been lit. One flickered with a purple flame the other a crimson. And in my heart of hearts, I knew that something was starting again.
“You see it, don’t you?” an old woman said, at my elbow. “The beacons. You are attracting more attention.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You know what this means, don’t you?”
“No. I think that’s half the fun of it,” I said.
“You are young, and yet you still must feel the power flowing within and about you. Tell me. Look up at the sky. What do you see?”
“The moon,” I said.
It hung there, as pale as milk, buoyant stormy clouds frothing around it.
“Yes. Do you hear it calling to you?”
A slight whisper on the wind.
“Yes,” I replied.
“What is it saying?”
