I laughed.
“Thanks again,” I said. “For everything. Literally everything.”
“It’s been a pleasure working with you,” she said.
She raised her hand and waved at me. I waved back. It did seem to work. I was encouraged, and I think she was too.
“Tell Anthony…Well, you know what to tell Anthony,” she said, and in her last moments, she imparted into my mind and heart exactly the words she wanted me to say when the time came.
“Got it,” I said. “Bye, Maxine.”
A standing mirror suddenly appeared at Maxine’s side. A bright and beckoning light poured from it. “Here we go,” she said, “the next chapter.”
She stepped through the mirror and was gone.
And for the second time that day…
—
…Rainy March fellthrough a looking-glass.
Book Four
NONFICTION
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rainy stepped through the mirror into a women’s restroom and immediately slipped on the recently mopped floor, landing hard on her hands and knees.
“Shit,” she said, then slapped her hand over her mouth. Had she sworn out loud? Why did that feel so strange to her? Surely she’d cursed before. Or had she? Had Maxine simply written “Rainy swore” in her books without ever actually letting her say the words?
“Shit,” she said again, marveling at the feeling of relief that washed over her. “Curses! Damn the torpedoes! What the hecking hell? Oh, thisisfun.”
She got to her feet before someone walked in and found her on the floor swearing at nothing and cackling. Luckily, no bones were broken, but the palms of her hands stung like fire, and her knees were definitely bruised. She waited for the pain to disappear, but it didn’t. It subsided to a dull ache, but even after she washed her hands in soothing cold water, the pain wasn’t quite gone.
What had Duke said the first time they’d met? When he learned he was fictional?
If I get shot—which I do more than I should, I think—I tend to heal completely by my next case.
She’d been thrown from runaway carriages, stabbed in sword fights, blasted by alien lasers, and had gone back to work the very next day.Other than her burn scar that she wore like a badge of honor, all her other injuries healed almost immediately.
But not here.
Life, she was quickly learning,hurt.
Her poor umbrella was already broken. Well, not broken but bent. Rainy had landed on it hard enough that two of its metal ribs were twisted sideways. That had also never happened before.
Actions had consequences here.
“Well, damn, darn, and blast,” she said, “I don’t like thisat all.”
Bruised knees and a broken umbrella aside, Rainy had a mission, and she needed to complete it before she got herself killed.
After a steadying breath, she peered deep into the mirror, first to see if she could see the Hall of Mirrors behind the glass—she couldn’t—and then to see if she looked like herself—she did.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. Maybe if she were real, she’d look different. More vibrant somehow? Taller? Stronger? But no, her own face and body greeted her.
Same dark hair. Same gray eyes. Same nose and lips. And her clothes, too, were her usual uniform of black leggings, black-and-white striped sweater, and rain boots.
