—
Koshka and Ifollowed the footsteps past a few other cars parked on the beach, locals or tourists hoping to catch a rare October sunset unmarred by cloud cover. A few hundred yards down the wash, I spotted her standing at the edge of the ocean staring at the gray waves, your classic fictional heroine in emotional turmoil.
Elizabeth Bennet had gone Oregon native. She was wearing gray leggings, a white tank top, and a North Face backpack over a black rain jacket. Her thick chestnut hair was tied back in a decidedly un-Regency-like messy bun. Probably the first time in her buttoned-up, straitlaced, prissy, proper, rigidly ordered, ladylike life she’d ever even worn trousers.
Slowly, I approached her, smiling so she would know we meant her no harm. She stiffened slightly as I stopped by her side, but she didn’t make a run for it. I had a feeling she knew why I was there and had, in fact, been expecting me.
“I have that same jacket in red,” I said.
A slight smile crossed her face, but she said nothing.
“This is Koshka, and I’m Rainy March, Book Witch,” I said. “And yes, the name is a pun and a weather forecast. You’re probably wondering why I’m here…or not?”
She sighed the gentlest of sighs as she gazed out on waters she’d never seen before and would certainly never see again.
“Look, if it’s cold feet,” I said, “I get it. Marriage is a big commitment. But you need to get back into your book, all right? Books without heroes wither and die, and you probably noticed while you were at Powell’s, your book is pretty popular.”
“Me? A hero?”
“You don’t know you’re a hero? When Mr. Darcy proposed to you the first time, what was he offering you?”
“Marriage,” she said in her elegant English accent.
“More than that. Marriage to Darcy meant money and power and status. And what does everyone in the world want? Money. Power. Status. But Mr. Darcy was incredibly rude to you, rude to your entire family, and even broke up Jane and Mr. Bingley. You picked loyalty to your sister over money, power, and status. That was an act of true heroism and decency. And the world needs books about heroism and decency right now.”
Waves rolled in, waves rolled out. She watched the ocean as if it had the answers she sought, and if she kept her vigil long enough, it would whisper them to her through the music of the wind and the water.
“Your book helps people,” I said. “Your book helped me.”
She glanced my way a moment, surprise in her fine, dark eyes, before turning back to the water.
I continued, “For a few months…I dated a duke.”
She looked at me again, her lips parted in shock.
“Yeah, I knew that would get a reaction,” I said. “But Duke—that’s what I call him—he’s not a real duke. Wait, no, he is a real duke. He’s not a realperson.He’s fictional, like you. And fictional characters and real people can’t be together, no matter how badly we want to be. If he left his book series, his books would die. If I moved into his books…Well, I can’t. It’s against the rules. If we were in a romance novel, our trope would be forbidden love. We tried to make it work, of course. I’d sneak him out of his books for a few stolen hours. Then several days later, I’d hop into his books for a few more stolen hours. This went on for a year. A perfect, painful, beautiful, agonizing year.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“I stayed a little too long in one of his books,” I said, “and the story started to change. Suddenly I showed up in a sentence. One sentence but it was a real doozy of a sentence.”
And that doozy of a sentence?
Rainy March had the sort of face that made a man square his shoulders, straighten his tie, and see that his affairs were in order, because he’d either marry her or die trying.
“When I came back to the real world,” I told Elizabeth Bennet, “my boss was waiting for me. I was caught. She reminded me, in nouncertain terms, that if I didn’t end things with Duke, I was risking permanent damage to his book series. I had to choose between him and his stories. As much as I wanted to be with him, I knew I had to do the right thing and end it. And there are a lot of perks to being married to a duke.”
“I should think so,” Elizabeth said.
“When I broke up with Duke, I thought about you turning down Darcy’s first proposal. I thought if you could do it, I could do it.”
“I said yes the second time,” she reminded me.
“True, but by then Darcy had learned his lesson, cleaned up his act, and proven himself worthy of you.”
“He had, yes,” she said with a little grin. “But you see…yesterday I met a young woman with violet hair. And tattoos like a sailor.”
“That’s Portland for you,” I said.
