Champagne flutes, a dozen of them or more, sat on the tables around us. A roar came from close by—music and the stomping of feet that caused the whole house to subtly vibrate.
Next to me, Duke raised his head, blinking like a man waking from either a very long nap or a very brief coma. As soon as his eyes focused, he jumped to his feet and surveyed the room.
“We’re here,” he breathed. “We made it. Look at that wallpaper.” Duke rubbed his hand along the walls. “It feels like…like wallpaper. Gatsby’s wallpaper. Rainy, my love, I have missed this.”
“You missed going on adventures with me?” I asked. Back before we broke up, Duke had accompanied me on several of my assignments.
“I missed going anywhere with you,” he said, smiling. “And the boy, of course. Wait, where’s our boy?”
I glanced around. “I’m going to have to put a bell on that cat if he doesn’t learn to stay close.”
“Anybody missing a pussy?” someone shouted from the next room over.
A man’s voice called back, “Not me! I got too many already!”
“I think we know where Koshka is,” Duke said. He gave a wolf whistle. In seconds a gray streak sped into the room and jumped on the sofa next to me.
“How many times have I told you not to wander off?” I scolded Koshka, pointing my finger at his nose. He licked my fingertip, which was not an apology. “Now, carefully…sneak out of here and find the library. Report back immediately. Go.”
Koshka went into recon mode, tail down, belly close to the ground, as he slinked from the room.
“Shouldn’t take him long,” I said. “He can sniff out a book from a mile away. We better move my umbrella somewhere safe.”
As long as the umbrella stayed open, we could mostly stay hidden in the book.
“Here we go,” Duke said. My umbrella hovered like a bee in the corner of the room. Duke took the handle and hung it upside-down from the chandelier. “A magic umbrella is probably the least bizarre thing ever to hang from this chandelier.”
A young girl dressed in a servant’s uniform entered the room with a tray of champagne. “Anything for you two dolls?” she asked with a flirtatious smile at Duke.
He took a glass of champagne and gave the girl a little salute.
“None for me,” I said. “I’ve had enough.”
She glanced at the empty glasses. “Save some for the rest of us, kitten.”
With a little kick of her heels, she shimmied out of the room.
“Can anyone walk normally here?” I asked. Then I looked at Duke. “Don’t drink that.”
“Not even a sip?”
“You might be stuck here forever. We’re playing by fairyland rules.”
“Hate to waste good champagne, but better safe than eternallytrapped in a tragedy.” He poured the champagne out the window. “Rainy, come here.”
“What is it?” I joined him by the window. He pointed to a green light on a dock across the bay.
InThe Great Gatsby,that green light on the dock belongs to Daisy Buchanan, with whom Jay Gatsby had a brief relationship years earlier. Although she is married and has a child, he’s determined to win her heart back and so buys the house across the water from her and throws wild parties hoping against hope that one night, she’ll show up, and they can find their old happiness again.
A foolish fantasy that ends in disillusionment and blood, but still, I felt something stir in my own heart when I looked out at the dock.
“The fabled green light,” Duke said. “I can’t believe I’m seeing it with my own eyes. No wonder you love your job.”
“Everyone who ever read this book has pictured that green light in their minds,” I said. Everyone has their own light that’s just out of reach, the thing they long for, strive for, row toward even as the current pulls them away from it.”
“What’s your green light?” Duke asked.
“Being as good a Book Witch as my mother was, no matter the cost.”
