My heart started beating and I felt my mind buckle under the weight of being mortal.
May placed one hand over Lila's heart. Debbie rested hers gently over her stomach. There was no light or sound, just warmth, spreading out from their hands like sunrise after a winter that had gone on too long.
Lila inhaled deeply.
Her eyes opened, confused and slow, blinking against the morning light, and she looked up at my face and said, "Az?"
I laughed. I had not expected to, but it came out anyway, broken and wet and entirely beyond my control, and I pulled her into my arms and held her with hands that were shaking and mortal and completely unable to do anything except hold on.
"You're here," I said.
She cupped my face and stopped. Her fingers moved to where my horns had been.
"Your horns," she said.
"Gone."
She frowned. "Did I miss something?"
Debbie snorted behind us. "Girl. You missed a whole lot."
Lila sat up slowly, still holding my hand, and looked between Debbie and May with the expression of someone assembling a very large and complicated puzzle.
"Who are you?" she asked suspiciously.
"Still Debbie," Debbie said.
"Still May," May said.
Debbie looked around the destroyed yard with her hands on her hips, taking in the blackened grass and the broken stones and the collapsed flower beds with the pragmatic assessment of someone calculating repair costs.
"Well," she said. "That's going to be expensive."
She looked at May. "Guess I'll see you Monday."
May nodded. "Bright and early."
Lila blinked. "Monday?"
Debbie looked at her like she had said something genuinely bewildering. "Girl. I still got bills."
May shrugged. "The Divine doesn't cover my mortgage."
Debbie was already walking toward the gate. She stopped once and looked back at me over her shoulder.
"Oh. One more thing." She pointed at me. "Humans bruise. Stretch before you lift anything."
May smiled at us both.
"Congratulations," she said simply.
They walked out through the garden gate, two women headed home after helping the neighbors, and the morning closed quietly behind them.
Weeks later,the backyard was alive again.
The flowers had come back first, stubbornly and without any particular encouragement, pushing up through the turned earth in the places where the stone circle had been. I had helped them along, planting roses where the stones had stood, working in the dirt with my mortal hands that bruised now and got cold now and got tired now, and found that I did not mind any of it even slightly.
Lila stepped onto the porch on a Tuesday morning with one hand resting over the gentle curve of her stomach and her coffee in the other, and she watched me work for a moment before she said anything.
