Page 38 of The Folklore of Forever (Moonville #2)

Thirty-Eight

Run directly through one door and out another in the home, thrice before sunrise, and your True Love will have a lucky day.

Love Magic Misc., Tempest Family Grimoire

“You are glorious ,” Morgan murmurs to me in the early-morning light, staring into my eyes. “I could look at you forever.”

I slide a palm across his cheek. “Good morning. I’d like to get railed again.”

“So romantic.”

“ Bmm-bmm-bmm-bmm-bmm ,” adds a humongous bird, emitting a noise like a faraway beating drum, standing directly above us in the cave.

We scream. The bird seems to realize, Oh, right, I’d like to chase them . At least it waited until we woke up to attack us. What a well-mannered monster bird.

“It’s a pterodactyl!” Morgan yells, swinging both our backpacks over his shoulders and flying out of the cave, pushing me ahead of him. This leaves me with Forte, hollering in his baby sling.

I wrap my hair into a ponytail as I run. “How the hell is there a pterodactyl still in existence?”

“How the hell are there any of the things that we’ve found lately?”

“Fair point.”

It is too early for this news. I haven’t even stretched yet. One second I’m drooling on Morgan’s arm, and the next, I’m hurtling through the woods. The ground is soggy from last night’s rain, my boots slapping mud and slippery amber leaves.

“Is it still chasing us?” I look over my shoulder as the pterodactyl produces a sound that I can only describe as baritone purring . “Wait, that’s just an emu.”

“An emu?” Morgan picks up speed, his face blanched with wild panic. “I’m terrified of emus!”

“How are you more scared of an emu than a dinosaur?” I knife left. “This way!”

“I’ve been thinking.” His words are garbled. “I want a property.”

“Property?” I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I can’t hear you.”

“I’VE BEEN THINKING. I WANT TO TAKE YOU ON A PROPER DATE.”

“Morgan, we’re being chased by an emu.” I dart right. “This way. Down that hill.”

“This is the optimal time to plan a date. Endorphins, running for our lives. Careful of that ditch there.”

“I don’t think this qualifies as running for our lives. It’s a bird.”

“Clearly you do not have an uncle with a pet emu named Gregory Peck, who tried to eat you when you were only an innocent, appetizing toddler.”

Four figures tear out of the trees, hollering in surprise when they collide with us. “Run!” they yell.

Morgan and I stop, face-to-face with Luna, Romina, Alex, and Trevor. They’re sweaty, red-faced, wide-eyed. Trevor’s got a camo bandannna tied around his forehead. “We’re already running!” I say. “What are you doing here?”

Luna yanks my arm. “Run in the other direction!”

“But.” I point. “Emu.”

She points, too. “Bear.” We all tangle together in a chaotic herd as we lunge toward a now-terrified emu, who jumps out of our way.

“Right. Bear.” Morgan nods, speeding ahead. “Bear is worse.”

We’re hit with an epiphany at the same moment, stumbling. We grab each other. “ Bear? ”

I tear off in the direction of the bear. Romina shouts at the top of her voice at me that I’m going the wrong way. Morgan races at my side.

“The Black Bear Witch!” I exclaim. “We’re going to find her, Morgan.”

“Yes! We are .”

The bear could be anywhere. I keep an ear out for signs of wildlife, but my internal radio only picks up a story I’ve never heard before. Never written before.

…a graveyard so ancient that all of its tombstones had long crumbled away like rotten teeth. A house stood upon the hill now, and nobody who lived in it had any notion of how many bodies were buried beneath them.

Downhill the earth rumbled, a hand reaching through dirt to grasp at air. Rain poured down pale fingers; the ground shook again and a man’s dark head of hair pushed through. His sole consuming thought was that it did not matter how deep they buried him, or where—he would find her. Nothing mattered except for spearing himself on the sharp gaze of his beloved once again.

“Later,” I promise the forest. “I’ll write it all down later, I’ll write everything you want so long as you keep feeding me stories. But right now, I’m looking for a witch.”

Where do we go now? I close my eyes. Which way? I echo this question down the chain of my magic. The words reverberate as if spreading through deep space, and I feel an intrinsic pull to my left.

I turn us.

The magic tugs left again.

“This way.”

And then we see it—a large, lumbering shape, unmistakably a bear, but—

But the magic doesn’t stop. It keeps tugging leftward, insistent. I already found the bear! You can leave me alone now.

The magic shimmers. This way, this way.

Morgan and I revolve in circles, but no matter which way we’re pointing, magic keeps demanding me to go…

I look left, into Morgan’s face. Realization hits.

“Are you all right?” he asks, brow furrowed in concern.

Love magic , Grandma once said, hangs in Moonville’s trees, swims in our rivers. A romantic love grown in Moonville is stronger than anywhere else, and if you’re here in near proximity to your One True Love, magic will physically redirect your paths so that they continue to cross. It will make your love burn forever, as bright and true in your fiftieth year together as it did your first.

“It’s you,” I whisper.

Morgan cups my face in his hands. “Zelda, you’re scaring me. Why are you looking at me like that?”

Him , magic thrums, urging me closer. I follow the sunlit path, and Morgan opens his arms to let me in.

Magic takes me to Morgan. He is my Where do we go now?

He is my Which way?

“I think…” My heart thunders, head spinning. “I think I love you.”

His arms slowly drop to his sides, stunned as if I’ve struck him. “Well, Zelda, I love you right back.”

I want to say Are you serious? Do you mean it?

But I don’t. I wouldn’t dare question his sincerity, because of course he means it. Whereas I have resting murder face, Morgan has resting I’m-in-love-with-you face. This man is impossible. Frustrating. Overwhelming, at times. But my heart still points to his and sings, “ That one. ”

I move to kiss him, but his gaze shoots over my shoulder and widens. “Look.”

Hidden behind a drapery of ivy is the mouth of a cave. Leading up to it are soft imprints in the mud. Bear tracks.

“This must be her lair!” I loud-whisper. “We did it!”

He jumps up and down, joyful but endeavoring to keep it quiet. “It’s happening. It’s actually happening . I thought the cave and the lair were two separate places on the map? Guess we were wrong!”

I take a step toward the cave, but Morgan grips my shoulder. His fingers briefly tighten, then release. “Wait.”

I look to him in question.

“We’ve found the lair,” he tells me, stating the obvious. “You know what happens next.”

I jerk my chin toward the entrance. “Yeah. We go in.”

Morgan bites his lip. “She’ll make us forget everything to do with finding this place. How much memory will she scoop out? Does the erasure start the moment we see the lair, or the moment we’re at the lair?”

We fall quiet, calculating this.

“Because we’ve been at the lair for several minutes now without realizing it,” he continues. “She might make us forget that you said you love me.”

“I’ll tell you I love you again, after this,” I promise. “It’s inevitable, because that’s how I really feel. You will hear it again.”

I watch as an emotion rises within him and he steels himself against it, swallowing hard. “You can go in there if you want to, but I’m not. I won’t trade the first time my Zelda says she loves me for anything, not for all the magic in the universe. I want to remember this forever.”

My lashes clump together with hot tears. “You have to risk it, though. This is your chance. It’s everything you ever wanted.”

He shakes his head solemnly. “Not anymore. I’ve just gotten what I wanted most, and I’m keeping it.”

My heart dips and rises and dives. Hurricanes in circles. This man.

T I

ASH

NM

This mythical, marvelous, made-for-me man.

I suck in a deep breath. “You saying you love me right back is the best discovery I’m ever going to find out here,” I tell him. “I’m not giving that up, either.”

Morgan’s mouth presses together in a crooked half smile, and then that smile falls gently against mine. I open to him at once, melting.

He’s got a kiss that grabs you right by the lungs, but he doesn’t use that kiss here. This one is soft and lush. It feels like Isn’t this wonderful? Let’s never do anything else. All points of light in my periphery slide into holy crosses, and my whole body pounds, and I can’t stop thinking, How are you real?

“Did I tell you,” he murmurs, “that I got you a present? It’s back at my apartment.”

Now is hardly the time. I don’t care about presents.

Although…

“What is it?”

“A book about huldufólk, the hidden elves of Iceland.”

My grip on him tightens. “Really?”

“First edition, printed in 1908. It’s got illustrations and smells like a wood-burning stove.”

I sag in his arms. “Goodness. Hold me up, I’ve gone light-headed.”

He lays a kiss to my temple, a wicked grin in his voice. “Somebody who owned it in the 1930s used its title page to keep records of their family tree. It’s got tons of names and dates.”

Kill shot.

“You’ve finally done it,” I mutter woozily. “I’m seduced. You can have anything you want. I’ll find a dozen witches and steal all their magic for you.”

He laughs.

“After we get out of here, my stunning star,” Morgan tells me once I’ve regained my bearings, “I’m going to put on my finest breathable nylon tracksuit and let you sweep me off my feet, just as you’ve been dying to do.”

So we double back to find our friends and family, holding hands.

—

We haven’t been walking for six minutes when we collide with the others. “Why’d you run off?” Luna screeches, pink face sweaty.

“Because of the bear.” I point behind us, just like before when we were escaping an emu.

“Lion,” Trevor says casually, pointing in another direction.

“Lion!” we all scream, and run for our lives.

Morgan does not allow running for our lives to deter him from discussing our new romance. “So I was thinking, for our next date, we’ll go to Wheatberry Books in Chillicothe,” he says. “It’s about an hour’s drive, and if memory serves, there’s a candy shop, an ice cream shop, and a cake shop right around the corner. We’ll hit up all three, because I’m a classy guy who treats my lady right, and then get matching tattoos at the tattoo parlor on West Second Street.”

I process this while leaping over tree roots, dodging crevices. “Matching tattoos?”

“They don’t have to match. You can go first, and then whatever happens…happens.”

“Hang on.” Romina grasps my wrists, giving me a full-body shake. “You two are dating?”

“Yes,” Morgan replies quickly, before I can answer. “Our first date was at Dark Side of the Spoon. We shared a burger and apple pie. It was devastatingly romantic.”

“Awww,” Romina and Trevor cry.

I laugh. “That was my date with Dylan .”

Morgan raises his nose in the air. “I don’t remember anybody named Dylan. He sounds unnecessary in the greater scheme of things.” He lifts our joined hands, nuzzling a kiss over my skin.

Luna’s jaw is dragging behind us. “You and Morgan? Why didn’t you tell us? This is so against the code! Your sisters are supposed to be the first to know when you like a guy, so that we can tease you every time you’re in the same room. Winking, nudging, innuendos. It’s our right.”

“Yeah, you deserve it!” Romina piles on. “You teased me so bad about Alex.”

Oof. “Can we do this later? Talking while running is hard. Running at all is hard, especially without a sports bra. Two sports bras doubled up, in fact. Have you seen my chest?”

“Yes,” says Morgan, reverently.

My sisters cackle their heads off.

“Lion’s behind us again,” Trevor announces.

“I could pen sonnets,” Morgan tells me in an undertone so that the others won’t overhear. “I’m going to. I’ll make you listen to them, even if they’re bad. I won’t rest until I’ve got you naked in a hayride.”

I am not getting naked in a hayride, but now is not the time for that discussion.

“Is the lion injured?” Luna turns. “If he wanted to catch us, he certainly could.”

“Maybe he enjoys the thrill of the chase,” Alex suggests. “Going slow so that his prey thinks they have a hope of surviving.”

Trevor begins to estimate how many lions we could sustain. “There’s six of us,” he says. “That’s a feast.”

“Possibly seven,” Romina tacks on thoughtfully. “Is now a good time to tell everybody that my period’s a week late?”