en right here, in this town she thought she knew better than anybody.
First of all, she had to believe what two days ago she would have scoffed at. She decided this even before Jen insisted on rising from her chair with a grunt, shifting to a glorious phoenix glowing with its own golden light, and back again. Then she vanished from the terrace, reappeared in the kitchen door, then flickered back again—showing the effect of the Transfer Gate that had escaped from the mysterious Oracle Stone deep in a cliff next to the sea, and got itself bonded inside her.
Godiva admired the way Doris, Jen, and Bird talked with same calm conviction in eyes and voices that they talked about the weather, or made plans for dinner, or other ordinary things. The extraordinary had become ordinary for them. Or, if not ordinary, it was part of their view of how the world worked. Godiva trusted Doris, Bird, and Jen. So she would trust this new truth, even if it felt a little like getting into a vast pool a toe at a time.
Jen sat down and finished her coffee, saying, “I don’t know what gender my kid is, but I’m sure I’ve got a shifter bun in the oven, because the kid barely even wriggles when I shift, or walk through the Transfer Gate. And that thing used to goose me in the bones the first few times I used it.”
“Is that how you got pregnant in your fifties?” Godiva asked.
Jen grinned. “Can’t say for sure, except that it does happen, if menopause is still holding off. My midwife had a patient a couple years ago who was a year older than I when she discovered herself pregnant.” She laughed. Godiva could see that Jen was truly happy, a far cry from the quietly miserable widow of last year.
Godiva thumbed up the last crumbs of an insanely delicious apple-walnut-cinnamon fritter thing that Linette had been experimenting with (mental note: tell Linette two thumbs up) and thought about how her agent would demand a summary of the story synopsis. She said, “So basically, the Oracle Stone is actually empty, but everybody has to run around and pretend it isn’t until they catch this renegade red dragon, am I right?” she said.
“Right,” Jen stated, as Doris and Bird nodded.
“And shifters are rare in the world, but they tend to gather with others of their kind, which is why Joey has this secret army of student followers?”
Doris said, “It’s no different than you and the women you’ve been helping for years. You still talk to a lot of them, even though you no longer see them every day, right?”
Godiva thought about this, looking back to when she’d first arrived in town and began making friends. Yes—there was Cathy in the knitting group, and tough old Edna, who had been dancing in flapper gowns as a teen when Godiva was born. Edna lived in the retirement home overlooking the sea, as she had trouble getting around, but her mind was still sharp as a pin. She’d been one of the first Godiva had helped get out of a very nasty scam by a bunch of creeps preying on widows.
Over the years Godiva had helped women stuck in situations like her own, and finally not like hers at all, but who still needed help. In the early days Godiva had mostly offered a safe place to crash on her couch when women had nowhere to go. Then when she started researching her mysteries, she shared what she knew of police procedure, and who to talk to and who to avoid among local law enforcement. She’d shared contacts with pro bono lawyers, and real estate agents, and social services of various sorts who could help women who were not the victims of outright criminals, but still very much victims. And for the most part, she stayed in touch with these women—her own personal network.
“I see what it is,” she said after some thought. “It would be way off base to say this town is mainly old women, it’s just that I happen to know most of them. We communicate. So, it’s the same with the shifters? Play del Encanto is a typical town on the coast of California. It just happens to include shifters among its population, whereas San Clemente and San Diego and Huntington Beach, not so much. Am I right?”
Doris looked relieved. “That’s pretty much it.”
Godiva smiled back, but she was thinking: And there’s no place for me in that world. Of course, one could say that about anyplace. That much she’d come to understand with every move she’d made over her long life. So the question was, did she see herself trying to make a place for herself in this shifter world?
But she didn’t say that out loud. She knew these three women. They were loyal, and she could depend on their friendship. But in keeping the shifter secret from her, joining together in that secret one by one, they had expanded their loyalties to their men, and through them, into this other world. If she said something, they’d say Of course you’re welcome! But Godiva knew that to find a real answer, she was going to have to deal with her own situation, which still felt . . . off-balance.
Godiva blinked, trying to pull her thoughts to the present, and caught an exchanged look between the other three.
Then Jen said, “I take it Rigo explained his side of your history together? If you don’t want to talk about it, I get it.”
Godiva sighed. Either she told them everything—and she didn’t even know that yet—or kept it really short. “According to him, he made his first shift the day I told him about the kid. He scrammed, scared he’d zap me and the kid if our eyes met. And he tried to find me, but I’d moved, and then there was the whole post office thing, and letters that apparently vanished—both mine and Alejo’s. Which is still a mystery.”
And there it was, the reason she felt off-balance. Everything fit, except that long silence. She’d had post office boxes everywhere she’d lived, including here, until she bought the house. Not once had there been anything funky about the service.
She knew she was going to have to find the sense of it, one way or another.
So she waved a hand. “End of story.”
They knew it wasn’t—not even close to the end—but they accepted her at her word, because they were awesome. Godiva sat there appreciating their quiet acceptance, and fighting a sudden ache in her throat, as Doris and Bird began stacking the dirty dishes.
Jen said, “Excuse me a sec. I promised to bring Nikos over when he finished something on the island.” Then she vanished, leaving a waft of air that smelled like olives.
Godiva blinked at the spot where Jen had stood, thinking that this was definitely a new turn in her life, where Jen could go from one side of the world to the other in the blink of an eye, to the island where her soon-to-be husband was a king.
Godiva sat where she was, wondering what kind of king-biz there could be in modern times, until her phone rang.
She was sure it was Rigo, then she laughed at herself for mistaking sheer wish-fulfilment for some sort of storybook psychic connection. Serve me right if it’s some bozo trying to tell me the FBI is after me and I have to give them my bank account numbers quick, she thought as she fished in her purse.
Doris and Bird had gone with their dishes into Bird’s huge house. Godiva was alone there, but she wandered away as she answered. “Yeah?”
“Godiva?”
It was Rigo. Warmth flooded her as he asked, “You okay after last night’s marathon?”