Page 100 of Enchanted to Meet You

She nodded, her shining black curtain of hair—curled under just where it skimmed her shoulders—swinging. “Yes, darling. I swear it. I know it’s been a difficult past few days for you.Years, even. And I know that Hopkins woman has been an absolute shit to you. I’m sorry for swearing—but sometimes it’s called for. But you’ve handled all of it so admirably—really, very admirably. And you’ve only the next few hours to get through, and then everything will be all right. I’m almost sure of it.”

“Almostsure?”

“Well, no one can be absolutely sure of anything, Jessica.”

“Not even a goddess? That’s what you are, aren’t you?” When she smiled and nodded at me, I plunged on. “Then why can’t you just get rid of the rift? Why can’t you prevent evil in the first place?”

“Icould, of course, but I already told you: I don’t like to interfere. Children never learn from their mistakes if their elders are always swooping in to rescue them—and, from my experience, that applies to adults, as well. You’ve all been given free will. You must make your own choices. All I can do,” she went on with a sigh, “is hope those choices will be good ones, and try to guide you as best I can when they look as if they aren’t. But I will say that, in most cases, your choices have not disappointed me.”

“By ‘your choices,’” I said, “do you mean humans in general, or my choices specifically?”

“Humans in general,” she said, and let out a surprisingly hearty laugh. “Why, Jessica? Do you think I’ve been spying on you?”

“No!” I reached for my wine, hoping she was telling the truth.Because I wasn’t sure she’d have such a good opinion of me if she’d seen what her son and I had been choosing to do to one another all over my house the past few days. “Not at all.”

“Well, I have,” she admitted, causing me to almost choke. “That’s why I knew you were West Harbor’s Chosen One—and my son’s. But I only looked a little. And it was because you’ve performed so many spells over the years, invoking my name. Even a goddess can’t help looking when she hears her name over and over again. Oh, how heavenly!” She glanced past my shoulder, then rubbed her fingers together, looking excited. “Our stuffed artichokes are here. I haven’t had one of these inages.”

“Special of the day,” Mark said, proudly setting a plate down in front of each of us. “Would either of you care for pepper?”

“Now how would I know before I’ve tasted it?” Gaia asked, showing a bit of her flirtatious side.

Mark played along. “Good point. You taste it and let me know.”

“I will,” Gaia said, and gave him a smile that looked the way Derrick’s fingers felt—like the sun coming out after a long winter’s day. Mark went away grinning, while I continued to sit there in complete disbelief.

What was happening? What was happening to my life? My hometown was sitting on the precipice of apocalyptic disaster, and I was eating stuffed artichokes with the mother of my not-so-fake witch boyfriend? A mother who also happened to be a primordial deity, who freely admitted to having been spying on me—but “only a little”?

How was any of this even possible?

“What’s wrong, darling?” Gaia asked. “Why aren’t you eating? Do you want pepper? How rude of me, I didn’t think to ask. Don’t worry, I’ll get him. Mark? It’s Mark, isn’t it? Oh, Mark!”

“No,” I said, gripping the tabletop. “I don’t want pepper. Ijust . . . I know it probably sounds rude, but I just . . . I’d love some kind of proof that this—anyof this—is true. That you’re really... Gaia.”

“Oh, is that all?” She laughed. “Well, why didn’t you say so sooner, darling?”

A second later, I looked out the window beside our table and saw Derrick, dressed in a full tuxedo, riding down the street on a motorcycle.

Derrick

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.

Plutarch

Derrick didn’t think he could remember a time when he’d been quite so simultaneously annoyed and elated. One minute he’d been packing up his things at Jessica’s house, taking care not to let Pye escape outside despite the cat’s persistent efforts to do so.

And the next, he was riding a motorcycle down a closed road, narrowly avoiding striking pedestrians.

It was only when he slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt in front of Mama Giovanni’s Italian Trattoria, then looked through the wide picture window there that he had any clue as to what was going on.

That’s when he saw Jessica staring at him, slack-jawed in astonishment... and his mother sitting across the table from her, lifting a glass of wine in a saucy salute to him.

Of course. Gaia. He should have known.

“Hey!” yelled an angry father of three, yanking his childrenfrom in front of the cycle’s path. “Can’t you read? The sign saysRoad Closed!”

“Sorry,” Derrick muttered as he switched off the bike. He glanced down at himself, noticing an unfamiliar flash of white. What had Gaia dressed him in? Atuxedo?

He looked at his mother through the window and shook his head. She shrugged, smiled, and took a sip of her wine.