Spirit - Part Twelve
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
The address that Calla gave me leads us to the southern edge of Port Sitka.
The drive is - beautiful, actually. As nervous as I am about meeting Leyla, I can’t help but appreciate that.
To one side, the craggy coastline glimmers with countless tiny sea pools, the very still water like aquamarine glass. To the other side of the car, there are towering Sitka spruces, rising so unbelievably high that they make my heart flutter if I let my eyes follow them all the way up. Two hundred feet above us, their needled branches spread out through the fog, dripping softly onto the branches below.
It’s a rainy day, but the green of the misty coastal forest is richer and more vivid for it. The beach looks beautiful, too. The ocean’s flat surface is a softly-lit mirror, rippling with endless dots of raindrops.
Despite the rain, Aiden, Kasey, and I stand by my car in motionless silence for some time. Not speaking, not looking at each other. Just staring at Leyla’s house.
It’s a small, shell-white beach cottage. Stone and clay in texture. Nestled into the emerald green forest growth, hugged closely by rain-wet trees. Set back from the main street by a short, red-brick road. The road is overgrown to bursting with moss, grass, wildflowers, and little evergreen ferns.
I can hear the distant rush of waves from behind the cottage, so the beach must be somewhere on the other side.
A gentle curl of smoke winds up from the chimney and into the soft rain. The small bay windows have flower boxes beneath them, heavy with growth. Tiny silver rivers of rain weave through the leaves, then spill out over the shaggy moss.
The windows themselves glow with warm, golden light, but the rain blurs them too much for us to see anything. Not from here, anyways. We’re at the far end of the brick road, taking in the cottage at a covert angle.
“Okay, I love this place,” I announce, finally breaking what’s been a long silence. “I’m just saying it.”
“I really do, too,” Aiden murmurs, sending a rush of happy warmth through me.
I don’t know, I just - I can’t shake the feeling that this cottage corresponds in some inexplicable way to our house. Maybe because they’re both oddballs, in a sweet way that I adore. I loved Leyla’s cottage as soon as I set eyes on it, a feeling which gives me some hope.
I like the steps leading up to the door, which are alternatingly painted in shades of dusky pink, light orange, white, and rose. The open, wooden window shades, which are a deep and glossy blue. The way the greenery curls around the cottage, almost with a kind of fondness.
It looks like a place rich with coziness. Especially from out here in the cold, drizzling rain.
“Should we-?” I begin.
“No. Jamie, no.” Kasey spins around to face me, a warning look in her eyes. “We need to follow Calla’s instructions.”
“Right, the instructions.” Aiden had already started to take a step towards the cottage, but now he hastily doubles back to rejoin us at my car. “We didn’t forget about those.”
Kasey heaves out a deep sigh, pressing her fingertips to her temples. “Thank god I could come with you two goons, this time.”
“Yeah, how’s it feel, Kase-face?” I look down at her through the soft, pattering rainfall. “First time out of Ketterbridge since you died!”
“It feels…” Kasey stares at her transparent hands, then slowly lets her gaze rove over her surroundings. “I don’t know. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about it! I definitely am. But it’s just - not gonna feel the way I want it to until I can take Will with me.”
Aiden and I exchange a sympathetic glance over Kasey’s head.
Taking Will’s energy and leaving him in Ketterbridge wasn’t easy for Kasey. Aiden and I could tell. Will insisted on giving her almost all the energy he had, so he was barely more than a trace of light and a whispering voice when we left him. The last words I could hear him say were spoken to Kasey.
But you will come back to me, won’t you, my love?
He definitely doesn’t have to worry about that. Based on the expression on Kasey’s face right now, she misses Will already.
“Well, that’s why we’re solving the case, right?” Aiden flashes her an encouraging smile. “So you can go places together, whenever you want.”
“And I bet it feels good to have a change of scenery in the meantime,” I jump in hopefully. “Right? Port Sitka’s pretty!”
Kasey lets her eyes wander up the towering, breathtaking Sitka spruces.
“Yeah, that’s true,” she murmurs, smiling to herself. “It is.”
She drops her gaze and turns her attention back to Leyla’s cottage. Aiden and I follow her eyes to it, nervously shifting from foot to foot.
It’s no wonder we got here early. All three of us are deeply anxious about meeting Leyla, but also brimming with excitement. I couldn’t believe my ears when I listened to Calla’s voicemail.
“Yeah, I don’t believe it, either,” Calla had said, anticipating my reaction when she left the message. “But it’s on, apparently, so. I’ll text you the address and the time. Oh - one more thing. Listen to me, and hear me very clearly, okay? Do not go up to the house before I get there. My grandma is… she can be a lot to handle. It’s better if I introduce you, instead of you guys introducing yourselves. Trust me on that one.”
But we got here a little earlier than planned in our excitement to finally meet Leyla, and Calla isn’t here yet.
“Okay, would it be the worst thing if we introduce ourselves before Calla-?”
“Jamie!” Kasey throws her head back in exasperation. “We’ve been over this, dummy! Look, Calla thinks that Leyla can be a lot to handle. How much is Calla to handle, herself?”
“Yeah, but - ugh!” I stuff my hands in the pockets of my jeans, struggling to hold still. “Don’t you guys want to know if Rose-?”
“Rose must be okay,” Aiden blurts out suddenly. He sounds like he’s trying to make it true by sheer force of will. “I’ve got faith. Leyla went to save her. She must have gotten it done.”
I nod hopefully up at Aiden. “Who gets shit done faster and more efficiently than a fed-up lesbian, right?”
“Oh, that’s true,” Aiden agrees, brightening up considerably. “Nobody, I’m pretty sure. That’s a great point, Jamie.”
“Okay, okay!” Kasey laughs, trying her best to glare at us. “Focus up, boys! We don’t know what happened, so let’s just wait for Leyla to tell us! Assuming she’s down to tell us anything. She only agreed to hear us out, remember? And Calla explicitly told us not to go in without her.”
“Alright, I’m just saying, there’s no way I won’t like the person who lives in this house,” I inform Kasey, my eyes resting on the sweet little cottage. “No way.”
“Maybe so, but for the sake of my sanity, can we please just stay back until-?”
Kasey cuts herself off with a quiet gasp, her eyes widening as the cottage door softly swings open.
Leyla steps out of the house, then stops beneath the canopy of rainy Sitka spruce branches.
Just like when I caught a glimpse of her in Port Sitka, she’s radiating her trademark style and subtle elegance. Even right now, in the clothes she’s wearing at home. She’s in chic, loose-fitting blue jeans and a camel-colored cashmere sweater. Sleek crimson rain boots, impeccable crimson lipstick, deep crimson nail polish. A crimson bow holds back a few gathered locks of her shining white hair. The rest of it tumbles down around her shoulders in thick, graceful waves. A few curls have blown loose in the rain, catching softly on her golden earrings, framing her face. Effortlessly, strikingly beautiful.
“Oh my god, she’s fucking gorgeous!” Kasey gasps, her mouth dropping open, her eyes widening with open admiration. And then, in a very different tone, “You guys, she’s - she’s staring right at you.”
Leyla is staring right at us. Apparently she managed to spot us out here, even though she was inside, and we’re all the way at the far end of the little road that leads to her cottage.
As we watch, she gently opens an umbrella, swings it up to rest against her shoulder. Then she glides down the colorful porch stairs and sets out on the brick road leading to us.
“Shit,” Aiden whispers, his blue eyes filling with panic. “Calla’s not here yet! What do we do?”
“We can’t go now, it’s too late!” I whisper back, pressing my fingers to my cheeks in alarm. “Pretty sure we have to introduce ourselves, at this point!”
Kasey cringes deeply, like she knows I’m right. “Just - do your best!”
“Oh, thank you for that rousing vote of confidence!” Aiden whispers heatedly, fixing Kasey with a wounded scowl. “Nice to know our manager has so much faith in us!”
“Oh my god,” Kasey whispers, caught up in sudden excitement. Her fingers hover near her beaming face as she watches Leyla come down the road towards us. “A Cold War spy, you guys! A real-ass Cold War secret agent! Holy shit!”
“That’s not making us any less nervous, Kase-face!” I answer, in an increasingly frantic whisper. “This is not a good time for you to get - history-smitten! Calla was supposed to introduce us, what do we-?”
I cut myself off abruptly, realizing that Leyla is far enough down the overgrown road to see us clearly through the rain. She got here faster than I would have expected, gracefully floating and gliding along like a water nymph, avoiding the puddles without looking down.
She comes up to the closed gate at the end of the road and stops there. She gazes curiously up at me and Aiden, her long, dark eyelashes fluttering as she blinks in the rain. She tucks a windswept lock of white hair out of her eyes, the sleeve of her sweater covering up everything but her fingertips with the dark red polish.
Agent Rouge, I think to myself, my heart pounding in disbelief. Leyla. It’s you.
After all this time - after all the digging into the case, reading about her, debating theories about her, seeing her in ghost memories, translating her words, rifling through evidence she left behind, discussing her for hours on end in the Ghost Office - here we are. Face to face with her at last.
Aiden and I simultaneously freeze up, struggling to absorb the enormity of the realization. We both stare at Leyla in thunderstruck silence, and Kasey does the same thing.
Aiden is the first to pull himself back together. He quickly clears his throat, giving himself a shake.
“You-” His soft-spoken voice is nervous, just like his blue eyes. “Are you Leyla?”
Leyla tilts her head slightly to the side, her big, brilliant eyes giving nothing away.
And yet, somehow… as her eyes flit between me and Aiden, I get the strange sense that we’re being carefully studied and sized up. Like Leyla is taking in every aspect of our appearances, our body language, clothes, voices, everything - and neatly filing that information away somewhere.
She doesn’t answer Aiden. Only gazes up at him, loose curls dancing gently around her face in the rainy breeze, her cheeks rosy from the chilly air. Her eyes slowly drop back to me again after a long moment.
“Hey, there!” I spread my fingers in a timid wave, my other hand holding tight to the strap of my bag. “We’re sorry to bother you, but we-”
I break off as Leyla turns her head to the side and cups a hand around her ear like she can’t hear me. I might have guessed she needed me to be louder, but - it’s strangely easy to forget that she’s an old woman now. I saw her so much younger, so recently.
“We’re here to speak with you?” I try again, adjusting my volume accordingly. “You were supposed to know that we were coming, we thought, um…”
I trail off as Leyla stares at me with a polite smile and faint confusion, nothing else. No recognition of any kind.
“Ah...” I shoot a fast glance at Aiden, pleading for help with my eyes, but he looks thrown off, too. “Do you remember that we were supposed to-?”
I cut myself off again as Leyla wordlessly unlocks the gate. She gives us a beckoning nod of her head, already headed back up the little brick road to the cottage.
I exchange an uncertain glance with Kasey and Aiden as we set off with Leyla. Leyla doesn’t seem to notice. She’s vague and distant, seemingly unaware of us as she leads the way back to her cottage, humming absently beneath her breath.
“This might be harder than we thought,” I whisper to Aiden, pretty sure that Leyla won’t hear it. “I wonder why Calla hasn’t gotten her a hearing aid. Maybe she hasn’t thought of it. Should we suggest it to her?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Aiden whispers back, his eyebrows knitted in concern. “I’m actually kind of worried that maybe we shouldn’t have bothered Leyla with this at all, dude? I - I didn’t think she’d be-”
Aiden falls quiet as Leyla suddenly takes his arm, using him for support as she walks. Aiden quickly lowers it so she can hold on more easily, then glances up at me, his eyes full of surprise.
Mine are, too. I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect Leyla to be so fragile, or so scattered that she doesn’t really seem aware of what’s happening. She just looked so impeccably pulled together when I saw her that time outside of Finley’s office, and she does right now, too.
Although - I notice she’s gliding deftly around the bigger clumps of moss. Catching any curls that come too close to her lipstick and tucking them behind her ear before they can do any damage. Stepping around puddles without losing speed.
I’m not sure how much she’s really leaning on Aiden’s arm, either. She has - and can’t hide - that same natural, nymph-like grace she came down the path with.
I narrow my eyes at her, struggling to understand. I’m actually not sure what to think.
Leyla lets go of Aiden’s arm to push open the door of the cottage, then leads us inside. I glance over my shoulder, trying to have a silent conversation with Kasey, then quickly face forward again when I realize that Leyla is gesturing for us to go through a door.
Aiden goes in first. I follow him into a small room, and Leyla shuts the door with herself on the other side.
Aiden, Kasey, and I all freeze, bewildered, staring at the door that Leyla just closed on us. In the startled silence, we hear with perfect clarity the sound of a lock turning, the thunk of a deadbolt falling into place.
We’re in a little room lined with shelves of food, with a few bundles of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. The pantry. Leyla locked us in the pantry. And we can hear her light footsteps growing quieter outside, indicating that she’s leaving.
Aiden, Kasey, and I stare at each other in blank disbelief for a moment.
“Um?” I finally blurt out, breaking the stunned silence.
“What the fuck?” Aiden gasps, trying the door knob. “She locked us in!”
“Okay, this is more what I expected from Calla’s grandma!” Kasey pokes her head through the wall, spreading her hands on it to keep her balance. “She’s going to the kitchen. She’s moving pretty fast. I don’t think she actually needed to lean on you, Aiden.”
“Wh-? My pockets are empty!” Aiden looks up at me, wide-eyed, the pockets of his jeans turned inside out. “What’s happening, right now? I’m - I’m hearing in mine and Jamie’s notes that we actually might be in some danger.”
“What?” I whip around to face him, my breaths growing shallow with panic. “Are you serious?”
Aiden closes his eyes and screws up his face, straining to listen. “I can’t tell if it’s that, or if it’s just that we’re scared!”
“Well - I’m definitely scared!” I rush to the window to see if it opens, then stop and stare helplessly at Aiden. “Why did she do that? Did we say something rude? I’m gonna feel terrible if we said something rude, Aiden!”
Kasey’s eyes widen in disbelief all over again as she stares at me. “Isn’t the bigger problem that you two might potentially be in danger, Jamie?”
“Okay, this is ridiculous!” Aiden holds out his hands and spreads his fingers, trying to calm down. “Look, she’s a little old lady! We’re not gonna panic just because she-”
He breaks off as the door - which must have been unlocked silently while we were talking - suddenly swings open again. Aiden, Kasey, and I all let out a simultaneous yelp, seizing hold of each other. Then we all lapse into shocked silence, staring at the sight before us.
Leyla stands in the doorway like a blazing pillar of fire, her fierce eyes leveled on our faces. Somehow she seems a foot taller than she did before, with an intense and commanding presence that makes the rest of us seem very small by comparison. All traces of her vacant, confused smile have vanished.
With one hand, she’s holding a taser. With the other, she lifts a lighter to the cigarette tucked between her very red lips, and sets the tip glowing.
“Well, well, well,” she says, in a sharp, clear voice that makes all members of Team Ghost Office flinch. “Finally caught up with me, have you, boys? After all this time. Took you long enough.”
Aiden and I both let out incomprehensible sputters of protest, then fling our hands above our heads in surrender as Leyla lifts the taser. She aims it at us, holding it steady, and takes a slow drag of her cigarette.
“Who are you, then? CIA? FBI? Either way, they should have sent more than two of you.” Her eyes, crystal clear and full of resilient fire, flit back and forth between me and Aiden. “You must have realized I wouldn’t go down without a fight. No one’s taking me away from my family, I promise you that.”
I glance at Kasey for guidance, then nearly throw my hands in the air in dismay when I see her staring at Leyla with starstruck admiration, not a single thought visible in her eyes.
“Okay, no - no no no,” I stammer, frantically waving my hands at Leyla as I turn back to her. “This isn’t what you think it is! We’re not who you think we are!”
Leyla tucks the cigarette into her mouth and slips something out of the pocket of her jeans. Aiden lets out a soft sound of indignation as he recognizes his wallet.
“Should I find out who you really are, then?” Leyla asks, holding it up between two fingers. “Or do you want to leave, and pretend you couldn’t find me? Tell your superiors that I’ve fled the country, or I swear to god, I’ll get your name off of this ID, and then I will personally-”
“No, we’re really not here for that!” I cut in desperately. “There’s been a pretty wild miscommunication, that’s all! We’re just-”
I shut all the way up at the sound of the front door opening, followed by the call of a familiar, raspy voice.
“Grandma?”
“I’m right in here, little darling,” Leyla calls over her shoulder, without taking her eyes off of me and Aiden. “Just taking care of something.”
“Oh - Calla!” I gasp in relief, sinking back against the pantry shelves. “Thank god!”
Leyla narrows her eyes at me in surprise. But no one looks more surprised than Calla, who freezes as soon as she appears in the doorway behind Leyla. Her hazel eyes grow enormous as she takes in the situation, her mouth falling open, her car keys dangling from her fingers.
“What-? Grandma, what are you doing?” She rushes forward to put herself between us and Leyla, who immediately lowers the taser so it’s not aimed at her granddaughter. “These are my friends, the ones who wanted to meet with you!”
“These-?” Leyla’s eyes flit to Aiden and me, then back to Calla. “No, my little darling, these aren’t your friends. These are the two agents I saw coming out of Finley’s office, right before he shuttered his practice!”
“No, no - shit, I never explained that - yes, it was them, but they’re not who you think!” Calla snags the taser from Leyla, then whips around to glare at me and Aiden as we slump into each other with relief. “You two morons, I swear to god! I see the goof patrol is in action, as always! Did I or did I not tell you to wait the fuck outside until I got here?”
“We didn’t realize this might happen!” I protest, pointing at the taser.
“Hey, you can’t blame a girl for being careful,” Leyla says evenly, folding one arm over her chest, the cigarette letting off a soft trail of smoke. “Especially knowing my situation. Which I gather you do.”
Aiden and I both go motionless at the same time, looking at Leyla in sudden, wide-eyed silence.
She’s standing tall, looking at us with easy confidence, a devious, amused smirk turning up her mouth at the misunderstanding that just happened. The cigarette in her hand, I realize abruptly, isn’t a cigarette at all, but a joint. It looks like Leyla rolled it up using a torn piece of CIA paperwork. The end of it that isn’t on fire is already turning a deep shade of red from her lipstick.
Smoke curls up around her face, the deep glow of the cherry reflected in her fiery, fearless, invincible eyes.
Aiden, Kasey, and I stand arrested, staring at Leyla in breathless, awestruck silence.
There she is. The real deal, this time. No doubt about it.
Agent Rouge.
~~~~
“I told myself I’d save this for the day the authorities finally caught up with me,” Leyla says, gazing down at the joint in her hand. “The paper, I mean. But for this purpose.”
“You rolled that while you were in the kitchen?” I blurt out in disbelief, thinking about how little time that took her.
Leyla shrugs her slender shoulders. “Mostly while I was walking back to the pantry.”
That’s even better. Aiden and I exchange a glance, slowly breaking into matching, impressed grins.
“Damn, grandma,” Aiden laughs, and Leyla lets out a snicker of laughter, too.
Now that she’s not pretending to be someone else, she has a broad, easy grin. She sits gracefully draped across the chair in front of us, cozied up against a few pillows. Her eyes linger on the slow-burning paper, reflecting the ember-red glow.
“Last piece of proof I had that I worked for the CIA,” she says quietly. “I thought - the day they show up and try to take me away, that’ll be the day the bastards can watch the last piece of evidence go up in flames.”
Aiden and I look at each other again, excited grins turning up our mouths.
“But now I’ve used it, and the authorities still haven’t come for me.” Leyla lifts her gaze to us thoughtfully. “You two came instead. Maybe this is a sign that I should finally stop worrying about it.”
We’re gathered on the enclosed back porch of the cottage, which faces the windswept Port Sitka beach on one side, and a mountain of green, foggy coastal forest on the other. The rain gently kisses the ocean’s surface outside, sending out a million tiny ripples.
The closed-in porch is cozy against the grey afternoon, full of warm shadows cast by the lamps. In the soft, gentle light, Leyla seems to have her own subtle shine.
She rests her chin on her palm, fingertips curled around the sleeve of her sweater. She sets the joint aside in the ashtray, then takes a slow, deep breath. Her searching gaze travels slowly over my face, then Aiden’s.
Kasey is curled up in one of the armchairs to our left, but Leyla can’t see her, and we haven’t pointed her out. Kasey thought that bringing ghosts into the equation would add too much to the already long list of things we have to explain to Leyla.
Just ignore me, guys, honestly, she said. I won’t say anything, so you don’t accidentally look at me. I only want to listen.
Aiden and I are trying our best to follow Kasey’s instructions and ignore her, a situation which places much more difficulty on me than it does on him. All he had to do was take off the ghost goggles and put them in his pocket. But I can still see the ghost in the room from the corner of my eye, staring at Leyla in rapt fascination.
Calla is close by, too. She told us she didn’t feel the need to stick around for this, but I can see her in the kitchen from here, and I get the sense that she’s listening.
“We understand that this is - weird,” I tell Leyla, wincing apologetically. “We really appreciate you talking to us about the John Botswick case. Should I say again that we know you didn’t do it?”
Leyla breathes out a soft laugh, leaning back in her chair. “I’d say that’s lovely to hear, but the fact that you know of my involvement at all means you’ve gotten alarmingly far into something like a real investigation.”
Aiden and I tense up a little bit at this, nervous again.
Leyla leans her chin on her palm, her sharp eyes thoughtful.
“But it also means you must have a pretty damn good reason for needing answers, if you’ve gone to this length. And you know about the Tree, which means that for some reason, you know about magic.”
She says it so simply, but then it seems to startle everyone, including her. We’re all people used to talking about magic, but not with each other.
“So I have to admit, I’m curious.” Leyla blinks slowly at us, her eyes slightly narrowed. “About who you are, and why you tracked me down. And what, exactly, you know.”
Aiden prefers me to do most of the talking with people we aren’t familiar with, so I’m caught by surprise when he suddenly answers.
“We know that you and Rose did a massive piece of magic to take yourselves out of the town’s memory,” he rumbles, his deep voice full of admiration. “The Stasi and the CIA’s memory, too.”
Leyla freezes, then slowly folds her elbows on her knees and sinks her weight into them, half-laughing in disbelief. “You have figured a lot out, haven’t you?”
Aiden nibbles his lip, then suddenly blurts out, all in a soft-spoken rush - “That’s amazing. Holy shit. I can’t believe that Rose pulled off a piece of magic that complicated.”
“Mmm, I know. It was really something.” Leyla cozies back up into her chair, her gleaming white hair spilling over her shoulder. “It turns out you can’t do magic of that scope without making a few legends, though. Depending on who you ask, in the 1960s, Port Sitka had ghosts, aliens, demons, psychics, and cryptids. When really all it had was - me and Rose.”
Aiden and I both let out a startled laugh.
“Amazing,” Aiden murmurs again, his blue eyes wide and impressed, full of immense respect.
It’s not lost on Leyla. She smiles appreciatively at Aiden, then nods up above his head. “It’s right there, if you want to see it.”
Aiden blinks hard at Leyla, then glances sharply at me. As one, we twist to look at the wall behind the couch we’re sharing.
Most of the walls in the cottage are populated with shelves and plants and books. In the remaining space, there’s a lot of fiber art. Needlework creations of all kinds in different sizes, textures, shades, and scales, filling the walls with color. Some of them are abstract, while others show little hand-stitched fish or sunflowers. Bees and bugs, suns and moons and stars, all created from thread. It gives the place a cozy and intimate warmth, a sense that there’s nowhere you could land that wouldn’t be soft.
The piece hanging above me and Aiden is a tapestry, and it stands out amidst all the rest.
It’s a breathtakingly beautiful, wild, abstract design. The threadwork shapes look like recognizable figures at one moment, and swirls of pure color the next. All of it swims together, connected in a hundred different ways. The entire tapestry is filled in with thread and color, from edge to edge.
But at the center of everything, perfectly clear to my eyes even in its abstract form, is a Tree.
“This?” Aiden breathes softly, astonished. “This is the piece of magic that Rose did?”
Leyla nods, glowing with obvious pride, her gaze lingering on Rose’s work.
“Her way of channeling it,” she explains simply, quietly.
Aiden and I stare at each other, then stare at the piece of magic again, blown away. We knew that every Guardian has their own way of channeling their power, but we’ve never seen anything like this.
Aiden and I stand up for a closer look. My exploring eyes go everywhere, slowly taking it all in, then stop on something unexpected. Right at the very corner of the tapestry, a sudden glint of shiny silver.
“There’s a sewing needle stuck in there,” I point out.
Pushed halfway through the tapestry like it’s being stored there for later work, but this piece was clearly finished forever ago.
“Let’s leave the needle where it is, please,” Leyla says, quickly and firmly.
Aiden and I both nod, stepping back from the piece of magic. Aiden brushes his fingertips over mine as we drop to sit on the couch again, just long enough to open the connection and say through it, very fast -
That’s a magical artifact, Jamie. The sewing needle. It’s powerful, too. Humming with magic. I can sense it from here.
I try to check the startled expression on my face, but Leyla is focused on my hands, having caught the movement of Aiden’s fingertips trailing up my wrist.
“Part of the family, boys?” She lets out a soft, smiling laugh, her eyes lighting up with warm recognition. “I thought so, but I try not to assume.”
I’m lost for a split second before I realize what she means. It was kind of an old-school way to ask us, but a way I’ve always liked. I find myself matching Leyla’s warm smile.
“Oh - yeah, we are! Aiden’s my boyfriend. We like your lesbian stairs, by the way.”
“Why, thank you.”
“God, though, I’m sorry,” I add, wincing guiltily at Leyla. “I just realized we haven’t explained pretty much anything, even who we are. Didn’t really introduce ourselves at all, did we?”
“Maybe more than you think,” Leyla says, around a chuckling laugh. “I threatened to taze you, and somehow you’re apologizing to me about it, so - based on what Calla’s told me, I’m going to guess that you’re Jamie. And I already know that you’re Aiden. Here’s your wallet back, by the way.”
Aiden huffs out a laugh, catching it out of the air when Leyla tosses it to him. “Why the hard-of-hearing old lady routine?”
“Gets people to say what they don’t want you to hear right in front of your face, sometimes.” Leyla cracks a devious, merry grin, sitting back comfortably in her chair. “To answer your question, Calla hasn’t gotten me a hearing aid because I don’t need one, at least not yet. Thank you for your concern, though.”
“Honestly, grandma,” Calla laughs, stepping onto the porch with an affectionate grin on her face. She crosses the room to press a mug of something hot into her grandma’s hands, clicking her tongue. “This is what I get for bringing my friends around the house.”
Leyla gives Calla a deeply apologetic, regretful look that fools absolutely no one. Not with the obvious laughter in her eyes, which immediately catches in Calla’s, too. She’s clearly trying not to laugh out loud as she bends down so that Leyla can give her cheek a kiss.
The deep, mutual adoration between the two of them has been obvious ever since things calmed down.
Aiden and I exchange a startled look when Calla reappears a few seconds later with two more steaming mugs of tea, which she wordlessly leaves on the coffee table between us and Leyla.
“Oh - thank you,” I call out in surprise, but Calla is already retreating deeper into the cottage, pulling her headphones on over her ears.
I watch her go, realizing that her socks are embroidered with tiny hand-stitched raspberries.
Leyla pulls her knees up onto her seat, gazing searchingly at me and Aiden through the steam from her drink.
“I gather you two think you know what happened,” she says quietly, growing serious all at once.
“No, not everything!” I answer hastily. “Most of it, though. With the exception of a few pieces that only you can tell us about.”
Leyla’s eyebrow arches in a swift, graceful movement. “And why would I do that?”
“Because,” Aiden answers, his deep voice growing quiet and earnest as Leyla turns to meet his look. “We hoped you might feel like… like it’s time for the truth to finally come out. Not to everyone, obviously. We understand why that can’t happen.”
“But - maybe just to us?” I jump in hopefully. “Because we have an - an unusual problem that we really need to solve. A magical problem. And the truth about what happened back then is the only thing that can help us.”
“So if you’ve ever wished you could tell someone the truth, beyond your family,” Aiden finishes, “This is probably the time.”
Leyla stares at Aiden in silence for a minute, motionless. Her expression is complicated beyond measure, impossible to read.
“We were hoping that we could tell you what we think happened,” I add, drawing her sharp gaze back to me. “Then you could fill in the rest, and tell us if we got anything wrong. Maybe you could just - hear us out, first? Then decide if you want to do the second part?”
Leyla leans back in her chair, rests an elbow on her folded knees, and trails her fingertips around the rim of her mug thoughtfully.
“Alright,” she says quietly, then breathes out a dazed laugh. “This should be interesting.”
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