Emerald Magic_ Great Tales of Irish Fantasy - Andrew M. Greeley [79]
By the time I was done, the Native women were gone. But Nita was in my arms—the real Nita, seemingly unaffected by allergies. Her eyelids fluttered, and she was looking up at me. A small smile touched her lips.
“I had the strangest dream,” she said.
“It’s okay. It’s all over now.”
“Did . . . did we win?” she asked.
I wouldn’t call it winning. I don’t know what I’d call it. But at least it seemed we were free.
“Yeah,” I told her, settling on the easiest reply. “We won.”
5
Strong whiskey was the order of the day when we got back inside, because Lord, did I need a drink. Jameson’s in glass tumblers, noice. I had the waitress leave the bottle at the table where Nita and I sat with Miki and her friend Tommy.We still had a half hour before Miki and I had to start our next set.
“I can’t believe you let me go into that so blind,” I told Miki.
“Shut up and drink your whiskey.”
“No, really.”
“I told you why. It was so that the butter spirit wouldn’t get a hint of what I had planned.”
“But how could you know the Grey Man would swallow him and let me go?”
Miki shrugged. “I listened to your story, then I talked to Nita about it. I knew the butter spirit didn’t have a hold on you except for his malice. He couldn’t offer you as a tithe. But if I’d mentioned it to you, he could have heard and made a different plan.”
I was only half-listening, my attention now focused on the other thing that had been so troubling to me.
“And I can’t believe you put Nita in that danger,” I told her.
“I had to make sure you were both free of his spells. She had to be here for that. Besides, although you won’t get them to admit it most of the time, the spirits are big on courage and true love. I figured with the two of you there, you’d show both.”
“It’s okay,” Nita said, putting her hand over mine and giving it a squeeze. “Once she told me how it would go, I agreed to it.”
I shook my head and used my free hand to have another sip of the whiskey. I knew I’d be playing very simple chords when we got back onstage for the next set.
“I don’t even know how she got hold of you,” I said.
“Oh, that was dead simple,” Miki told me. “Once I knew she worked for the city’s social services, it was easy to get her number.”
I glanced across the table at Tommy. Of the four of us, he was the only one not drinking the whiskey. He had a ginger ale on the table in front of him.
“You don’t seem much surprised by any of this,” I said to him.
That seemed to be the tag line of this whole sorry affair.Maybe I should have been more surprised by people not taking it all at face value.
He shrugged. “I grew up on the rez with the aunts. There’s not much that surprises me anymore.”
“I never got to thank them.”
“I’ll pass it on for you.”
“So, are you happy?”Miki asked.
She looked from me to Nita, beaming with the look of someone who’d not only got the job done, but got it done well.
“Very,”Nita assured her.
“And will you be together now?”Miki asked.
I met Nita’s gaze and saw the love shining in her eyes, just as I knew it was in my own.
“Of course you will,” Miki went on before we could answer. “Lord, I love a happy ending. I should go back to Ireland and take up matchmaking. It’s a respectable profession there, you know,” she told Tommy.
“Yeah,” he said. “I saw the movie.”
“What movie?”
“The Matchmaker.”
“Oh, please.”
I gave Nita’s hand a little tug, and we left the two of them to go on at each other while we went outside to get a breath of air. It was a gorgeous night, the sky so full of stars that even the electric aura of the lights of Harnett’s Point’s couldn’t put a damper on them.
“It’s hard to believe we’re finally free of that little bugger,” I said. “I didn’t think we’d ever be able to do anything but talk on the phone.”
“Stop wasting time,”Nita told me.
Then she wrapped her arms around my neck and drew me down for a long, deep kiss.
Peace in Heaven?
BY ANDREW M. GREELEY
No one