“I think we’re ready,” I say to Michael and Jake, who are at the door, ready to welcome guests. In one way, it’s sort of weird having them here together. But in another way, it feels perfectly normal. Like of course there are two awesome, gorgeous, totally amazing guys I didn’t even know a month ago at my front door. MY front door, welcoming guests to MY party.

“You’re not ready,” Michael says flat out.

“Actually, I think I am,” I say, then notice him looking at my dirty apron and flour-flecked jeans. “Oh, right. I guess I should think about getting dressed.”

And about what to wear. What does a sixteen year old hostess wear to such a party? I mean, I should know, given that I’m throwing it. But I don’t. All out Goth? Mildly Goth? No Goth? Jeans, slacks, dress? It’s been the last thing that’s been on my mind, and now I’m stuck without a clue.

I look to Michael for clues. He’s wearing a white European shirt, kind of flowing but not girlie, and some really hot jeans. And those expensive loafers. Perfect against his dark curls. A girl could get swooped up pretty quick with a guy like him. I guess I almost did.

Looking at Jake is another matter entirely. You can’t help but see his stunning body beneath anything he wears. He’s an animal under there, shapeshifted or not. And that stunningly handsome face. I mean, who is going to care what he is wearing? Even so, I need to take notice to figure out what I’m going to wear. So, easy button down cotton shirt—navy polo style, but without any label. Kaki pants, belted against a perfectly perfect waistline. Loafers, too, only less trendy than Michaels.

I guess they are dressed how guys should dress for an afternoon birthday part of a nearly old lady. Sadly, it doesn’t really give me any ideas about what I might find in my own closet.

“Ma’am,” the voice says from behind me. At first, I don’t realize she means me. The guys have to help me with that, too. 

I turn to find a woman in serving attire—black pants, white shirt, bow tie. The black pants give me an idea. I have some nice ones I wore to a funeral once.

“Are you Miss Mayden?” she asks politely.

“Yes, Julie Mayden,” I say.

“The wait staff has arrived. We are wondering if you would like to advise us of your rotation schedule before we begin serving?”

“Rotation?” I ask. Another thing I’m supposed to know, but don’t.

“For the food?” she says, then waits. When I don’t reply, she adds: “In what order would you like the menu items to be served? Do you wish to have a heavy serving in the second and third hour, or serve evenly throughout all four hours.”

“We have four hours of this?” I say, mostly to myself, like I didn’t know that. I did, I just hadn’t been thinking about it. Thankfully.

Jake leans over to me, puts a hand on my back, and while smiling says ever so softly: “Get a grip.”

Yes. Yes. Get a grip Julie Mayden.

“I’m wondering, Ms. Campbell,” I query, seeing her name on her badge, “how many years is it that you’ve been serving at parties like these?”

She stands stiff, as if challenged. That wasn’t my intent, but I’m seeing the kind of power I have here. I remember my last step-mother was excellent at this stuff. I can take her lead, and fake it.

“Thirty years,” she replies coolly.

“Good. Then you’ve served thousands of people over four hours,” I say.

“Yes,” she replies.

“So it seems to me you know thousands more about this than I do. I’m only sixteen years old and this is my first party… ever. I have no idea what should be served when, so if you wouldn’t mind deciding for me…”

Ms. Campbell relaxes her stance and smiles. “Of course. Leave it to me.”

She leaves, as does yet another weight that had been resting on my shoulder. I turn to my two friends, smiling in relief. “And that,” I say as if I’m all proper and posh, “is how we delegate responsibility, my dear men.”

We all laugh, which feels really, really good. I wasn’t sure I was going to laugh at all today. Even once.

“I’m off to get dressed. I guess you will stay here at the door. Together?”

Michael and Jake nod. I turn to go, get part way up the grand staircase, and turn back to see them in the marble foyer, looking like young gods… in MY house. They are talking, but stop as they notice me looking at them. They stare at me as I stare at them.

A feeling comes over me, like this is right. It’s right for the three of us to be here, together. And then I see something, sort of like double vision, and the guys are in a military uniform, both of them, and I’m in an old-fashioned dress, the kind they wore a hundred years ago. Or two hundred years. I can almost feel it rubbing against my skin.

I know something is shifted, but it’s not how it feels when Magic does the shifting, taking over completely. This seems different. Like I’m seeing how we were, before. Who we were, before. Not us… but yes, us.

The feeling spreads from my belly, down to my toes, and also through my chest and arms, and out my fingertips. This…they… we… are right for each other. We have been here before, and whatever comes, I know that I know that I know we will be here again. And because of this, the world… in fact, all levels of reality and beyond, have always been and will always be alright. Whatever happens.

No one can destroy this. Even when we forget.

I look into Michael’s eyes, and I can see he sees it, too. I move my gaze to Jake, whose eyes are beaming his own understanding. Like when we were at the table. Or in a dream together. We don’t have to say anything. Whatever we three are here, and whatever choices we make in this one small, insignificant lifetime, we are souls bound to each other outside of time.

I smile, and they smile, and then the second level of history fades. The only thing that is different, once this present reality comes back into focus, is that I’m not afraid anymore. There is no way Helene can destroy what I have felt. Just let her try.

The doorbell rings—our first guests. I turn to head back up the stairs and leap them two at a time so that no one sees me like this. It wouldn’t do for the hostess of the party to be anything less than gracious and lovely.

I enter the room, give Scottie a gleeful kiss, and throw open the wardrobe. I see what I’ll wear right in front of me. Those black pants, a short sleeved royal blue summer sweater, and pearls. Just right. 

Closing the door, I’m startled by Python-the-snake behind me. She promptly shapeshifts into her human form.

“Nice choice,” she says, a hiss on the end of each word as she nods toward the clothes on my arm.

“Thanks,” I say, deciding I’ll have to get dressed right in front of her. I don’t have time for her if I don’t multi-task, and if she doesn’t like it, too bad. She is the one who keeps showing up unannounced.  

“Are you nervous?” she asks, another lingering hiss at the end of her last word. She slithers to sit on my bed, not watching me too closely.

“I guess I should be,” I say, more nonchalant that I could have imagined at any other moment today. “Everyone keeps warning me of things. You, Jake, Michael. Even Bea. Must be there’s something cooking besides the puff pastries.”

“But you’re not worried?” she probes, looking at me carefully, as if signs of fear might be found under the surface. What can I say? That moment with Jake and Michael, and I just know everything will work out. I just know it.

“What is there to worry about? The big bad Helene is coming to town. If no one else is bent out of shape about it—and curiously, they are not—why should I be? So she hates me? What harm would that do? Sounds like she hates everyone, and everyone pretty much hates her. What can she do to me?”

Python sighs heavily. “Those are bigger questions than you think.”

“So tell me why,” I implore. “I mean it, tell me why. Because I don’t see it. I mean, I know my whole life is on the line here. With Jake saying he loves me, and Michael leaving. And I know Anna is old and so is Bea, and they might die before I learn enough to carry things on. And things get crazy with Magic changing things all over the place, and you shapeshifting, and that “nothing” place being so hard to come back from. But really, what can you throw at me after all that? I’m still standing, right? Still standing, and I’ve even managed to throw a hundred person party—having no idea how, mind you—for a person I’ve never met and no one likes. The way I see it, it’s working. It’s all working. So why do I care if the questions are bigger than I know? What if there are a few lies thrown in? What if Helene herself arranged for the party? So what? How can stand up to what we are to each other? You can’t tell me this isn’t my family. I’ve been waiting to feel this way my whole life. Knowing it is possible, I can handle whatever I have to. You all didn’t bring this me this far to drop me, did you?”

Python smiles a thin lipped, cold snake smile, but I know it is genuine. “You’re pretty smart. You’ve got a lot figured right, I’ll give you that. And you have surely shown courage and fortitude.”

“Thank you,” I say, putting a brush through the parts of my hair that can take it. The rat’s nest will have to stay as it is. Hopefully, the pearls will offset it.

“But you’ve never been taken to your knees,” Python continues. “And you’ve never faced the kind of energy you will face today, and have your family stand there, not lifting a finger to help you.”

“I don’t believe that would happen. Maybe Bea, maybe even Michael or you would stand back. Maybe, maybe even Jake. But not Anna. She’ll be here, and I can feel her care, no matter how out of it she is.”

“She is here,” Python says. “Only not as you think.”

“Would you stop talking in riddles? You all talk in hints and warnings and I’m sick of it. If you want to say something, just say it. How is Anna here in a way that is that is ‘not as I think?’”

Python moves to my sliding door and pulls back the curtain for me to see onto the back lawn. “Take a look for yourself.”

Suddenly, I’m scared. Suddenly, once again, I don’t want to know. She could be, I don’t know, I just don’t know. I don’t look. In fact, I look away. Coward.

“So you are afraid,” Python says, closing the curtain.

“I don’t know why,” I say, truly confused.

“Because you love Anna. You love us all. You’ve got something to lose, for real. And today, you might. You really might lose us all.”

How can she say that? All of them? That much must be impossible.

“I can’t imagine that,” I say, feeling dread like nothing I’ve ever felt. Like someone is taking a big truck and running over me, then backing up, and doing it again and again.

“I know you can’t,” she says. “The reason we are talking in riddles, as you say, is because none of us can say anything directly. We have been forbidden. But each one of us really wants you to pass this great challenge. We not only need you to, we want you, in specific you, to be who we need you to be. We’ve come to love you, Mayden, each in our own way.”

My head begins to pound, and I realize I’m probably exhausted. Add to that the way they run me around and around, never getting anywhere. Anyone would be beaten down by now.

“Why are you here, Python?” I ask wearily. “I don’t need help getting dressed.”

“I’m to walk you out, when it’s time.”

“I can walk out myself,” I say.

“They’d rather not.”

“What? Who? Why?” I nearly scream.

“Helene and her people.”

“And dogs, I hear.”

“Yes,” she says.

I take a deep breath. “Okay, whatever. We can go. Better than thinking about it in here.”

I half expect Python to say no, it’s not time. But she doesn’t. We go to my back door and I call out “Dead woman walking!” before opening it, just for comic relief. It echoes off the walls. Python doesn’t laugh.

Together, we step outside into the light. In the distance, I see the woman on the hill, perched in a chair, two enormous dogs at her sides. She’s too far off to see clearly, but already, I can feel it. She is some kind of queen, at least to the groveling people gathered.

But that’s not what stops me in my tracks. That’s not even important.

It’s Anna, as I never imagined. Standing, walking, without even a cane. She’s carrying a glass of wine, toasting the woman on the hill along with the others.

As if she knows I’ve seen her, she turns to me, and smiles. Standing tall. Alert. Strong. Fully, wholly, well. Chills overtake me. Joy overtakes me.

Anna!