Jennifer Estep - By a Thread

“Fletcher?” I asked in an uncertain voice. “What are you doing here?”

He was sitting on the hood of the car, his back flat against the windshield, whittling a block of wood with the small knife that he always favored. Judging from the pile of shavings on the metal next to him, he’d been here the whole time that I’d been up on the mountain.

The old man raised his head at the sound of my voice and smiled. “Why, I’ve been waiting for you, Gin.”

I approached him warily. “Waiting for me? Why? You left me up on the mountain, remember?”

He nodded. “I did, and I’m sorry about that, but it was a necessary evil.”

My eyes narrowed. “What kind of necessary evil?”

Instead of answering me, Fletcher put his knife and block of wood aside. He swung his legs over the side of the car, hopped off the hood, and walked over to stand in front of me. His green eyes swept over my face and body. When he realized that I was just fine, his smile got a little wider.

“I left you on the mountain and pretended to abandon you because it was part of your assassin training,” he said in a quiet voice. “To help you get over your fear. It’s the one thing that can kill an assassin quicker than anything else. If you’re afraid, you can’t act. And if you can’t act, you can’t strike back at your enemy—much less hope to survive.”

I frowned, puzzled. “Fear? What fear? I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Yes you are,” he said in a kind voice. “You never let me out of your sight at the Pork Pit or when we’re at home either. You’re always watching me, always following me. And if I’m not around, then you do the same thing to Jo-Jo and Sophia or even Finn.”

It was true. Even though I tried not to, I trailed after Fletcher like a lost puppy, and I had to make myself not panic whenever he was out late on one of his jobs. Even when I was at school, I was counting down the minutes until I could see him and even Finn again and make sure they were okay. That they hadn’t left or been taken from me like my family had. I hadn’t thought Fletcher had noticed, but I should have realized that he had. The old man noticed everything.

“I wanted you to realize that you didn’t need me or Jo-Jo or any of the others. That you were strong enough to rely on yourself, Gin. That you were strong enough to survive on your own, no matter what happened.”

I frowned, more confusion filling my body. “I don’t understand. So this was all just a test? Of what? How much you could hurt me?”

Fletcher shook his head. “I know I hurt you when you thought that I abandoned you up there on the mountain. I’m sorry for that, but it was something you had to learn, something you had to face down. You never talk about your family or where you came from, but I know things didn’t end well for you—or them. But you kept on going despite all that, and I wanted to remind you that you could do it again. Today, tomorrow, and any time that you needed to—no matter what. Do you understand?”

Maybe it was crazy, but I did understand. I’d lost my old family, and I’d tried to use Fletcher and the others as a substitute. But I’d held on to them too tightly and had been too afraid they’d be taken away from me like my mother and sisters. Fletcher had wanted me to see that it didn’t matter where I was or whom I was with, as long as I kept fighting—and that’s exactly what I’d done today.

“So does this mean that I can come back home to the Pork Pit with you?” I asked in a soft voice, trying to keep the hope out of my face.

“There was never any question of that,” Fletcher said in a gruff tone. “I was going to give you until sunset, and then I was going to come and get you if you couldn’t or wouldn’t find your way down the mountain. I already love you like you’re my own daughter, Gin. Nothing will ever change that. But assassinating people is a dangerous business, no matter if you’re doing it for money or love or something else. I’m not always going to be around to protect or help you. Even if I were, we’re not always going to agree on how to do things. In the end, you have only yourself to depend on. It’s up to you to make sure that you’re strong enough to handle the hurts and disappointments that come your way—no matter what they are.”

I stood there and thought about the old man’s words. After a few moments, I nodded, telling him that I agreed with him and that all was forgiven, if not forgotten.

Fletcher smiled again. “Now that you’ve conquered your fear, you’re ready for the next step. But that’s a talk that can wait for another day. Right now, I’m ready to go home. Are you?”

I nodded again.

The old man held out his arms. I hesitated, then stepped into his warm embrace . . .

My eyes fluttered open. For a moment, I was back there in the woods, safe in the old man’s strong arms, but the ghostly warmth of his embrace faded all too quickly, the way the best dreams, the best memories, always do. I focused on the beige ceiling above my head, wondering where I was, since the ones in Fletcher’s house were all white. It took me several seconds to realize I was back in the beach house in Blue Marsh. I vaguely remembered knocking on the back door, but what happened after that was just a blur of color, light, and noise.

A faint fluttering sound caught my attention, and I turned my head to the right without thinking. I winced and tensed up, waiting for the pain of Dekes’s bites to shoot through my neck and shoulders, along with the agony of my broken collarbone, but the sharp, stabbing sensations didn’t come. A second later, I realized why.

A dwarf sat beside my bed, flipping through a thick beauty magazine, looking just as polished and put together as the cover model. Her white-blond hair was arranged in a series of perfect curls on top of her head, and her makeup looked just as soft, fresh, and pretty as if she’d applied it a moment ago. She wore a pale pink sundress that looked like it was her Sunday best, and a string of pearls dangled from her neck. Her feet were bare like always, although hot-pink polish gleamed on her toenails.

She must have sensed me watching her because she looked up from her magazine. Her eyes were clear—colorless, really—except for the pinpricks of black in the centers of her irises. A smile spread across her middle-aged face, causing laugh lines to crease in the corners of her eyes and mouth.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, darling,” Jo-Jo said.

I frowned and sat up in bed. “Jo-Jo? What are you doing here?”

Jolene “Jo-Jo” Deveraux put her beauty magazine down on the nightstand beside her elbow. “Why, patching you up, of course.”

I shook my head. “But I don’t understand. Why aren’t you home in Ashland at your salon?”

Jo-Jo owned one of the busiest beauty salons in the city. She jokingly referred to herself as a drama mama because she made a very, very good living gussying up women of all shapes, sizes, and ages for everything from beauty pageants to weddings to fancy dinners with their rich husbands.

One of the reasons Jo-Jo’s salon was so popular was that she used her Air elemental magic to augment the more standard waxing, plucking, teasing, curling, perming, dyeing, tanning, and other beauty treatments she offered. Letting an Air elemental blast your skin with a pure oxygen facial was a great way to keep Father Time at bay, although some people took it too far, getting so many facials that their skin took on a tight, slick, sandblasted look. Jonah McAllister was infamous for having a face that was smoother than a twenty-year-old’s, despite being in his sixties with a thick coif of silver hair.