Page 43 of Never Landing

“I broke it,” he whispered, like everything he’d ever done had inevitably led to this one thing being broken, like he was somehow at fault for a loose board.

A memory washed over me—Everett breaking some toy and his mother scowling as she snatched it away and told him if he wasn’t going to take care of his things, he shouldn’t have them.

It’d been a tiny wound, but I could almost hear her words echoing around us now.

I’d meant to give him this as a Christmas present, but I couldn’t stand one more second of Everett feeling like anything he had or had ever done was wrong.

Everett was all things good in the world. He made life worth living, even if that meant accepting change and fear and doubt, because he also offered love and acceptance and beauty and pleasure and fucking pizza. He was the best, and all I wanted in the whole world was to make things around him better.

I took the figurine from his hands, fiddled with the arm for a moment, and felt the magic rush through my fingers. The little wooden body snapped right back in place and swirled around.

Everett’s eyes widened, his lips parting beautifully.

I wanted to kiss him, but as the magic rushed, warm and full and joyous, I pressed the wooden figurine back into his hands instead. “I’ll fix it,” I promised.

Beside his foot, the wooden board skittered across the porch and flew back into place, new and smooth as it’d been when the house had first been built. From there, that restoration spread out and out, turning the whole house new again.

“What are you doing?” Everett asked, his voice soft and breathy, full of wonder.

I grinned at him. “Magic, silly.”

The house already knew what it wanted to be, the boards knew their proper places, the rot stood out in my mind like a black smear. All of it was so easy to reach out to, and in a rush of glittering gold swirls, it all righted.

27

Everett

Magic.

Just like that, like something I hadn’t even believed in a week earlier could answer all the world’s problems, and...and it did.

The old, gray, weathered board didn’t just reconnect to its other half, fitting together, the seam between the pieces disappearing as though it was a single board again. It unweathered right before my eyes, lightening and brightening until it was a pale gold once again, just as it had been when the porch had first been built, before I was born. The way it looked in the pictures on the mantel, with my grandparents looking young and beautiful and in love, Grandma looking like Betty fucking Crocker in her red and white gingham dress, standing on the porch of their new-built house.

And then the board next to it was pale gold too. All the ones next to it.

There were creaks and groans all around us, a feeling almost like an earthquake beneath our feet. Well, my knees, since I was still practically sprawled on my ass where I’d fallen. I was lucky I hadn’t landed right on that rusty nail...except it wasn’t rusty anymore, but shiny and new.

The faded paint on the wooden siding all along the front of the house was fresh and crisp and white again, pristine as the day it had been painted.

The window fittings were perfect, the shutters and front door the bright cherry red they’d been in the pictures.

I didn’t pick up the spilled objects from my plastic tub, but stood and wandered inside, almost unable to truly process what was happening right in front of me. It was like the special effects from a cartoon. Golden sparkles swept past, and left behind perfection.

Perfect untouched carpeting, a shining unscratched whorled mahogany dining table, fuck me it was just...it was like we were my grandparents, walking into the house on that first day, when it had just been completed. The smell of mildew and rot was gone. The way the wood of the dining room floor had faded after years of sun, gone.

I raced upstairs, the magic flowing before me, and watched as the water damage in the main bedroom just washed away, like the magic was a fucking squeegee, and it was just a few stray drops.

I’d thought my grandmother had been one of those old ladies who loved all things pastel and delicate, but it turned out it was just faded over the many years she’d lived there. The purple bedroom was suddenly decorated in the most vibrant shade, from the comforter to the carpeting to the silk flowers in a vase on the dresser.

It was incredible and . . . perfect.

I turned to see Peter following after me, smiling, looking just as charmed as I was by all the purple.

“This is nice,” he finally said, looking around. He seemed just the tiniest bit winded, like the magic had cost him something, but he didn’t look pale or sickly or even especially bothered. No, he was happy.

And he was watching me, waiting for a reaction.

Fair. I didn’t even try to hold it back. I rushed over to him and swept him up in my arms. “Peter, this is incredible. It’s...it’s like the day my grandparents moved in. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

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