‘You leave me no choice,’ she said.

‘You look like Joan of Arc facing the stake,’ he said. ‘Trust me, this will hurt me more than it will hurt you.’

She’d heard that before, and it was usually followed by something awful. The last thing in the world she was going to do was trust the shimmering stranger who had invaded her life.

She would take what she needed from him, learn what she could, and then get him out of her life, along with the gift that felt more like a curse.

‘And once you teach me, you promise you’ll go?’

‘I’ll be gone in three days. By the Feast of Beltane.’

And all she could do was hold on to that hope, as she led him into her bedroom.

Sugar shot straight up out of the pouring spout of the shaker, and Crash ducked back, saying, ‘What the hell?’

Mare slapped her hand over the top of the shaker again. ‘Earthquake. Did you just ask me to marry you?’

‘No kidding?’ Pauline said, and Mare looked up to see her standing there with their Cokes. ‘He proposed?’

‘Thank you,’ Crash said, taking the Cokes from her. ‘We’re good here.’

Pauline stood there for a minute, her face avid, and then when they both looked at her pointedly, she rolled her eyes and left.

‘You proposed?’ Mare said when she was gone.

‘Yeah.’ Crash sounded surprised himself as he passed over her Diet Coke. ‘I did.’

‘You didn’t mean to do that, did you?’ Mare said, relieved and disappointed. ‘It’s okay’

‘No, I did. I mean, yes, I want to marry you.’ He shook his head as if to clear it, and then thought about it for a minute. ‘Yes, I do. Yes, Moira Mariposa O’Brien, I want to marry you-’

Yes, Mare thought.

‘-yes, I want to have kids with you-’

A fat laughing baby toddling down a sunny dusty road…

No, Mare thought. How would he feel if his baby turned out to be a freak like her?

‘-yes, I want to… what’s wrong?’

Temper tantrums with blue sparks and teddy bears flying across the nursery? Purple smoke rolling in and bunnies leaping from the bassinets? A puff of green fog and your firstborn is a frequent flyer?

‘Okay, not kids, not right away,’ he said. ‘In a couple of years. Five years. Ten years. We don’t have to have kids.’ He looked confused, as if he were in over his head.

She knew how he felt.

‘Stop,’ Mare said. ‘It’s just… things are complicated. I just got offered a promotion at work. And call me feminist, but I think working at my own career instead of following yours around might be a good idea for me.’ Except yours is in Italy and I bet I could do something amazing in Italy, too. Better than rent videos anyway. And I know I could do amazing things with you. Just lunch with you makes me breathless.

‘I didn’t mean you’d just follow me around,’ Crash said. ‘I don’t know what I meant. We’d work it out.’ He looked at the sugar shaker again. ‘I’m doing this all wrong. What the hell just happened here?’

‘And we really don’t know each other,’ Mare said. ‘Five years have changed both of us. A weekend isn’t enough for us to know, not after five years. And you left me. How do I know you won’t do that again?’ I can’t even tell you the big secret of my life. How can I marry you?

Crash shook his head. ‘Look, I waited to come back until I had something to give you, until I was ready to say, “Come back with me.” I’m ready, I’ll stick, I swear I will, Mare. I’m not going to pretend that all I did was work. There were other…’ He frowned, as if he knew he was screwing up again. ‘Look, no matter what I was doing, who I was with, I couldn’t forget you. I had to come back to get you.’

Mare sat back, exasperated. ‘Why do I feel like I’m being ordered at the pickup window at the Big Fast Food Restaurant of Love? You got a weekend so you’re driving through. As long as you’re here, you’ll take the Combo Mare. Supersize it, to go.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Crash said. ‘Look, you want me to go away, just tell me to go.’

He met her eyes straight on and she thought, Don’t leave me, and put her head in her hands.

‘Mare?’

Italy and the dusty sun and the bike and Crash and maybe that baby, and she loved him, she’d never stopped loving him, if she just wasn’t one of the gifted Fortune Sisters, the Head Bouncer at Witch Central…

‘Don’t go,’ she said.

‘Does it have to be this hard?’ Crash said. ‘Does it always have to be secrets and misery? Can’t it just be “I love you, too,” and a trip to goddamn Italy?’

‘No.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘This is going to take some thinking.’

‘Thinking.’ He nodded. ‘Sure, why not? Thinking. Some women answer proposals with just “yes” and a kiss, but you need to think about it.’

‘Hey,’ Mare said. ‘It’s been five years.’ Crash sat back. ‘You got a time frame on that thinking?’

‘I don’t get off until ten-thirty,’ Mare said. I’ll probably need longer than that. Tomorrow.’

‘Okay. Tomorrow.’

‘Is that when you’re doing it?’ Pauline said.

Mare glared up at her. ‘Excuse me?’

Pauline put their food on the table. ‘Is that when you’re getting married? Did you say yes? Maxine is back in the kitchen and she’s dying to know.’

‘You know,’ Mare began dangerously, and then realized the diner had grown quiet.

‘And a few others, too,’ Pauline said. ‘You know how word gets around here.’

‘Oh, hell,’ Crash said. ‘I had to come back, I couldn’t just stay in Italy.’

Mare stood up and looked at everyone in the diner looking back at them. ‘So here’s the story, and let’s get it right when we repeat it, people. Christopher Duncan, whom we all know and love as Crash, is back in town after establishing a successful business in Italy. He has come back to discuss the possibility of my joining him there to live happily ever after as his wife in the dappled sunshine where we will have many blissful days and passionate nights. I’m trying to decide if I want that, or if it would be better for me to stay here in Salem’s Fork and rent videos to all of you. I’m thinking about it. It’s not an easy decision. There are ramifications. I am cogitating. In the meantime, your food is getting cold. Eat up, Fork People. Cold food is bad for the digestion.’

She sat down again and looked at Crash, ignoring the sugar granules in the shaker, which were now pulsing gently, happily, like a good strong heartbeat.

‘You’re insane,’ Crash said, ‘but I love you.’

‘Eat your lunch,’ Mare said, and ignored the sugar.

Elric shouldn’t have been surprised by Lizzie’s neat bedroom – pale pink wallpaper, white-painted furniture, gingham curtains, and a bedspread that looked as if. it belonged on the twin bed of a thirteen-year-old, not the slightly more generous double bed. The only anomaly was the pairs of shoes lining the white baseboards – there had to be at least fifty pairs, of every possible shape and style. He glanced at Lizzie’s feet for the first time, and a slow smile spread across his face. The Road Runner high-tops had disappeared – at some point her shoes had become tropical espadrilles with fake fruit dripping off the straps. Lizzie Fortune had a hidden wild streak, at least when it came to shoes.

She was already looking defensive. ‘If you’re thinking I’ve been extravagant you’re wrong. I didn’t buy all these shoes. I haven’t worn half of them.’

‘I don’t care how you got the shoes, Lizzie. I will admit it interests me that you have so many. You don’t strike me as the Imelda Marcos type.’

She shrugged. ‘I like shoes.’

‘Apparently. I’m assuming these appear whenever you try to transmute something?’

She looked guilty. Adorably so, he thought, not happy about it. This was far too slippery a slope for him.