The Wood Wife by Terri Windling (the false prince TXT) 📕

“Of course I’m happy. Certainly. Well. It’s just… I hadn’t planned on a baby. It’s totally fantastic, of course. But. Well. It’s going to change things here.”

“Life changes anyway,” she told him. Tat was smirking at her in the doorway. Maggie picked up a book and threw it at her.

“Nicole is thrilled. She’ll have to stop modeling for a while. I don’t think she cares. I think she’d rather be home; the traditional wife. She’s not much like you are, Maggie.”

“No, she’s not. And that’s why you married her, remember?”

“Damn straight,” he shot back, teasing her, but his voice still sounded distracted.

Silence stretched again. Tat was looking at her watch, a worried expression on her face. “Nige, I’ve got to go. But I’m really glad that you called to tell me the news.”

“Okay, then. I’ll ring you tomorrow. How long are you going to be in London?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

“Well, just make sure you’re back in L.A. by June,” Nigel commanded.

Why? she thought, as she hung up the phone. This was their baby, not Maggie’s. It was Nicole who mattered now, not her. The Nigel part of her life was finally ending—and something new could begin. She was startled, and a little abashed, by the feeling of liberation that washed over her.

She turned to Tat. “It looks like our Nigel’s going to be a daddy.”

Tat’s eyes grew bright. Her grin was wicked. “Now won’t that be a sight. Nigel changing nappies. Babies drooling on his posh designer suits.”

“No way,” wagered Maggie as she lifted the end of Tat’s big print with her one good arm. “He’ll have Nicole and nannies to do the work.”

“Until it’s old enough to boss around; then the kid will be working for Nigel,” Tat agreed. She picked up the other end of the frame, and they hauled it to the freight elevator. Tat lowered them down to a loading dock, and they packed the piece up in Yann’s big van.

“Brilliant,” said Tat, with satisfaction. “Now come upstairs and tell me what to wear.”

“That’s easy,” said Maggie, following her. “Wear that black dress that barely covers your bum.”

“The one that gives Larry apoplexy?”

“The very one,” said Maggie.

Tat disappeared into the bathroom, and reappeared in a skintight dress that exposed a lot of long white leg, spotted with streaks of paint. She glared at Maggie. “Do I look like an artist or a prostitute?” she demanded.

Maggie laughed. “Honey, in those army boots, nobody’s going to mistake you for a hooker, don’t you worry.”

Tat continued to frown. “Do my eyes deceive me, or have you let a bit of c-o-lo-r actually come in contact with your virgin flesh?”

Maggie flushed. She wore Fox’s shirt under her black Armani jacket. “Big deal,” she mumbled. “Life changes, right?”

“Will wonders never cease?” said Tat, putting her arm through Maggie’s as they headed for the elevator.

The traffic was heavy as Tat drove from her loft in the industrial streets of Spittalfields to the gallery in the West End where her show would open that evening. Tat’s sweet French lover, Yann Kerjean, looked relieved when the two women finally arrived, glad to get the last of the prints and to see that his van was still intact. Maggie left Tat in Yann’s capable hands, and went off in search of dinner.

She eyed the sky suspiciously as she stepped back out onto the street. The rain was holding off, but it wouldn’t hold off for very much longer. Tat had said a good Indian place was up the street and to the left. Maggie passed trendy dress shops, other galleries, a noisy pub … no Indian food. She felt a drop of rain on her face, and then another. She walked another block. She passed a Greek restaurant, a leather shop, then a gallery window that stopped her in her tracks. She looked at the exhibition sign again. The show was of work by Brian Froud, Cooper’s friend, and Dora’s favorite painter. She looked at her watch. There wasn’t much time, but she went inside anyway.

The gallery was long, narrow and well lit. Maggie barely noticed any of these things. Her eyes were caught and held by the paintings themselves, glowing on the gallery walls as though all the color that was missing from the grey London sky was captured here. The paintings were of fairy creatures drawn from shapes of brown oak leaves, of moss on stone, of water and wood, of light and wind and stars. She knew these creatures. Or if not precisely these, then their kin, born from the dry desert soil. Looking at those haunted faces made something ache deep down inside her.

It was a low, dull pain, both bitter and sweet. It was homesickness, she realized; a feeling she’d never once felt before. She missed the desert. She missed its colors, its spirits, its scent after the rain. She missed Johnny Foxxe. Maggie closed her eyes, and took a steadying breath.

She stayed in that gallery for a long time. When she finally left, it was raining in earnest. She fumbled left-handed with her small and useless umbrella, hurried up the darkened street, and found Tat’s take-out place up the block on the right, not the left. Good old Tat.

There was a phone booth just beyond the restaurant. Maggie stopped and looked at it. The wind snapped her umbrella inside out, breaking its brittle, cheaply made spines. The rain drenched her as she stood, indecisive. She ran to the booth, closed the door. Water pounded overhead as she slid her credit card into the machine with cold, numb fingers. She punched in the long transatlantic number and waited, wet and shivering.

The connection was made, but just as the phone began to ring, she slammed the receiver down. What on earth was she doing? It was still early on the mountain—half a day and half a world away. And what would she have said to Fox? She was just as