34. Quoth

Once the ceremony was done, everyone in the village crowded around to hug us. By the time Mrs. Ellis and her friends were done with us, we smelled of lamb's wool and hyacinths and our organs were all smushed out of place.

While Lydia Bennet barked orders at the team transforming the green for the reception, the four of us snuck off to Nevermore Bookshop, where Hayes had set up a photoshoot. Our official photographer had bailed after James Pond cracked her lens with his beak, but it turned out that when Hayes wasn't solving crimes and arresting Mina or Heathcliff for stuff they didn't do, he was an amateur photographer. He mostly shot nature photography but he thought he could do some decent wedding portraits. We posed against the bookshelves and took shots of Mina reading in the old leather chair with the three of us looming behind her like the villains we are. Then we took a bunch of silly group shots with Bree and Jo and Mina's mother and Mrs. Ellis over in the graveyard, because of course we did.

After the photography was done, we returned to the green just as Lydia finished arranging tables in regimental rows and Richard was bringing out platters of sausage rolls, fish and chips, mini hot dogs, and pork belly sliders. Someone had even thoughtfully provided a Quoth-platter of all my favourites – nuts, grain mixes, dried berries, and little chunks of meat. Cynthia brought over a few trays of fancy hors d' oeuvres she managed to rescue from James Pond, and a table in the corner groaned under the weight of several cheesecakes.

"That's a lot of cheesecakes," Mina said as Morrie read out the selection. "One might guess it was a lifetime supply."

"It turns out, no one won that radio competition, so Smooth Loamshire decided to donate the lifetime supply of cheesecakes to a worthy cause," Morrie grinned as he filled up a plate of food for Mina.

"Oh, they did, did they? Out of the kindness of their hearts?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "They weren't prompted by a certain Napoleon of Crime with a sweet tooth?"

"Don't worry, birdie, I did everything non-violently." Morrie licked cheesecake off his fingers. "Mmmm, these are delicious."

Morrie filled up a plate of food for Mina while she dragged me over to where the pub band were setting up.

"Got any requests for your first dance?" Oliver asked. He was the drummer.

"Oh, hell yes." Mina grabbed me around the waist as she whispered a song into his ear.

When the band struck up the first bars of The Doors ‘People are Strange,' everyone in the crowd went wild. Mina wrapped her arms around me, and her green eyes reflected the shimmering fairy lights as I spun her around the makeshift dance floor. The magical waters of Meles sparkled behind her eyes.

All around me, our friends clapped and cheered. I dipped Mina low, laughing as she tripped over my feet on the way back up. My wings itched against my skin, but I didn't unfurl them.

For the first time, I didn't want to hide away.

Why would I?

Mina Wilde was my wife.

There was nothing more strange or wonderful than that.

I wanted to paint it on my skin, sing it into a microphone, shout it from the tallest rooftop (well, considering the tallest rooftop in the village was the bell tower where I rescued Mina just in time, maybe not that).

I couldn't believe how lucky I was.

"Quoth," Mina clung to me as the band changed to a Jethro Tull cover. "I love dancing with you, but if I'm going to embarrass myself all night, I need a drink and some more cheesecake."

"One thing this wedding isn't short of is cheesecake." I looped her arm in mine. We wove through the crowd on our way to the dessert table. Every few steps, we were stopped by someone wishing us well, or Mina wanted to check out the platters of mini beef and Guinness pies and haddock and chips, and the stalls people in the village had set up. There was Mrs. Ellis' knitting club taking bets on a ‘knit-off' between two octogenarians that looked like it was about to turn violent. A long line of people clamored for Sylvia Blume to read their fortunes. In the corner, Mina's mother had set up her monogram machines in a stall and was helping a bunch of kids make their own avant-garde handkerchiefs. She'd even managed to program her machine to embroider the quick sketch of a raven I'd given her.

We found Heathcliff and Morrie over at the dessert table, chatting with Sherlock and David Winter, whose entwined hands suggested the Great Toothbrush Battle had been well and truly settled.

"Now this is my kind of wedding feast." Juice dribbled down Heathcliff's chin as he bit into a slider. Morrie reached across him and wiped it away. Heathcliff glared at him, but he didn't break Morrie's fingers.

"I have to admit, you did an amazing job, Lord Grumblebum," Morrie said. "You missed your calling as an event planner. The next time the League of Literary Villains hosts our annual awards dinner, you should run it."

"The League of Wassit?" Mina asked.

"Shhh." Morrie held his finger to her lips. "Forget I said anything, gorgeous."

"This wasn't exactly the wedding I planned," Heathcliff said. "But I think it's turned out even better."

"I couldn't agree more." Mina snuggled into my armpit as we watched Inspector Hayes and Victor Frankenstein set up a bunch of fireworks on the village green. "I feel so loved and held by everybody tonight. I can't believe you managed to get the whole village to pull this off so quickly."

"You are rather beloved around here, gorgeous," Morrie said. "And not just by us. You touch people. You make them feel like they are special and interesting and worthy of love and respect. I know it's wretchedly sentimental of me to say, but you inspire people to do better and be better. The way you rose from ruination to make this beautiful life, I think even a phoenix would be jealous."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Mina fell silent. I thought she was just soaking it all in, but then she said, "I don't think this is all for me."

Morrie touched her shoulder. "Come now, you're the wife of James Moriarty, I won't hear of any false modesty."

She squeezed me tight. "I mean, our friends didn't do this just for me. The three of you need to face facts – you're just as beloved as I am around here."

"You take that back," Heathcliff growled, but his dark eyes had a sparkle to them. Even grumpy, lonesome Heathcliff had found his place in the world, and all because of the remarkable woman sitting on my knee, stuffing her sixth pork belly slider of the evening betwixt her glorious lips.

When Mina returned to Argleton a year ago, her spirit was bruised, and she was looking for where she belonged. We all were.

She split us all open, showed us we were worth all the work of piecing our broken hearts together again, that in this crazy, wild world, there was someone that fit so perfectly into us that all the words from all the greatest writers that have ever lived wouldn't be able to capture the rightness of being with her.

Because of her, I found my place in the world.

This raven has found home.