“It took me years to get my own place, and a phone that wasn’t on my parents’ plan (they still paid for my phone and insurance even though we didn’t speak), rescue a goose, and convince myself that I belonged on the Gram. Once I started, the Gram was the strongest drug, showing myself to people who actually wanted to see me. Now that I’m getting off of it, everything that I’ve avoided is returning to me,” Aiden said.

“Sometimes, there is a way to regain that which was lost,” Blithe said, uncharacteristically optimistic.

“Maybe,” Aiden said, doubtfully. “Let’s talk about your trip.”

“What do you have left to do to get ready, Blithe?” I said, tho I was still thinking about Aiden and his family.

“Just call my bank and figure out the phone situation. I don’t think I need Chinese adv-tech. I’m going to go as lo-fi as is permitted.”

“I’m jell,” I said.

We all sat on Blithe’s couch and he pulled out a paper map with his route marked. He showed us the path he would take from Beijing, into the striped mountains of Gansu Province, through the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai, and down to Sichuan.

“My healer told me to chart my path intuitively, without guidebooks or a travel agent. He said that my body already knows where to find what it needs. But I did look up where the giant pandas live,” he said.

As Blithe spoke, his voice took on a different note. It was strange what the Shadowlands could do: destroying us and then rebuilding something stronger.

The big day arrived. I waited for Stone in the lobby as the wedding planner, Alicia, ran around with an egg timer, screaming at her staff. She wanted them to change the water of the agapanthus, hydrangeas, and roses every hour.

“You know what? I’ll be like that one lady and do it myself,” she shouted, grabbing two empty crystal vases and running toward the kitchen, sandals clacking on the old wooden floors. She must have missed the Future Business School study on leading by leaving people alone and administering gentle nuggets of praise.

The French doors of the lobby remained open to the lawn. The day was exceptionally warm for December in California. The inn had no air conditioning. Window boxes would ruin the building façade, and the inn didn’t have the right wiring for central air.

Hanging with Aiden and Rachel, I’d had to endure hearing about the most minute minutiae.

Outside, the grasses had been trimmed, and the crass yellow wildflowers were taken out of their beds. As Stone would often point out, basic labor was always narrated in the passive voice; no one needed to know about the person doing the work.

I spotted Agatha the goose wandering around in her enclosure, far from the rose bushes, eating honeyed insects that the Witch had sent her. They’d showed up one day on my pillow along with a letter from her.

Dear Pen,