Chapter Thirty-one.

"STOP here," Destiny said a few minutes later, raising the hair on the back of Morgan's neck, though he shouldn't be surprised.

"Where?"

"The cemetery, of course. I wanna see Meggie's grave and say a prayer."

He didn't ask how she knew where to stop, but he did need to know why. "Des, what are you looking for?"

"Buffy. She's the tallest gravestone in here. She looks out above all the rest, but you know that." Destiny stopped to shield her eyes from the Indian summer sun. "There she is."

Meggie had named their guardian angel Buffy when they were in kindergarten.

Morgan stopped to see if Destiny would actually go to Meggie's grave, but he shouldn't have doubted her. By the time he joined her, she had knelt to run her fingers over the carving of Meggie's name.

Butterflies appeared as if from nowhere, different species in varying colors, fluttering around them, landing on the carving of Meggie in her grotto of angel wings. No butterflies on the other gravestones. They looked forlorn and barren.

The butterflies reminded him of the ladybug infestation, and he wondered if he'd find a butterfly painting in Destiny's new portfolio, though she did have a butterfly tattoo.

Destiny began to weep, softly, shocking him, releasing the emotional lock on his heart as if from a cage. She was mourning with him.

He could feel again. And it hurt. It hurt like a thousand bee stings.

He knelt beside Destiny, put an arm around her to console them both, and he mourned like he had as a boy-the first time in nearly twenty years.

He missed his twin. Yet his heart also recognized that this woman beside him moved him-Morgan the man-in ways he couldn't rationalize.

"One of us is crazy," he said, taking out his handkerchief to dry her eyes.

"No, both of us are psychic, but I'm not looking for an argument, so don't answer." She crossed his lips with a finger. He covered it with his own. And when their gazes met, something else shifted in him, something monumental but as basic as the need to breathe, the need to be with this woman for a scary long time. Maybe, for the rest of his days.

The knowledge came softly, like getting hit upside the head with . . . Meggie's stuffed dog? He looked to see if his sister was there and thought he saw a shadow run behind the headstone. An old familiar giggle floated on the wind. He doubted hearing it, and yet, there was no mistaking that giggle, that joy.

A butterfly landed in Destiny's hair.

She saw it from the corner of her eye. "In the Celtic tradition," she said, "the butterfly signifies transformation and rebirth, a spiritual and physical recycling. Butterflies leave their chrysalis and remind us that after pain, life is beautiful. I'll bet Meggie's angel is using the butterflies to help you understand."

"Meggie and I shared a guardian angel, or so Megs said."

"I know. She told me. She thinks you stopped talking to Buffy when she passed."

He shrugged. "Maybe I did."

"Celtic women used butterflies to adorn gowns, blankets, and cradle sheets for expected babies. Did Meggie chase butterflies?"

"Incessantly, giggling the whole time."

"Or did the butterflies chase her?"

Morgan thought about that. "You know, thinking back, it would be difficult to say."

Destiny indicated the pink granite angel. "See the way Buffy is making a grotto of wings to protect Meggie? That's how the two of them often appear to me, except that Meggie's hair is in braids. She's wearing the red plaid school uniform, and clutching a curly haired stuffed dog."

"You're kidding? She has the dog?" Morgan looked around again and resisted an urge to call his sister. Had she hit him with her stuffed dog just now? Like the old days? Nah.

"The angel's gown is blue," Destiny said, standing. "Blue here, and red there, with a gold sash, and her wings are a bright, glittery white. Now that may be my perception of an angel, but that's what I see. Buffy's face is different from this angel's, though. Buffy doesn't smile, but she looks at Meggie with a great deal of love. Meggie didn't catch that in her drawing so it's not on your tattoo, either, but I don't think that kind of love can be captured on canvas."

That kind of love. Buffy. Meggie. All the right words.

As if this beautiful, loving Destiny was his.

Chapter Thirty-two.

HIS destiny? Morgan thought his head might explode. He searched for the meaning in his life, but found none, until Destiny took his arm.

"Let's go," she said. "I want to stop at a nursery to buy some plants. Meggie wants a healing garden for you, and I also want it to be a memory garden for her."

Morgan went along with plans so ludicrous, they made a strange sort of sense, because he didn't want to be left in Oz without Destiny. Down the road at the nursery, she pulled a list from her purse. "I want Frikart's asters, joe-pye weed, plumbago, sneezeweed, snakeroot, tickseed, turtle-head, and tree mallow."

Morgan's heart about stopped.

"Yep, you guessed it," Destiny said. "Meggie chose the plants, and I made the list."

"I recognized her sense of humor right away. It's a lot like yours, actually."

The clerk filling her order kept shaking his head.

Hands on hips, Destiny circled the guy, who should be very afraid. "What's wrong?" she asked him.

The clerk wiped his hands on his gray apron, as if his palms were sweaty, then he looked around and lowered his voice. "Most of these plants won't come up next year because you're planting them so late, but I could get fired for telling you so."

Destiny leaned close. "I won't give you away. I don't care. I need to plant them. I also want that garden statue of the angel."

Morgan smiled as she linked arms with him. "For Meggie," Destiny said.

He fought the urge to kiss her in public. Destiny spelled trouble with a capital T.

"Look, Morgan, a lighthouse," she said. "We'll take that, too," she told the clerk.

Morgan chose an engraved stone and put it on the counter with the rest of their purchases. "A garden stone that says Destiny," he added. "Meggie needs that, too."

Later than they expected, it took two water taxis to get the two of them, Destiny's luggage, and their plants and statues back to the island.

"I wonder if the ladybugs are gone," Morgan said picking up as many suitcases from the dock as he could carry. "I hope they didn't migrate upstairs. I planned to take the tattoo tour tonight. I've had glimpses, but I'm talking spotlight on talent, here."

Destiny shivered. "I don't have the only tattoos in the neighborhood."

He shook his head. "You first saw mine when you were spying on me in the shower, didn't you?"

"Never mind that. How does a priest get tattooed?"

"He goes sailing to the islands with his crazy friends, where they all get hammered and tattooed."

"Aiden and King?"

"I can't believe your sisters haven't shared, though we vowed on penalty of death not to rat each other out. They must have sworn their wives to secrecy."

"Screw that," Destiny said, leaving her newest portfolio outside the kitchen door and going back for the plants. "Their wives are my sisters. I should know what Harmony and Storm know."

"I don't think the sister thing counts after you're married. Besides, each might only know about her own husband. I think husbands trump sisters."

"Figures. I'm such a late bloomer. The middle child but the only one with no psychic mandate or prospects."

Morgan dropped one of her suitcases. "You mean marital prospects?"

"Get real, and be careful with my things. I don't want a man gumming up my life. I'm only toying with you."

He sighed inwardly with relief and slapped her on the ass on his way back to the dock a while later for the statues. "You weren't talking like that in the shower this morning."

"We weren't talking at all in the shower this morning. Screw you, Morgan."

He stopped and raised his hands. "That's all I'm saying."

As he opened the kitchen door, a racket greeted them, cupboard doors opening and slamming, plates flying from the cabinets, hitting the floor and each other.

"Meggie," Destiny said, "What's wrong with you?"

Everything calmed. Cupboard doors stopped, some open, some closed. Plates lay in pieces on the floor.

"Why are you crying?" Destiny asked, but nobody was there.

Morgan hurt as if Meggie did-an old familiar ache. "Well?" he snapped, in over his head, and going down for the count. "What's wrong with her?"

"She's upset. She couldn't find us last night, and she's angry that we went away today."

Good thing Destiny cast the spell so Meggie couldn't find them last night. "But she was at the cemetery today. She knew where we were." Morgan heard himself and shut his mouth for half a beat. "I said that out loud, didn't I?"

"Yes. Congratulations." Destiny started picking up plate shards. "That's why she knows we went to see your parents today."

Morgan rubbed the back of his neck. "Meggie always did have a temper, but if she knows where we were, she knows how lucky she is that she wasn't there."

"Ah, you made her smile."

"That's something-no!" he snapped. "It's not, because Meggie isn't here!"

Chapter Thirty-three.

SADDENED by his response, tired of arguing, Destiny almost folded. But some things were worth fighting for. "Your sister is here, slam it."

More than anything, Destiny wanted Morgan to open up about his past, to believe in Meggie's spirit. Half the time, he seemed to believe that Meggie could exist on the spiritual plane, and the other half, he argued against it and his own instincts. An understandable reaction, but frustrating, nonetheless.

"Destiny," Meggie said. "Tell Morgan to go into the parlor and wait for you. I want to show you something."

Destiny translated his sister's wishes to Morgan.

"Fine," he said, shaking his head, as if one of them needed a shrink.

"Try to show some enthusiasm," Destiny whispered. "She can see you."

"Try to show some sanity," Morgan snapped. "I can't see her."

Meggie shrugged and led the way to the captain's chest in the closet beneath the stairs.

Destiny stopped short of picking it up. "I know about this chest, Meggie."

"Morgan needs to look inside at the things he put in there," Meggie said. "It's time."

"Ah." Destiny dragged the heavy chest into the parlor.

Morgan jumped up to help her. "Destiny, what are you doing with this? Put it back."

"No. Meggie wants you to look through it. Now. With me here. She said it's time."

"I could almost believe it's her, she's such a pest."

Meggie gave a thumbs-up.

Morgan carried the chest to the center of the Persian rug and knelt beside it.

"Go ahead," Destiny said, reaching for the latch. "Open, open, open."

Morgan sat on his heels. "I know what's inside."

"Meggie says you have to look and remember."