Free A Knight to Remember by Bridget Essex Page A

can’t, really, because it’s solid metal.   This isn’t a fake.  
    It seems real enough, too.
    Okay, Holly, what are you going to do?   I think to myself.   I worry at the edge of my lip with my teeth, and then I take a deep breath and start back across the lawn, half-dragging, half-trying to carry the sword after me.   Shelley follows along, leaping alongside me, the happiest I think I’ve ever seen her, her luxurious furry tail wagging and waving behind her like a fan.
    “She really likes you,” I grunt, heaving the sword after me as Shelley and I traverse the three steps up onto the porch.   Shelley prances right up to Virago and sits down in front of her, her tail wagging so hard and so quickly that it makes a little, faint thump against the floor.
    Virago smiles affectionately and crouches down, tousling Shelley’s head with long fingers and ruffling the tufts of hair behind her ears.  
    “She’s a good beast,” she says easily, even as Shelley’s face darts forward, and she begins to bathe Virago’s cheek and chin with her bright pink tongue.   Virago laughs with delight, and I’m frozen to the spot as I watch this exchange.   Yes, Shelley loves a lot of people, but she’s also a pretty good judge of character.   Nicole hated Shelley, and Shelley wasn’t too keen on Nicole.  
    Now, Virago chuckles, sits back on her heels, and she glances up at me with her ice-blue gaze as she ruffles Shelley’s ears again.   “What is the beast’s name?”
    “Shelley,” I say hesitantly, still watching their interaction for a moment.   Then I shake myself out of it, offer the hilt of the sword to Virago.   She rises in a single fluid motion, and takes the hilt from me, those long fingers now wrapping around mine as she lifts the blade out of my hands, her warmth lingering against my skin for a moment as I watch her heft the sword into the air.   She lifts it up like it’s about the same size and weight as a piece of celery .   “Like in…Mary Shelley.   I named her after Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,” I say, trying to stick to things I actually feel like I understand at this moment.   “She wrote Frankenstein ,” I continue, as Virago raises her brows questioningly.   “It’s…a very good book.   One of my favorites.”
    “Ah,” says Virago, and ruffles Shelley’s head again with a small smile.   “Named after the maker of a good book.   A good name for a good beast,” she finishes, smiling at me then, her full lips in a gracious curve.   “Thank you for retrieving my sword,” she says, stepping back genteelly to let me in through the door, holding the sword so that the blade is pointing down and to the side, at ease.   “If I may, perhaps, have a cloth to clean it?”
    “Sure,” I say, because why not?   I wander in past her.  
    I am so in over my head.
    I find the roll of paper towels on its side on my counter from where I ripped some off last night to staunch the flow of Virago’s blood, and I bring in a handful of them to her.   Virago’s seated on the couch, sword resting lightly on her knees, and she takes the towels from me, nodding and smiling her thanks.   Holly, seriously, oh, my God, get it together!   It’s just so hard to get it together, because every single time Virago looks at me, or her gaze lingers on me, I find that it’s difficult for me to form a complete thought, let alone complete sentences, but there are so many problems with that fact, because—first and foremost— she thinks she’s from another world , and though I’m going to be breaking up with Nicole, right now I’m still in a relationship with her, and...  
    Okay.   Let me just be completely honest:   the worst problem, the insurmountable problem?   There’s really no possibility that she’s gay.   I watch as she begins to stroke the wad of towels deftly along the length of the blade, rubbing off the mud and bits of grass, making certain they don’t fall on my carpet.   I