Mr. Crazy ignoring all that, just kept hobbling forward, his eyes glued to Timothy, not even noticing the lovely draped flowers and the beautifully gowned bridesmaids, (No, I hadn’t made my friends wear the traditionally ugly bride’s maid dresses. I’d asked them to wear whatever dress they wanted to wear, preferably in a shade of green, and they had all done so and looked lovely.)
On Timothy’s side of the wedding party, all the men were wearing sharp-looking suits of black. I knew Andrew and Chef Ben, of course, but not the other two handsome males, whom Timothy had said were friends from his businesses. (I wondered if they were married. Cara and Sammy weren’t yet. Maybe I could introduce them. Whoops, of course, they’d already been introduced since the men had walked the ladies down the aisle.)
Such strange thoughts were entering my mind when I should be focused on what was happening at the moment in the middle of my wedding, and who was the strange woman gathering eyes like some famous Hollywood movie star? Why was she interfering? Why was everyone bowing to her? Why did my almost husband, a magical pooka, seem humbled by her presence?
Jack Peterson’s eyes lifted to the judge who was supposed to be pronouncing us man and wife. The officiate had paused. He wasn’t bowing to the woman in the audience, but he wasn’t frozen either like the people who weren’t giving her homage.
“You cannot marry this couple. This man is a vampire,” Jack Peterson, Mr. Crazy, proclaimed. “This poor, innocent young woman has no idea of the danger she’s putting herself in. It would be a crime and a sin to go on with this marriage. I absolutely forbid it.”
“You fool,” said the lady standing in the middle of all the seats, surrounded by kneeling people. I was still kneeling, too, because Timothy had jerked me down, but I could see the woman clearly. She could have been Helen of Troy, Aphrodite, or one of her goddess peers, for she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. No movie star, no beauty queen, no top model could ever compete with what the fates had given her. She was perfection.
“Thank you,” the woman said, her eyes transferring from the fixed stare at Mr. Crazy to look directly into my eyes. “Penelope, Child, your thoughts are kind, and complements are always lovely.”