She tilts her head confused. “He’s the one who told me to answer the call. Didn’t I tell you that?”
My brows furrow.
I don’t think she did tell me that…
I remember she made an ambiguous comment when she first arrived at the inn. Esme also said something that struck me as odd.
Her grandmother wanted her to answer my call.
Rowyn distracted me before I could fully process that, so I never thought much about it. Now, it doesn’t feel like a coincidence at all.
“Why would he do that?” My tone comes out sharp, but it’s my growing anxiety.
“I don’t know,” she answers truthfully, seemingly a little confused by it all now. “He just said he wanted me to be the one that takes the family’s place back at the inn. It was really important to him.”
“I’m glad it was you,” I clarify. “But why not your sister? Do you think she got the call too?”
She tilts her head and thinks it over. “I have no idea. Do you think Clover and Clementine received it, or just Clover?”
I murmur, “We need to talk to your grandfather.”
Something distracts me before I can ask where he is. I’ve only felt this sense of awareness once before washes over me, making a shiver run down my back.
It’s the same prickly sensation I had the first day we went into town during the equinox. Like someone is watching me, but everytime I look over my shoulder, no one is there.
I try to look around Rowyn and down one of the aisles, once again feeling like I’m about to see a ghost. There’s no one else this way.
As I turn to inspect the other direction, Rowyn covers her mouth before letting out a muffled gasp.
Whipping around, I expect to see a hellhound sprinting toward us. What I see is arguably even more terrifying. Rowyn grabs my arm to hide me further behind a stack, so we aren’t easily visible in the aisle anymore.
There’s a man. A seemingly harmless man who is setting his stuff on the circulation desk, appearing to get ready for his shift, not even looking at us. Maybe he doesn’t realize there’s anyone else in the large room since we’re huddled behind a bookcase and a rolling cart we’ve borrowed.
But I’ve noticed him—and now that I have, I can’t stop.
He’s the most attractive person I’ve ever seen. Even from here, even with half his face obscured, I’m sure of it.
He’s tall with a lean build that’s obvious through his jeans and leather jacket. His brown hair is short and messy, and matches the color of his trimmed beard perfectly. When his head whips up—looking in our direction, but apparently not seeing us—I get a better look at him.
His brows furrow in curiosity, probably sensing a presence with his magic, yet unable to see it. When he leans forward and tilts his head the slightest bit to the left, the sunlight streaming in through the clerestory windows hits his features just right, giving me a glimpse of his eyes.
They’re bright blue, reminiscent of the lake not that far from my mother’s house. Under the morning sun, it glowed bright, and sometimes the younger mermaids would peak their heads out playfully. When the rays weren’t hitting it directly, like now when the man pulls back a little and out of the path, it would go back to this deep, dark navy color.
But the most off-putting part of the entire encounter is that for the first time in eleven years, I’m seeing the man from my dreams.
I amreallyseeing him—not while sleeping, but awake. Less than fifty feet from me. I’m certain that’s the man I’ve met in my dreams hundreds of times. It’s like a fog has been lifted and the world is clearer. Like seeing him has brought new color to everything around me.
Nearlyjumping out of my skin when Rowyn whispers, I look at her from the corner of my eye.
“That’s the man from the photo,” she says, ducking lower behind the stack and looking at me in shock.
Shaking my head, I ask, “You’ve seen him?” Something in my stomach sours when I add, “In your dreams?”
For the first time since I’ve met her, Rowyn looks at me like I really am losing my mind.
“No,” she slowly says. “I saw him in the photo with Petra and Nestor… the same one you saw.”
What?
