“Do you guys own the town?” she asked. It seemed unreal that they possibly could.
“Sort of,” Lexie said.
“I mean, we do, but we’re still figuring out how all of that works,” Baz explained. “It’s our—inheritance, I guess you could say? Making it work is up to us.”
“We’re co-owners,” Fern chimed in. “The group of us, through a trust. As well as Declan’s sister Maida and Lexie’s little brother Seth. They might come out later.”
Arden nodded. “And you’re—shifters?” she ventured.
There was a sudden silence. The three of them looked at each other.
“How do you know?” Lexie asked.
Arden dropped her gaze. “I overheard you talking. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” Baz put his hand on her arm. “Don’t worry about it. Yes, we are. It’s not a huge secret.”
Arden still felt as if she’d transgressed, and she bolted the rest of her food and got to her feet. “I should get back to my cabin. Can I, uh, help you clean up?”
Fern bounced up with her. “They’ll take care of it. Do you mind if I walk back with you?” She paused to grab a pair of sandals and pushed her bare feet into them.
“Uh, sure, go ahead.” Arden glanced at Baz, who looked vaguely longing, but when he rose as if to follow, Fern motioned him back.
Arden didn’t quite know what to make of the strange young woman in the long hippie dress. Everyone else treated Fern as if she was different somehow. Arden decided all she could do was go with it.
“Did you want to talk to me alone?” she asked as they walked up the street.
“I thought it might be less overwhelming if it was just me,” Fern said. “They can be a lot, I know. I mean, I love them, they’re the only family I have besides my parents. But they really don’t seem to realize how much they are sometimes.”
Arden thought wistfully of Baz. Hewasa lot—a lot of man. Fern had a point, though, that taken all together, they made her feel as if she was being gently steamrolled.
“I guess I can see what you mean,” she said. “But I’m not really used to—” She swallowed. “Shifters.”
“We’re really just like other people,” Fern said. “Mostly like other people. I turn into a grizzly bear,” she added, almost offhandedly.
“Oh goodness!” Arden had been trying not to speculate too much, but she would have guessed Fern was something small and delicate, like a sparrow or a gecko.
“It’s fun! I’ll show you sometime. Where are you staying?”
Arden showed her the cabin. Fern peeked inside and looked around with interest. “I like it. It’s so small and cute. But you really need something to pretty up the place and make it look like a home.”
“It’s not a home. I wasn’t going to stay.”
Fern glanced at her. “What about flowers? They’re pretty, and there are lots of them around. I’ve been putting them in every room of my cottage.”
It was becoming clear that as nice as Fern seemed, she was very hard to say no to. Arden found herself swept into a wildflower picking spree, with Fern insisting that they take only one or two from each patch of flowers so the rest would show no gaps. And then they had to find some nice-looking items to put them in. Arden found a chipped pitcher with blue roses on it, discarded at the base of one of the cabins, and Fern helped her arrange the flowers in it.
Arden had to admit that they did brighten up the dim, cramped confines of the cabin a little bit. And they smelled nice.
“Oh, let me show you my treasure trove,” Fern exclaimed and led the way out of the cabin again.
“Treasure trove?”
“The very best places for finding nice little items to decorate your house are the old rubbish dumps,” Fern explained. She picked her way through a patch of weeds, holding her skirts up. “Careful where you step! A lot of the houses have some kind of trash dump behind them. Often it’ll be nothing but a hole in the ground or an old rusted barrel. I guess they didn’t have regular trash collection when this town was still being lived in.”
“But trash dumps ... that sounds kind of ...” Arden tried to think of a way to be polite about her disgust. “Messy?”
“Don’t worry about that part. It’s been years and years. All the gross stuff either decayed or was eaten by wild animals long ago. And what’s left are things like that pitcher you found, household objects that are chipped or broken. Some of it is genuine junk.Somany tin cans and rotten tires and things. But there are also pretty dishes, and metal items, and old kitchen things.”
