Fern’s dizzied expression began to focus. She smiled at Arden; then her gaze wandered up and around to the rest of them. Arden felt as if she ought to have the feeling of being shut out, and yet she didn’t.
It was nothing like the way she had always felt with Grant and his rich political friends. She had always been aware that they only tolerated his poor-girl wife for Grant’s sake. And even before that, her friends in college had only put up with her as long as she learned to reflect their beliefs, say all the right things, and act like them to fit in.
Never before had she felt such unconditional acceptance, the ability to be part of the group and simply be herself.
Some of the change, she knew, was in herself. She had been pushed so far as Grant’s wife that she was no longer willing to put on a fake persona for the sake of being liked; she had learned all too well that it would end in rejection either way.
But it was also simply these people. Theylikedher. At least, Baz did, Fern did, maybe Lexie did. They wouldn’t like her any better if she pretended to be someone else.
She glanced sideways at Declan, who was scowling generically at nothing in particular, as if merely hearing her name from Fern had annoyed him. Okay, maybe not him quite so much.
“What happened to you?” Baz asked, squeezing Fern’s hand. “Do you remember anyone attacking you?”
Fern tried to shake her head and winced in pain. “No, it was nothing like that. I was trying to find the old well—you know, the wishing well? I finally remembered where it was.”
“In the middle of a storm?” Declan demanded. He sounded, as usual, angry, but at least this time Arden could tell it was more worry than anything else.
Fern frowned. Something odd flickered across her face. “I—I don’t know why I needed to be out there so badly. I just did.”
Everyone seemed to accept this without explanation. It seemed they were used to Fern doing things like that. Arden found herself wondering if it wasn’t just that Fern was a bit peculiar, but also that shifters were more in tune with their instinctive side. Perhaps it was humans who were the odd ones out, ignoring and explaining away their impulses rather than following what their heart knew to be true.
Lexie helped Fern sit up. “Do you feel up to eating? I was just making dinner.”
She passed around bowls of a hot mixed fry of eggs, sausage, and bacon, along with thick slabs of bread toasted on the stove. There was hot coffee for most of them and a cup of tea for Fern. The meal passed in spells of comfortable silence, interspersed with the others (mostly Baz and Lexie) gently questioning Fern about her accident. Fern answered all her friends’ questions with “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember.” She didn’t recall seeing any other shifters there. She was confident that she had slipped and hit her head. No, she didn’t have any idea why she felt it was so urgent to find the wishing well at that moment in time.
When they had finished eating, Lexie was collecting the dishes when Fern, hands curled around a nearly empty cup of tea, turned to look at Arden. “Can I please talk to Arden for a few minutes? It won’t take long. I just want to ask her about something.”
Lexie promptly took the bowls to rinse them in a rain barrel. Baz squeezed Arden’s arm supportively, and draped an arm over Declan’s shoulders and offered to walk him home.
“It’s just across the street,” Declan grumbled, shaking off his cousin’s not so subtle offer of “help.” “I think one of us should stay.”
“If Fern needs us, she can call,” Baz said. “Or Arden too, for that matter. We’ll be right outside.”
They left, and Arden and Fern were alone. The sound of rain drumming on the metal roof had faded to a light pattering, punctuated now and then by a piece of wood snapping in the stove.
“What is it?” Arden asked, both puzzled and nervous. “Did I do something wrong?”
Fern shook her head. She pushed herself a little more upright on the sleeping bag. “Could you hand me the hot water to refresh my tea, please?”
Arden did so. She sat crosslegged in front of Fern on the floor, though all her paranoia told her to flee.She knows who you are. She knows who your ex is.
But if Fern planned to reveal her secrets to the entire group, Arden reassured herself, she wouldn’t have asked the others to leave.
“I don’t know quite how to begin,” Fern said. “I do know why I was at the well, sort of. I just can’t really talk about it with them. Not yet.”
“But you can with me? I don’t understand.”
“It involved you, in a way.” Fern took a sip of tea, then looked up with her strange, bright green eyes. “I—I don’t know if you’ll believe me. The others know about this, but I think they don’t know the extent of it.” She hesitated briefly. “I ... see things sometimes. Visions, I guess.”
“You mean like—dreams?”
“Sometimes.” Fern frowned. “But also sometimes when I’m awake. It doesn’t happen very often. It comes and goes. I think it’s something I got from my dad. He just—knowsthings, a lot of the time. It’s not quite like that for me, but it also kind of is ... if that makes sense?”
Arden shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Is this a shifter thing? Maybe you should be talking to them rather than me.”
“No, this is about you,” Fern insisted. “You see, Arden, I saw you. At the well.”
Arden stared at her. Of all the things Fern might have said, this was completely outside her guesses. “You—what? Me? I was at the well?”
