I reflexively slam the book shut. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t touch the things in here.”
He looks at the cover but doesn’t move to take it. “It’s all right. No harm done. You looking for something in particular?”
I swallow, unable to explain what I was looking at or why.Words are failing me in the wake of seeing the Fathom for myself.Ineffable,the voice whispers in my head. “Not really.”
“Okay.” He gestures toward the chair. “Maybe you should sit again. You look kind of pale.”
Nodding, I do as he asks, grateful for the wood beneath me.
He drags another chair over, taking a seat in front of me, elbows against his knees, hands clasped between his legs. “You want to tell me what this is about? Did you go out geocaching again? Did you find something upsetting? Or toxic?”
I take a long breath. “No, nothing like that. Physically, I’m fine. At least, I think I am.” But my sudden photosensitivity and the trembling of my hands would suggest otherwise. “Do you have any more of those granola bars?”
He produces one from his shirt pocket, and I fall on it like a bear after hibernation. “Slow down,” he says. “I can get more.”
I chew and sigh and try to figure out what to tell him. “I just needed to see you.”
He reaches out and squeezes my arm. “I’m here, but I need you tell me where you’ve been.”
He’s right. I have to give him what I can. I can’t keep turning up like this, distraught and full of secrets. It’s not fair to him or anyone. And after what he told me about his ex-wife, I don’t want to invite comparisons. “A club near downtown,” I begin. “In a historic building over the underground.”
“You mean the areaways?” he asks.
“Yeah, but a part that isn’t open to the public.”
“Okay,” he says. “I’m listening.”
“I know the owner. She’s a friend, sort of.”
He gives me a questioning look.
I finish the granola bar and crumple up the wrapper. “I’m not doing this right. It’s hard to say where it started.”
He laces his fingers through mine, attempting patience. “You were with your sort-of-friend in her old building.”
“Yes.”
“Was this today?”
I nod. “I went to see an artist on my lunch break, and I went there after. I had questions. For the artist, not my friend. Well, that’s not true. I had questions for both.”
Levi looks like he’s trying to follow a cat through a rainstorm. “Judeth, what happened in the building? Can you tell me that? I’m worried you may have been exposed to something—natural gas, hydrogen sulfide, radon.”
“I was exposed to something,” I tell him. “But nothing like that.”
“It’s clearly something that hurt you. You can’t stop shaking.”
Did the Fathom hurt me? I don’t think so. It turned my guts to jelly and cracked my mind open like a coconut. Itchangedme, just like Arla said it would. “I—I can’t tell you.”
He releases my hand and a heavy exhale. “Why not?”
“Because I’m not supposed to. Because I don’t know how.” He’s hurt, the apprehension and suspicion he’s trying to push aside out of concern visible. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
This encounter has reordered my entire being.Me—a woman born to magic, born to legends, born to curses. If I tell him what happened in Arla’s basement, what I saw—What did I see exactly?—he’ll think I’m having a psychotic break. I’ll lose him. He’s a kind man, but everyone has their limits.
But if I don’t tell him…No secrets. No drama.Will I lose him anyway?
He rubs one thumb over another. “Let me be the judge of that.”
