“I was just curious. M-my parents met in college. It was love at first sight, or so I’ve heard, but I was young when they died, so I never got to hear them tell it. Only what other people tell me. I—” her voice broke. “I like hearing stories of how other people’s parents fell in love.”
“That’s so sweet, dear,” his mother said. “And so sad.”
Cal made himself swallow a mouthful of wine that tasted like acid.
“Sheriff Crocker informs me that they should be able to get the road cleared in time for the festival,” his father said, changing the subject. “Not that our so-called city officials have deigned to lift a finger, even though they’ll use all five to rake in the money it brings.”
“It’s too bad the landslide prevented Nadine from leaving,” said his sister. Pointedly.
“Yes. Though with such a dramatic change of schedule, I suppose now you have no excuse not to see the festival for yourself, Nadine.”
“Maybe,” she said, in a harsh, choking voice.
“And I would assume—” his father looked at him directly “—Cal will be taking you.”
There was a heavy silence that neither of them volunteered to fill.
“I asked you before what your intentions were with my son, and you ran away like a frightened deer, Nadine. Perhaps this time you’ll answer without stammering. We’re an old family, you see. There are certain standards we need to uphold. Certain requirements that must be met.”
“I’m not after his money, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” she said, with a valorous restraint.
“Oh no. This goes far deeper than that, my deer. Far deeper than someone like you could imagine.” The look he gave her made Cal want to leap over the table, knife in hand. “To be perfectly frank, I’m not entirely sure that you have the correct disposition for me to permit this to continue.”
“Unexperienced,” Ben supplied. “Erratic. Common.”
“Yes.” His father scratched his beard thoughtfully. “All those things.”
“Are you staying for the festival, Nadine?” Over the ringing in his ears, Cal was only vaguely aware of his mother’s voice, though he managed to turn in her direction to save face.
“I—don’t know.” Nadine’s voice shook. As she rallied herself, she was unable to look at any of them at all. He dug his fingers into his thigh with his free hand as he picked up his wine, and it was only through years of effortful control that his hand remained steady as Nadine said, “I thought . . . since I can’t leave . . . it might take my mind off Noelle.”
“Oh it will,” his father promised. “Trust me, my deer. You’ll be able to think of nothing else.”
“It is invigorating,” Ben agreed. “Even the townsfolk come to gape along the sidelines.”
“We encourage more active participation.” His father smiled unpleasantly. “The slack-jawed public may be satisfied with their bread and circuses, but not us. Caledon Cullraven believed that man and nature were hopelessly intertwined, and that it was only in the verdant wilds that man could cast off the fetters that made him prisoner to modern convention.”
“That sounds like a cult.” Nadine said it quietly.
“He was a revolutionary. An industrialist with an affinity for the wilds. Only the closed-minded see a man newly freed from the prison of his own thoughts and declare him a fanatic.”
“Or a cult leader.”
His father set down his fork and one of the maids immediately came in to sweep away the dishes. Nadine stared straight ahead as they replaced the stemware with small snifters for port, and his mother’s custom scalloped china painted with black hellebore motifs.
“Our festival saved this place,” his father said, warming to a beloved subject, though his eyes remained hard as flint in response to his sparrow’s challenge. “So many old mining towns peter out along with the ore. But tourists arrive yearly for the festival, and when they do, they come in droves; and that new blood keeps the heart of the town pumping. Without Ravensgate, Nadine, there would be no Argentum.”
“And Sheriff Crocker keeps them all in line,” Ben said, with no small amount of satisfaction.
“Or he will, as soon as he unblocks that damned road.” His father picked up his snifter, waving off the maid with the dessert tray. “Though in a county like this, you get what you pay for.”
“Father hates tourists,” Odessa said. “He considers them a necessary evil. I’ve personally always thought that we ought to rent out rooms here at Ravensgate.”
“You think we should put a price tag on history?” his father asked.
“Isn’t that what the festival is?” Odessa retorted brashly. “I think—”
“You’re a Cullraven. You don’t need to think. Youact. The only thing that separates us from them, my dear, is that lack of hesitation. Conviction overrides the lesser faculties.”
