“Not the only part. Why did he sell the spa to Warwick?” It had been in our family for generations. He’d devoted so much of his time and energy to it. I couldn’t fathom why he’d sell it, particularly since the spring’s magic had returned.
“Because he’s a bad judge of character?”
“You don’t like Warwick?”
“Nobody in Shearwater with a copper’s worth of sense likes him.”
I hadn’t gotten the best impression either, but still asked, “Why?”
“The way my dad tells it, at the time Warwick came to Shearwater, the spring was in a bad way. Not much magic left in it, which meant not many tourists. It was looking like Grandad would have to declare bankruptcy. So Warwick swoops in and offers to buy the spa off him, keeping us all on as employees and giving Grandad some meaningless chair on the board of directors.
“Then, after the strid … Well, you know. People moved away, even people who’d been here a few generations. Afraid they’d be next, or they lost someone and didn’t want the reminder. Can’t blame ’em, but Warwick bought up their places for a rotten steal and flipped all them nice, old houses. Now they’re nice on the outside, white boxes on the inside. Conveniently, the spring got its magic back after two dozen people drowned in it, so tourism spiked. Warwick rents all those places he’s got as bed-and-breakfasts for evil prices. At this point he owns half the high street.” She shrugged. “Tale as old as time, right?”
“When did Grandad sell it?”
“Barely a year before you left? He didn’t tell any of us. My dad found out years later. He was proper devastated. Always fancied carrying on the family tradition, sprucing the place up.”
“And the fact the strid happened to devour two dozen people, and the spring got its magic back after, is just a coincidence?”
Amelia’s lips twisted, making the cigarette’s ember bob. “You’re not saying anything we didn’t think ourselves, but there’s no proof Warwick did something as malicious as playing the Pied Piper and drowning twenty-four people just to make the spa profitable again.”
“No proof. But you think he might have?”
She shrugged.
The timing of it all gave me pause. Perhaps it was overly convenient to pin the greatest tragedy of my life on the man who benefited most from it, but it would be nice to have a villain. A person to blame. Someone with a dastardly plan whose defeat would revert my life back to normal.
Amelia rose and stomped out her cigarette butt with her toe. “Anyway. I didn’t come out here to whinge about Westley fucking Warwick.”
“What did you come out for?”
“Really, Tal? I came to say goodbye.”
Before I could protest, she dragged me into a hug. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a proper hug, and it showed. I moved stiffly, like a robot learning how to love, then tightened my grip.
Amelia didn’t comment on it.
She said, “I wish you didn’t have to go. It’s nice having one more semi-sane person in the family.”
I wanted to pull back, then. She hadn’t said anything wrong, quite the contrary. She was saying everything right, and it was making it so much harder to leave, to say goodbye for good.
Maybe I’d been wrong about there not being enough love here from which to build a home, but I couldn’t afford to find out.
I was so lost in thought that when she did pull away, I forgot to let go. I released her a second too late. She gave me a knowing look and said, “Come on. I’ll give you a lift back.”
In the spa’s car park, Lunaris waited for me. She greeted me by playing a comforting tune on the radio, something you’d only hear at a speakeasy, crooned by a woman with oiled curls and a long-stemmed cigarette in one hand.
I’d come up with a plan on the way. First, shower with a decontamination spell, because the touch of the spring made my skin crawl, and I didn’t trust that it hadn’t left some trace upon me. Second, stock up on sandwiches and snacks to keep me on my trip. Third, choose a destination many miles away from Shearwater and drive until it got dark.
I only got through the first of my tasks before a knock came at the door. I’d just thrown on my housecoat when Lunaris flung the door open on my behalf.
Kessian, on the other side, jumped.
I hadn’t expected to see him yet again, and couldn’t fathom what he wanted from me. I doubted it was round two. The deadly visions from the spring were a mood killer.
But when his eyes roamed my body in nothing but a bathrobe, I second-guessed that assessment.
“Hello,” he said absently.
