When Pru blinked, Rhiannon stood by the gate, eyes dark and unreadable, the sky wild behind her.
And the sight of her—hair in the wind, pale skin, and feral feverish eyes—made the magic in Pru’s veins sing. One look. One single look ignited her from within. Whereas Ceri’s warmth was washed away in an instant by the storm of this woman. She wanted to laugh. To rage and shake her fist at the stormy sky. Instead, Pru lifted her face and watched raindrops fall all around her. Then she took one step and met the rain head-on.
She did not go home.By the time she left Ceridwen, Rhiannon was long gone. Perversely, Pru wondered what would await her when she came back home. A storm? A conversation? Nothing at all?
Instead of confronting Rhiannon, Pru allowed the rain to guide her along with her thoughts. There was no escaping their direction. There was no running away from their fulcrum. No matter how much Rhiannon had shared, there were secrets standing between them like sentinels guarding their troubles.
So Pru went to the one place that could give her some answers without demanding an explanation. The one place that kept popping up in her mind every time she tugged on that loose thread of memory that she could not quite untangle.
As she rang the doorbell, she realized that not for a second did she think of the sprawled-out mansion as her home anymore. The tiny apartment was not hers either. She sighed and shuffled yet one more thought for later.
Her father’s face at seeing her was so open and joyful, Pru felt a pinprick of guilt in her chest. They didn’t see eye to eye on pretty much anything, but she knew he loved her, and that was a rare gift. She brushed her lips over his stubbly cheek and came in, the storm still raging outside.
He handed her a towel and walked with her to the place she seldom entered, his small private study off the main dining room. The space was a clutter of pictures, oil portraits, other art and mementos of his travels around the world as a young man. He studied in Europe, and the busy shelves of the small room reflected that with knickknacks and souvenirs.
As Pru tried unsuccessfully to dry her hair, he chatted about how overwhelmed he was these days and how things had really gotten out of hand at the town hall with the tourist season. He laughed as he recounted a particularly funny exchange with a family who thought they had lost their toddler only for her to be strapped to the father’s back in a sling all along.
“I remember the day of chasing you around, the sleepless nights and the worry of messing up keeping me up, making me just as clueless and tired as they were?—”
“Father, tell me about Margaux Belcourt.”
If her question surprised him, he didn’t show it. None of his huffing and puffing and waves of dismissal was present. No, he sat still, the only indication he heard her the fact that he had stopped speaking, but he had not looked at her. His eyes were unseeing, trained on the wall opposite his desk.
When she opened her mouth to ask again, he just lifted a hand, and she allowed him the pause.
“Well, that’s a name I’ve not heard in a very long time. Seems like another lifetime, Prudence Ophelia.”
She did not look away though he never raised his eyes to her.
“She’s dead.” She watched his face very carefully, for signs of… Heck, for any signs. But there weren’t any. Not a flutter of lashes, not a gulp, not even a pinch of his lips. Just nothing.
“I already told Rhiannon Crowhart that I’m sorry to hear that. Are you here to accuse me of something?”
And there was the very first note of displeasure that he had allowed to slip in since she walked through the door.
“No, I’m not. Why should I be?”
He got up and limped to the corner of the room where he poured himself three fingers of bourbon but did not drink it. Pru hated the smell, the overly sweet and smoky notes of it making her nauseous.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with her, Prudence.”
She said nothing, just gripped the armrests on her chair tighter and waited. After a few moments, he took a long gulp and gave her a longer stare.
“She’s always caused trouble, ever since she was young. You have finally settled into a nice routine here on Dragons. Sure, you are still stubborn about becoming my deputy, but I am not giving up hope. And you’ve begun a good life, finally parting ways with that other woman.”
He sighed and flicked a spec of lint off his sleeve before continuing.
“I never said anything while you two were dating, but I feel like I have to speak up now. Lyle, the boy you went out with during your summers here in high school, he works at the town hall, you know? He’s been asking about you. He’s a strapping young man. Good churchgoing family…” He took another sip of the bourbon. Pru could tell he wanted to go on espousing the virtues of Lyle, whose face Pru couldn’t even remember, but something in her eyes must’ve told him he’d be wasting his time. He exhaled, and his voice now resembled the one Pru recognized from church. Deacon Fowler speaking to the masses. “Rhiannon Crowhart is bad news, Prudence.”
She had to marvel at how their years of silences and avoidance and small talk had hidden the true nature of his thoughts. She always suspected, but having them thrown in her face like this, finally in the open, was an unpleasant revelation.
“That other woman” had to be Lisa. He couldn’t even say her name though he knew everyone on the island. And “good life”? He might as well have called her bisexuality the road to perdition right then and there. Deflection might work on him, Pru thought, desperate to change the subject.
“Bad news or not, she is going to fund the Halloween Fest now that Town Hall backed out. It’s one of those events that brings crowds to Crow’s Nest.”
He tsked dismissively.
“More trouble than those crowds are worth. And the Town Council has spoken. The good people of the Nest are uncomfortable with devil worshippers on the island.”
