Paloma set her phone down and refused to meet the eyes of the woman sitting across from her. She knew she was being overly showy, but this particular interlocutor wasn’t necessarily her adversary. In fact, Paloma had a feeling they had been working toward the same goal since she had arrived on the island. Still, years of caution in business relations—and simply living in her skin and with her name—taught her to never show her entire hand.
“Don’t you wish you subscribed to the paper version? It can be very satisfying to crumple something up and throw it in the trash.” Magdalene Nox took a sip from her tiny espresso cup and signaled for the server. “And really, is it the mention of crowds that you find so offensive? Not the quite debatable handsomeness of a candidate? Nor the obvious dichotomy thrown in the reader’s face of Moss being a local and you an outsider? They sure do bother me.”
Paloma schooled her features and chose her words carefully.
“I have been dealing with those kinds of epithets all my life. For you to find them bothersome is interesting.”
Nox handed the menu back to the shy boy, no more than twenty, and requested more coffee before turning to her.
“I don’t know the realities of your life—my privilege is loud that way. However, I know this island. I know these people. And a few years ago, I was new. I was the interloper who was suspicious and whose every move was questioned. And my name was neither Paloma nor Allende. You have an uphill battle to fight, dear.”
Coffee tasted bitter on her tongue, and Paloma set it aside.
“I’m aware. That has never been news to me.”
“Now, now. There are some positives in your running against this particular individual. Nobody, and I mean nobody on this island, not even his own wife, likes the man.” Victoria Crowhart, her bohemian glory obscured by a chef’s coat, swanned to their table, unceremoniously interrupting their conversation while carrying a tray of pastries. They looked very elaborate.
“My niece Deryn is back in the kitchen doing ‘social media shoots.’” The words were whispered, and Victoria’s face was distinctly unimpressed. “Newfangled ways and TikTok dances aside, the pastry looks and is, in fact, delicious, and I trust the two of you not to leave the Tavern bad reviews should these not be to your liking.”
Nox, a small smile on her lips, picked the one closest to her. A work of art, really, by the sight of it. A two-inch confection that looked exactly like a real strawberry, down to the seeds. It even smelled like one from where Paloma was sitting. Still, her throat had gone dry, and her hands had been unsteady from the moment Deryn’s name was mentioned, and so she shook her head at Magdalene offering her half. Victoria made a face at her refusal.
“I know what you mean, Ms. Allende. A scone, or a muffin? Give me one any day. And don’t occupy my kitchen and take up all the space and scare my poor baby baker. Khalid has been beside himself all morning with Deryn taking up all his counters and messing up his dough temperatures. And for what? For pictures and videos, and she doesn’t even eat her own pastries and cakes!”
Paloma watched as Victoria threw her hands in the air, clearly exasperated.
“At least she doesn’t put cream cheese into everything. The way the pastry industry is going these days, you’d think the chefssold their souls to Big Parma.” Victoria smirked, Nox laughed openly and merrily, and Paloma was hard pressed to hide her own smile.
Then the Crowhart matriarch took a calming breath and directed her decidedly calculating gaze at Paloma.
“But back to Moss. That man has gotten everything in his life, everything he even began to think he wanted, simply by existing. He never challenged himself, never went to a good college or started a business in places where his parents couldn’t catch him should he fall. And women? Well, theCawcalls him handsome, and so someone must believe it. Renee is his fourth wife, and that tells you pretty much everything you need to know about a man in his early fifties.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Paloma looked directly into green, oh-so-familiar Crowhart eyes.
“Because that’s the reality you’re facing. An aging spoiled brat without much to recommend him but his family relations and money, a string of broken marriages, and absolutely nothing interesting or impressive on his résumé.” Victoria shrugged a shoulder, but the green in her eyes dimmed.
Paloma had to laugh. Or maybe cry.
“Mrs. Crowhart, as someone with two marriages under my belt, I can attest to them being the least interesting things about me. Or anyone, for that matter. As for a mediocre man being regarded higher than me?” Paloma settled on laughing, hearing the forced note in her own voice. She didn’t care—it was either this or an exasperated scream. “That has been my reality for my entire life. I am better, smarter, more educated, more accomplished, more everything than any man in my immediate vicinity, and all of that will be ignored. I have always worked twice as hard and twice as long to achieve what, as you say, is simply given to some. I know what is in my way in this election.”
She went downto the beach. It was more instinct than anything else at this point. She had the cliffs up by her tower, but when she wanted to think, it was more often than not the beach and the water that she sought. She took off her heels and stockings and walked along the line of the cold ocean, periodically allowing it to kiss her skin. It felt invigorating.
And it helped clear her head. Lately, she was overwhelmed by the sheer number of directions she was being pulled in. It had never happened before. She could juggle ten projects with the best of them. Hell, she had done so many times.
“Except you know that’s not what’s got you like this…”
She heard her own whisper, saw the warm air escape her lungs in a cloud of vapor and confession.
No, what had her by the throat wasn’t a project. Nor was it the election. Even the resort was a piece of luxurious, time-consuming cake in comparison.
What took her breath away ever since the night of the fire was the vision. What spooked her the most was the fact that said vision had returned. Because initially, so unlike herself, Paloma had dismissed these intrusions into her conscience.
It had happened on the day she set foot on Dragons Island for the very first time, almost five years ago. She drove her Porsche off the ferry and parked, planning to take a look around town before driving up the cliffs and meeting the enigmatic Headmistress. The deal would be negotiated, and she was champing at the bit to begin. She was excited. And then she opened the car door and stepped onto Crow’s Nest soil. In the blink of an eye, she knew she was no longer Paloma Allende.
The town around her was smaller, older. Just as picturesque. And up in front of her, surrounded by three giants, stood the boarding school. Shiny and new. Not the one restored from the ashes. No. This one was sparkling with fresh marble and gleaming glass.
A hundred years ago. Perhaps more. Paloma couldn’t tell. Her clothes spoke of times long past. And so did the ones of the woman who held her hand gently in hers. A woman with emerald eyes and red hair. A woman younger than her.
Paloma had shaken her head back then, chalked the dreamlike state to some kind of seasickness, and went on her way to persuade Magdalene Nox to refuse the other ten or so proposals competing with hers and to lease the Viridescent Cliff to her alone.
