I tried to glimpse his neck, but she was hightailing it. Mr. Tom had grabbed the guy’s arms and his back was barely skimming the ground. Before I could get a good look, they were heading through the gate and I was left barefoot in the grass, worried about hurting my feet on the way back.
“Hurt his neck falling down the stairs… We should call the ambulance,” I realized belatedly, palming my still throbbing head. And they certainly shouldn’t have moved him. I would have said as much earlier, but I wasn’t thinking clearly.
“Oh no, he’s fine. It was just three steps,” Edgar said. “He’s okay. When he wakes up in a couple of hours, he’ll be tired, maybe a little hungover, but nothing serious.”
He said it with absolute confidence, like this wasn’t the first time he’d removed a man’s shirt and dragged him out of the yard by the ankle after he fell down three steps and somehow started bleeding from the neck.
“I can’t.” I shook my head, utterly defeated. “I can’t with any of this.”
“Totally understandable. I get what you mean,” Edgar said, walking with me across the rocks.
“I don’t think you do.”
“No, I don’t, but I wanted to provide a united front.”
My phone vibrated. A text message from an unknown number: Did you survive?
“I know you took them,” Niamh yelled at Mr. Tom at the edge of the front yard. The poor young guy lay at her feet, arms and legs splayed. “Just admit it. You didn’t want to look bad getting hit by a rock, so you scattered them to the four winds.”
“I did not scatter anything. You’re clearly senile. You probably came home last night and threw them at the neighbors’ houses.”
“I’ve only done that one time and it was after they tried to throw me a surprise welcome party. That was justified. You took them!”
I sighed, knowing I had to come clean. Mr. Tom shouldn’t have to take the heat.
Before I started forward, I sent a quick text: Who is this?
“Niamh, stop arguing and look after that kid, will you?” I said.
She and Mr. Tom cut off their bickering for long enough to give me a blank look.
“The Dick at your feet.” I pointed to help them along, absolutely flabbergasted. They really didn’t put much stock in tourists. This was starting to get ridiculous. “Get him home. Or at least to a bed. And call a doctor or something. Take care of the poor guy. And as for your rocks—”
“No. She cannot have ours,” Mr. Tom said, crossing his arms. “She has lost her rocks. That is her problem. Your stiff little boy wonder here probably scattered them for fun,” he told her. “Young people do those kinds of things. Regardless, it is not our problem. Now, get off my lawn.”
“It’s not your lawn.” Niamh harrumphed as she bent and grabbed the guy’s ankle. She hesitated for a moment. “Well?”
Mr. Tom grunted in annoyance, and then they worked together to carry him across the street and into Niamh’s house.
I was even more confused than the moment before. Than I’d been all day yesterday. These people were all nuts. All of them. And I was getting a little crazier each moment I spent with them.
Text message: It’s Austin. You programmed your number in my phone last night for an alibi re: stones.
“And the plot thickens,” Edgar said softly.
I jerked my phone away from his prying eyes, not having realized he’d snuck up right behind me.
“That’s not what it seems,” I said quickly.
“It seems like Austin Steele is giving you permission to use only his first name. He must think very highly of you. Or perhaps he realizes your potential and wants to create an alliance early. Don’t worry, I skimmed over the reference to Niamh’s stones.”
“Alliance for what? Horseshoes?” I turned toward the house. I still didn’t know what was going on, but they seemed to have it handled. Best I didn’t know any more details in case I had to go on the witness stand at some point. “He said people call him by his full name because of respect. I still don’t get that. He’s a bartender. It’s not like he’s a sheriff or anything.”
“Yes. I can see the confusion, being that it is not customary. But we’re an eccentric town. It works for us.”
“Uh-huh.”
I shook my fuzzy, pounding head. The aspirin either still hadn’t kicked in or wasn’t going to. I was betting on the latter. I’d overdone it last night. Way overdone it. And given hangovers were so much worse as I got older, I didn’t think bouncing back was in the cards. I’d have to suffer through.
But I couldn’t handle any more weird. No more. I had to push the brakes.
“Great. Awesome. Fabulous.” I walked past him.
I texted Austin: I hurt so bad it’s not funny. Mr. Tom “re-homed” the rocks and is taking the heat for it. Feel bad a little.
Austin texted back: Don’t feel bad. It’ll give him a little excitement in his life. I’ll sprinkle the rocks you forced on me throughout town so Niamh can find them again. It’ll give her something to do.
I almost told him about what I’d seen this morning—and the others’ bizarre behavior—but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. If he didn’t find it strange, I wasn’t sure what I would do with myself. I wanted to fit in here, and to do that it was clear I couldn’t be a Dick or Jane. So for now, I was just going to quietly go about my life and try to figure things out.
I’d also stay away from older people. No drags of shame for me, thank you very much. I’d been in a lot of embarrassing situations over the years, but that would easily ice the cake.
I let myself back in my room and gulped down the lukewarm coffee. Time to get ready and explore the house. I wanted to see what secrets it held.
Eleven
I stood in the middle of a foyer with gloves, a duster, and a carpenter’s belt containing Clorox spray, various other cleaning agents, and a bunch of rags. I’d intended to take the house by storm, starting with dust and cobwebs. I remembered those being the worst when I was here last.
Only, I’d already made my way through half of the first floor, and I hadn’t seen any of my eight-legged nemeses. I stood in the foyer now, examining the various surfaces for anything that might need cleaning. Not a single cobweb stretched across the high corners of the ceiling or up in the skylight.
As far as dust, a yellow rubber glove test across the entryway tables had come away clean.
Which was great. I was not complaining. Mr. Tom had clearly been looking after the place, or had hired someone else to do it. Upkeep would be easy.
But instead of moving on like I’d planned, I stood transfixed. I hadn’t noticed at first, but the high wooden archway in the first floor landing hosted some intricate carvings. Scrolls and artistic designs caught and trapped the eye. Little faces popped out here and there. A horse’s head seemed to neigh from one corner, while a goblin-looking thing, with long claws and pointed fangs, sneered from another.
Everywhere I looked, a new image manifested, creating an exquisite sort of tapestry. Part of me wanted to pull up a chair and stare at it.
“MADAM!”
I crinkled my brow, coming out of my appreciative daze. “Mr. Tom, why are you yelling?” I said in my “patient” mom voice. That voice delivered all kinds of warnings, hinting the patience was just a façade.
“I apologize, madam. I knocked on the wall, called you a couple times—you didn’t seem to hear me.”
“A good ol’ tap on the arm wouldn’t go amiss.” I tore my gaze away from the images, which almost looked like they were turning and twisting within the frame. Flying through the air, or galloping through the fields. It sort of reminded me of those posters of computer-generated patterns back in the day—when you looked through them, an image popped up. Except this was carved wood.
“Madam!”
“Oh my God, Mr. Tom, what do you need?” I turned to him slowly.
He flinched and took two steps back. My expression clearly wasn’t advertising the patience I’d tried for.
“Pardon me, madam—”
“Please stop calling me madam.”
“Yes, miss”—I sighed—“I went and got this for you.”
He held out a travel mug with the lid closed.
“Oh, thank you, but I’m okay. I’ve had four cups of coffee. I’m buzzing on caffeine just fine. I should probably stop. But thanks for thinking of me.”
“It’s not coffee, miss.” He hesitantly took a step forward, his hand outstretched. “It’s to help chase away the hangover. I have a friend that specializes in…draughts.”
“Draughts?”
“Modern-day elixirs. Not at all like the witch brews in storybooks. That’s…false, those stories. Very unpredictable. This is…medicinal. From…doctors. Doctors without…licenses.”
“Are you trying to say herbalists? Like Chinese medicine?”
Relief crossed his face. “Yes, of course. Yes, herbalists. That’s it, exactly. We have a few in town. One creates potions—I mean…elixirs that work. One is a useless Jane who is living a lie. Like those storybook writers that go on about superheroes.”
I eyed his ratty cape, attached to a freshly pressed black suit that made him look less bony, somehow. “Right.”
“It’ll help.” He stretched his arm toward me but didn’t take another step.
Amazing. My son had gotten to a point where he’d started ignoring my mom voice. Also my mom look. Also the classic mom-ready-to-charge-at-him-with-a-paddle-and-get-him-to-see-sense voice/look combo.
That had driven me crazy, because while I wasn’t above a swat on the butt, at some point you had to refrain. Like when they were fifteen and in public. Teenagers were the absolute worst. It was like an alien had come to earth one day, picked up my loving boy, and replaced him with a stinky, hairy mutant. Someone should’ve warned me.