Page 19 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
“Sure.” I hand it over to her, not sure what she can do with it. Cade’s got the only internet connection around here, except at the Archer Inn’s fancy coffee shop. We don’t broadcast that type of information, though, and I’m sure not gonna tell her.
But she just flips through it, smiling faintly like she’s seen an old friend. When she closes it, she offers it back to me. “Sector confiscated mine a while back.”
Not a few years back, or a few months. A while. Purposely vague. She knows what she’s doing, but she’s missing pieces. Forbidden hope flickers in my chest, but I push it back.
The woman’s a conspiracy theorist, a grad student. She could be useful, but that’s it. That has to be it. Hardly anybody gets drawn into Blackbird Hollow’s web of magic. Expecting Alice Blythe to be one of the few who might stay is foolishness.
With that bit of depressing practicality, I blow out a breath. “Couple of goons in bad suits?”
“Yep.” She bites her lower lip, those kaleidoscope eyes of hers glimmering with amusement. “Do they get them at the same place?”
She doesn’t laugh at her own joke, but I do. “Fallon’s got words about that, too. Something about how they all fit poorly.”
Alice goes ahead and laughs. “They do.”
It’s nice to see her relaxing a little. “Well, that’s one version of Sector. They’re a bit of misdirection most of the time.”
Alice’s eyes are avid now, and she hands the book back to me. I shelve it and gesture for her to join me in the kitchen,grabbing a couple of beers from the fridge. She takes them from me, expertly popping the tops off both as we head out to the back porch.
Alice settles into one of my chairs with a contented sigh, looking out toward the river and Big Hill. “What a view.” I nod, glad she likes the view—and the chairs I built—for reasons I won’t name. “A bit of misdirection?”
I hum in the affirmative. “The ones you’ve gotta watch out for are nobody. Unnoticeable folk that no one pays attention to. Or sometimes they’re annoying. The type that makes mundane trouble wherever they go.”
To her credit, Alice stays quiet, absorbing the information I offer her. When she leaves Blackbird Hollow, I want her to take something useful away from all this. Because shewillleave. They all leave, eventually. But she’s worked out this much on her own, and that’s a lot. With Caden’s current level of unreliability, we could use some help from someone with a formal background in research. It’s inconvenient to have to drive out to the university for help.
You keep telling yourself that’s why you want her to stay, a voice in my head says in that acerbic tone that sounds like Mama. Best to ignore that shit. “You’ve been right about a lot, Blythe.” And suddenly I’m calling her by her last name, like she’s one of us, just to spite the leftovers of Mama in my head. “If you and Fallon get on alright, we could use an extra hand with what’s going on here. You up for that?”
Alice Blythe’s grin is like the sun coming up on a bright spring morning. “Absolutely,” she says, clinking her bottle against mine.
Luckily,Fallon had all the supplies for making chili in her fridge, because she sure as shit wasn’t here to make it when we arrived. Alice and I are halfway through a bottle of one of Fallon’s best reds when she and Fern blow in. My sister’s eyes narrow when she spots the bottle, but she swipes it off the table and heads for the stairs.
“Clean the pupper’s paws off,” she calls from the top of the stairs. “She’s muddy.”
I wait for a count of ten and clean off Fern’s paws—letting the depths of my frustration with my sister rise and fall. But it’s something deeper than irritation building in me as I listen to the sound of Fallon’s footsteps moving around upstairs. Most everyone in Blackbird Hollow tolerates her moods because she’s the one you call when there’s a problem with Them, and there’s never been an instance where she hasn’t solved said problem. I’ve failed plenty of times, and so has Cade, but Fallon’s a sure thing, and it gets her pretty far around here.
It’s been years since I had to introduce her to anyone new, to anyone that mattered, and it feels like this might matter. A glance across the kitchen table reveals that Alice is positively unbothered…by Fallon, at least. She’s dealing with the fact that Fern has placed her muddy paws directly into her lap and is currently licking Alice’s face. Every muscle in my body freezes.
Fern is not a friendly dog. She’s not aggressive by any means, but she takes a while to warm up to new folks. When Alice grabs her by the face to tell her she’s the cutest baby puppy in the whole world, my mouth falls open into a gaping void. My sister, of course, reappears in the kitchen at just that moment, dressed in old sweatpants and the Nirvana T-shirt with all the holes.
Fallon lets out a low whistle. “Well, you’re right at home here, aren’t you, Ms. Blythe?”
I’ve heard Fallon use nastier tones—this one’s just dry—but inwardly I wince, waiting for Alice to snap back. She’s got a tongue like a knife, and if there was ever going to be a clash between women, it would be between these two.
But Alice surprises me. Something in her eyes softens as she watches Fallon cross her arms over her chest. It’s a subtle enough change in her demeanor, but Fallon sees it too, and her shoulders hunch up tighter. Alice lets out a slow breath, stares up at the ceiling, and lets out the weirdest non sequitur I’ve ever heard: “I got kicked out of grad school for punching a rich douche-canoe.”
Fallon nods once, her mouth turning down in a stalwart fashion. “Most excellent. Red or white next?”
“Red, I think,” Alice replies, draining the rest of her glass.
Fern lies on the floor at Alice’s feet, her tail thumping three times as she smiles at me. Damn dog probably thinks she brokered a genuine peace treaty here in the kitchen. And, fuck, what do I know? Maybe she did—whatever happened, Alice is up from her chair, tasting the chili, and the two of them have pushed me aside, moving around one another like they’ve known each other for years.
Something fragile and warm sinks deep within me. I take down another bottle of red from the rack above the ancient fridge and get to work opening it and pouring everyone another glass. By the time I get that done, the chili’s served. The three of us eat in relative quiet, Fern flopping heavily on the floor under the old walnut table.
When our bowls are clean, Fallon pours us each another glass of wine. “So what’s your story, Alice?”
Alice takes a long drink, then shrugs. “The usual. Mom’s a postal worker, dad’s a factory foreman. They went on aretirement trip around the world and I went to grad school—I’ve got an MA in folklore already, and I was in for a PhD in extraterrestrial biology.”
She’s playing things close to the vest, which I like. Not too many details, but enough that it’s easy to see she’s being earnest. I clear my throat. “And you have a theory that They are conspiring to make it look as though Their activities are of extraterrestrial origin, correct?”
