Page 71 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
My heart gave a heavy, hollow thump. “Tomorrow night, then. But if you want to talk sooner…well, I’ll be here all week. And you can probably just…talk. I don’t know what sort of range you have, but I’ve heard you from different parts of the isle, so we can test that range, if you’d like?”
Silence.
“Well,” I cleared my throat. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As I moved to leave, he called to me.
“Pippi!”
I turned, scuffling my feet around to avoid getting pissed and spat on by the waves.
“You’re…what you are…what youfeel…it…give me a m-m-moment. Please…”
His frustration wrapped a boiling band around my body. Aggravation at knowing what hewantedto say but having to hunt for the words as they swam away.
“Take your time,” I said. “It’s okay. Just take a breath and give yourself a moment to think it through. I’ll wait.”
“Be c-c-careful,” he finally stammered. “With your h-h-h-h-heart.Heart. Don’t let anyone d-d-d-destroy it.”
Oh, Alistair. You’re thirty-five years too late for that sage advice.
But I smiled. “I could say the same aboutyourheart, Alistair. I hate to think of you in pain. So, I’ll tell you what. For the next week, we’ll look out for each other, yeah? I’ll guard your heart, and you can guard mine. And we’ll…I guess we’ll see where we are by the time I go home. Sound like a plan?”
He said nothing, but he didn’t need to. He let me feel his answer.
And it left me almost giddy.
“Ooooh! Mushroom ravioli?”At first, I thought my gritty and sleep-heavy eyes were deceiving me. I blinked once. Twice. But the chafing dish was still filled with creamy mushroom sauce and the freshest raviolis I’d ever seen.
It wasrealfood, not deep-fried, grease-saturated bar fare. And it was myfavoritedish. Mushrooms were an obsession, and my mom had transplanted thepasta-equals-comfort-foodbelief into me. So, mushrooms and pasta, after the last couple of days I’d had, were like gifts sent from the stars.
“They’re reallygood. I’m actually here for seconds.” The woman behind me shouted in my ear as I ladled the steaming raviolis onto my plate.
Shouted, only because the jarring noise inside the Brew & Bites didn’t allow for civil volumes. You either screamed above it, or you drowned in it.
It was the noise from the people—all one hundred or so folks currently on the island were stuffed into the restaurant, so dozens of lines of conversation overlapped each other, creating a big, puffy talk wave. And even that had to fight to rise above the tide of bagpipe music.
The woman next to me, burly and middle-aged, with a handsome face and sweet green eyes, was thoroughly jangled by all the commotion, and trying her best to hide it.
“The bagpipes are a little much, aren’t they?” I asked her in the lowest conspiratorial whisper I could manage, with those jaunty strings of music billowing in the air.
She offered me a relieved smile—grateful that she had someone to commiserate with. “They’rea lotmuch. And not very good.”
I tucked my chin toward the windows on the far side of the room, where the bagpipes hovered in the air, blowing themselves hoarse.
Who needed musicians when you had magic, right?
Except humans might’ve read the room a little better and chosen not to blast a bold Scottish war soundtrack over people stuffing their faces. It wasn’tterrible music, but the heavy, dramatic notes gave the impression that we were about to be attacked.
I understood the woman’s discomfort.
Some of it was my discomfort as well. The pinpricks of an overexertion headache had poked into the back of my head when Jackson and I first arrived ten minutes ago, and I knew I’d have a full-blown wallop of a headache by the end of the night.
So my plan? Stuff myself with as much mushroom ravioli and wine as I could, before the headache turned my stomach against me.
“I wonder if they think war music is good for digestion?” I yelled to the woman over the last wailing chord of the song. “Maybe they’ll switch to some zen tunes for dessert.”
Her shoulders scrunched with tension. “I hope so.”
