Page 114 of Just One Little Bargain

“Wind,” Beck offers, but his hand has migrated to her waist.

“Fauna,” Wilfred declares firmly. “Deer, most likely. This area has a significant cervid population density.”

“I don’t care what it’s called. I don’t like it.” Priya glances toward the tree line.

Another snap, then a rustle travels through the branches overhead from left to right. Evie presses closer without pretending she isn’t spooked, and I curl an arm around her, tucking her under my chin.

“It’s nothing dangerous,” I murmur.

“Then why are you holding me like that?”

“Protective instinct.”

“Your hand is on my ass.”

I correct the placement upward by three inches. “My hand is on your waist.”

“It wasn’t.”

“It is now.” My thumb finds the strip of skin between her sweater and jeans, and the muscle beneath tightens. I have to resist doing it again just to feel the reaction.

“We should keep walking.” But she doesn’t move.

Daisy’s voice carries from ahead, but I don’t hear a word of it. Evie is still pressed against me, her fingers bunched in my shirt.

“Walking,” she repeats, tightening them instead of letting go.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now.”

“You’re gripping my shirt.”

“I’m not.” She looks down at her own hands and uncurls her fingers with visible effort.

Daisy brings us to a clearing near the mill ruins, where a stone wall curves in a low semicircle. She runs her hand along the top. The mist has crept up to lap at everyone’s knees.

“This is where they gathered. Not just the workers, but the whole town. Before the mill and any of the houses, this valley was a meeting place. People came here at the end of harvest to share food, tell stories, and acknowledge whatever shared this land with them.”

My hand tightens on Evie’s waist.

“The traditions we still practice during the Harvest Festival started here. They’re all remnants of something older. Little protections, mostly. A candle in the east window. Salt at the back step. Rowan twigs sewn into coat hems before the first frost. Even the ribbons tied to the old ash trees, if you know where to look. People call it superstition now, but superstition is usually just a ritual that outlived its explanation.”

“Protections from what?” Stanley asks.

Daisy considers this. “I think it was about thresholds. The boundary between one season and the next, safety and the unknown, belonging and passing through. The old families had women who understood those things better than most. Not witches in the storybook sense. They marked crossings, fed the hearth, kept certain names out of songs, and made sure every door had a rule attached to it. Not because they were frightened of what came through. Because they recognized that a welcome and an invitation are not the same thing.” She smiles. “Brindlewood has always been a spot where the strange finds its way in, whether that means people, stories, energy, or whatever word makes you feel least ridiculous. The first settlers didn’t try to seal it shut. They learned how to live beside the gap.”

Evie’s hip shifts against my palm, and I realize my grip has tightened again. I loosen it. She glances up at me.

“You okay?”

I glance ahead at Daisy, who has produced a small flashlight and is holding it under her chin, purely for effect, delighted by her own theatrics. “She’s good at this. Everyone else on this walk wants to be either scared or proven right. Your sister just wants there to be something real underneath all the stories.”

“That’s Daisy for you.” Evie’s voice softens. “Don’t tell her about you. Ever. She’d never sleep again because she’d be too busy following you around asking a million questions.”

I recognize that part of her: the need to keep turning a question over until it gives up an answer. Under different circumstances, I’d ask to see her research. Instead, Evie’s beside me, and the only thing I want to know now is how much of her I can learn before I have to leave.

“Noted.”