Page 87

FROM THE LITTLE GLASS OWL’S BOOK OF LUCKY CHARMS AND AUSPICIOUS OMENS, COMPILED BY ELECTRA GLASS

TWENTY-FOUR

A LIT WICK

Tempest had absolutely no idea which way to drive when she left the bar in Bloomington. Should she stay in the Midwest? Opt for a more southern cross country route? Or should she keep heading due east from there? The atlas was blank. Taunting her.

“Why won’t you guide me anymore?” she shouted at the book in frustration. “I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do!”

She realized she sounded childish, and that it was quite unbecoming for a woman of her age. Her birthday season had somehow crept up on her. She was only two weeks away from being thirty-three now. Plenty of time to reach Boston, she just had to pick a route.

After an hour of driving in circles, wasting precious gas and time, Tempest parked at a rest area eight miles from where she’d begun. She turned the engine off and sat in the dark with the weight of decision-making squarely on her own shoulders again.

East was still east, she thought, and it was as good a direction as any. She’d set off on this journey without any input from the atlas, and she didn’t need an old mysterious book to tell her what to do to keep moving. She had everything she needed. She always had. She’d choose the route in the morning.

Fortune was on her perch above the reading nook, her head turned upside down, grooming her feathers.

“I know Dan was lying about the book,” Tempest said. “Don’t ask me to explain how I know. I just do.”

Fortune said nothing. Her beak was buried beneath her wing, smoothing out stray gray tufts.

“I know he has it. And I know he knows that I know that he has it. I could smell it on him. Plus he wouldn’t look at me when I asked him about it. He had to look away.” She pulled her knees up on the beanbag and looked up at the starry ceiling. “Which means he’s probably read everything I wrote in it. Everything. It’s so embarrassing.”

She felt like there was a hummingbird trapped in her gut, trying to get out. The thought of Dandelion Wilder reviewing all the personal notes she’d written in the book, filled her with awkward buzzy flutters. It wasn’t that she had written anything terribly incriminating. Thank the Fates she had not gone that far. It could have been so much worse. She’d left the dust jacket, where she’d written a silly poem about lions and an ode to his philtrum, back on the bus. At least the notes in the book itself were all relevant to the text. But it was still embarrassing. She had not written those things down for the actual, in-person Dan Wilder to read. She was perfectly content having conversations with the in-print version of the man.

In print, Dan kept things professional and stuck to the subject matter at hand. In real life, he derailed her train of thought mid-sentence.

Real-life Dan Wilder was becoming a problem for Tempest. At first, when he told her he’d come back to Bloomington for her, she couldn’t believe what was happening. And then she didn’t want it to stop. She could have kissed him all night and into the next day. Dandelion was a really good kisser. He was thorough, and unhurried. His lips were generous and oh-so soft. She closed her eyes at the memory of touching, actually touching his philtrum. First with one finger, then with her lips. His kisses were not tentative. They were confident and filled with facts. His lips answered every question correctly.

“The thing is,” she groaned as she explained it to the parrot, “he’s a link. He might have seen me in the bookstore. So, if Clement or anyone from Fowler’s decides to come looking for me, he’s seen my face in the bookstore and on the trivia circuit.” She stopped to consider how dangerous that was. “He knows my real first name and now he has a book full of my handwriting. Plus, he seemed confident about his tracking abilities.” A thought occurred to Tempest. “Oh, hog’s breath! What if he already knows who I am and what I’ve done?”

Fortune selected a tail feather and worked at it unhurriedly. She seemed completely unbothered by the idea that Dan Wilder may have already sussed them out.

“I need to quit the trivia circuit. It’s too risky for me to enter things when he might show up at any time.”

Fortune stopped working at the feather and reversed herself to stand upright. She stared at Tempest with one large round eye.

“Quitters never win, and winners never quit.” Fortune’s voice was rougher than usual.

“I know,” Tempest said. “But honestly, what was I thinking?”

“Handsome devil!” Fortune crowed, the words catching and scraping on their way out. The parrot was right. Tempest watched the small articulated skeleton figurines swinging in a slow circle, dangling from the rearview mirror.

The prize pot in Bloomington hadn’t been as much as the ones at the last two stops, but it was still five hundred dollars she hadn’t had that morning. She thought about all the stops since she left Portland and all that she’d gotten out of them.

It wasn’t just the money.

The trivia circuit had given her purpose and a way forward. She’d made friends with the Hell’s Belles and a few other strangers that kept turning up at the same events as her. She was starting to wave at them like old friends. She’d eaten way too many pub chips and washed them down with good beer. She’d laughed at inside jokes and felt like a person with friends and plans.

She felt less lonely than she’d felt for years.

She did not want to give that up. Not yet. Not before the finals.

“You know, the trivia events aren’t even about the money anymore,” she confided in Fortune. “I certainly didn’t expect that to happen when you forced me to go to the first one.”

Fortune made an offended sound, shook her head and tutted.

“Oh, yes, you did. You know you bullied me into it!” Tempest accused.