Page 54 of Home to the Hollow

Circus

“Ineed lots of bloody booze,” Seer mutters, looking at the list in her hand.

Laughing, I follow her around Atwater’s as she picks out food and drinks to feed an army. She insisted I come with her to stock the pantry in her shiny new house—the one I didn’t know she was buying until this morning.

According to my irreverent friend, she’s taken a shine to my ‘humble beginnings’ and wants to put down roots here. It’s a bit sus because Seer hasn’t maintained an actual residence of her own for more than the length of her contract the entire time I’ve known her. She stores most of her belongings at her family estate in Ireland and buys what she needs when she moves.

Not once has she considered purchasing a space of her own.. until now.

However, she convinced Jamie to sell her a tract of land that’s down the road from me, and I can’t find it in me to question her about it. I missed my friend in Richmond, and the thought of being alone in this town makes me sad. Obviously, I have the boys, but I’ll make no female friends here with the Bitch Squad on high alert. I could use an ally I trust that I’m not fucking.

Of course, it won’t help my reputation to flit about town with another misfit, but who cares?

I see all the judgmental stares the buddies and genteel Southerners are giving my bestie as we stroll through the store. She’s dressed slightly less wacky than normal, but her mere presence demands everyone gawp like they’re at a carnival freak show.

Fuck them and their shitty attitudes. Seer is the kindest, most loyal person I’ve ever known. If they don’t want to get to know her because she’s more authentic than anyone here, it tells me everything I need to know abouttheirworth.

I link my arm with hers, grinning as I reply, “Definitely. Lots of hooch and lots of terrible food, plus milkshake fixins.”

Her laugh tinkles like a wind chime and I tug her towards the produce section to grab what we’ll need for my biggest vice. As we pick out fruits, she tilts her head and studies me.

“Peanut, I surprised you with my plans, and I’m sorry. I know you don’t take rapid change well. I should have told you where I was going when I headed out to arrange all of this. It’s a big deal for me—my folks are even sending my stuff from the castle. I want to be with you, and whatever brought you back here doesn’t seem like a quick stay.”

Blinking, I whisper, “You’re having your stuff shipped over? Like, all of it? Even the wardrobe?”

She nods, giving me a shrug. “I am. This is my new base of operations, so to speak. Me ma was feckin’ thrilled. You don’t know half of it.”

“Seer, you said you’d never settle down—that you have wanderlust in your veins.”

“Well, I do, Peanut, but we can still travel the world together, even if we have houses like actual adults. It’s not illegal, I’m told,” Seer teases as she tosses me an orange across the aisle.

As I catch the fruit, my vision blurs, and a wisp of a memory flashes in my mind. I’m small, and I’m in Atwater’s—maybe for the first time.

My mother and father are fussing over ripened fruit, and a boy tosses me an orange. I drop it, and my mother scolds me for playing with the store’s stock. The boy winks at me, and I turn away, mad that he got me in trouble. He’s trouble, and I know it.

“She’s not lost, Andrew. They’re wrong. They gave us a fake. I told you not to make Xerxes angry at the meeting. He has no patience for your kind.”

“Relax, Ellie. Jolene is one of them. She’ll grow up stronger than the others and when you train her, you’ll rise the ranks just how you planned. Be easy with her. She’s just getting to know us.”

I suck in a rattling breath as my eyes find focus again. Reality snaps into place and I see Seer pondering over a flat of strawberries none the wiser. When my breathing returns to normal, I steady myself on the cart.

What in unholy fuck was that?

The scene wasn’t part of anything I remember from my childhood, and the things my parents were saying made no sense. Who is Xerxes? What did she mean by ‘lost’? How could their child be fake? Is this part of the mystery I came to solve or a random synapse mis-fire?

Shaking my head, I type the description into my phone. I’m keeping all my notes on the Whistler’s Hollow puzzles there because I’ve never been able to trust my memory. I need all the myriad of clues and thoughts somewhere I can access when I’m searching and where I can noodle them.

I need to figure out why parents were talking in riddles, and as if we’d just met. It’s the key to something, but I don’t know what.

Maybe if I can find out who the hell that boy was, he’ll have answers about my younger years—if he’s even real.

* * *

There’s stillconstruction at Seer’s place, but the speed the crew is working at is inhuman. There’s fifty of them and they move like lightning as they flit around, inside and out. None of them gives me a second glance, but they all dip their heads to her respectfully when we pass.

Maybe her parents hired them?

I’ve only been to her family estate twice, but they have some nebulous connection to royal lineage, and the staff made me feel like I was living in Downton Abbey. I wouldn’t put it past her overbearing mother to find a specific company and pay them through the nose to get Seer’s first house built in record time. At the rate they are going, it’ll be completed by the end of next week.

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