Page 39 of The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles 2)

“I know what you mean,” I said, remembering how Diana had stuffed me full of sweets and baked goods when I stayed at the Hart Brake Inn last year. Jen Davies, as I recalled, looked like she did Jivamukti yoga twelve hours a day and lived on agave protein shakes. She probably hadn’t eaten a carb in the last decade. “Where do you want to meet? You could come to my house.”

“Could we meet at the diner in town?”

“Sure,” I said, glad the meeting would include food. I was suddenly ravenous—probably from running through the woods all night. I hung up, wondering how guilty I’d feel having toast and home fries in front of Jen Davies…and decided I was willing to risk it.

I walked into town, enjoying the sunshine. Now that the rain had passed it was a beautiful morning. The trees glistened asif polished by the rain and the pavement sparkled. I stopped to inhale the scent of freshly mown wet grass in the Lindisfarnes’ yard and Cherry Lindisfarne came out onto her porch to ask if it was true that Brock Olsen had fallen from my roof. I told her it was and that he was recuperating at his family’s farm. Evangeline Sprague came out when she heard us talking and asked after Brock as well. We all chatted for a few minutes about what a nice family the Olsens were and how their farm always donated food to Meals on Wheels and the homeless shelter in Kingston. “Good neighbors,” Evangeline said. “We need more like them, especially when the town is so full of strangers. Did you hear there was a break-in down at the motor court?”

I left Evangeline and Cherry talking about the break-in and walked into town. Main Street was indeed bustling with tourists and fishermen shopping at Trask’s Outdoor Outfitters and filling the outdoor tables at Fair Grounds and the red vinyl booths at the Village Diner. I might not have gotten a booth if the waitress, Darla, didn’t happen to be the mother of one of my students.

As she seated me at a booth behind one that was full to overflowing with three large men in identical plaid flannel shirts, she whispered, “I always try to make room for a local, even when we’re bursting with out-of-towners. I’ve never seen a more popular fishing season!”

“I’ve never seen the Undine run so full,” one of the men in plaid commented, having overheard Darla’s throaty whisper. “It’s like they’re trying to get out of town!” His comment was greeted by guffaws from the two other men in the booth. I smiled at them, realizing I’d seen them around town before. All three men had the same beestung lips and full round faces. In their identical flannel shirts and Orvis baseball caps, they looked like an illustration of the same man at different stagesof his life: young, middle-aged, and old. Son, father and grandfather, I presumed.

I was studying the menu when Jen Davies walked in. Dressed in tight black leggings and a tank top, her dark hair coiled in a long braid, she turned quite a few heads as she sauntered down the aisle, including all three of the men in plaid. I heard the youngest one whisper to his father, “She must be one of those New York models!”

“You’re looking fit,” Jen said, leaning over the table to kiss me on both cheeks and then sitting down across from me. Her keen eyes narrowed at me. “Quitefit. I wouldn’t have pegged you as one of those witches who uses Aelvesgold to make themselves look younger.”

“I’m not…” I began to object, but was interrupted by Darla coming to take our order.

“What are those three strong men having?” Jen asked, turning her slim neck to look at the men in the next booth. I saw the youngest one blush from where I sat.

“Angler’s Special,” Darla replied. “Three scrambled eggs, wheat toast, home fries, and sausage. It’s exactly the same as the Farmer’s Special, which is what the Stewarts here…” She winked at the men in the next booth. “…have ten months out of the year, them being farmers, but during fishing season they like it if we call it the Angler’s Special.”

“I’ll have that,” Jen said. “Minus the toast and home fries.” Surprised—I would have pegged Jen for a vegan—I ordered the same thing, but with the carbs.

“I amnotusing Aelvesgold to look younger,” I whispered when Darla had finished taking our order. “At least not deliberately. I’m using it to…explore my power.”

Jen snorted. “Explore, my foot! You’re wallowing in the stuff. But hey, I’m not here to criticize. I just thought I’d give you a little heads-up.”

“Thanks, Jen. Not tocriticize, but you could have told me earlier that the Grove was coming here. I learned about it from my dean who doesn’t know I’m a member.”

“Fair enough,” Jen said equably. “I would have, only I didn’t know until two days ago. The higher-ups have been secretive lately. A bunch of them, including your grandmother, went off to London last month and when they came back they announced—announced, mind you, not proposed—that we were now affiliated with a club there. The Seraphim. There was a bit of a controversy because the Seraphim is an extremely conservative wizards’ club that doesn’t allow women.”

“Why would the Grove—an all-women’s club—affiliate with an all-men’s club?” I asked.

“That’s what I wanted to know. So I started looking into the Seraphim and couldn’t find out diddly. Me, who got Sarah Palin’s stylist to talk! I couldn’t get to square one with this outfit. The only thing I could find out is that the club is older than Methuselah and richer than God—Oh, this is brilliant, love,” Jen interrupted herself to exclaim over the huge plates of food that Darla put down in front of us. When Darla had finished serving the food, she continued, her voice low and conspiratorial, “And when those women got back from London they were all hepped up about going to Fairwick to close the door.”

“To close the door?” I asked. “Notdiscussclosing the door?”

Jen snorted so hard she got orange juice up her nose. “Grove women don’tdiscuss. Besides, they’ve already gotten half the IMP board on their side…Mmm…This is fabulous. I bet these eggs are fresh.” Jen clearly wasn’t going to tell me anything more until she had sated her appetite. I might as well eat. I took a bite…and nearly swooned. Had eggs alwaystasted this good? Why hadn’t I had home fries in so long? What was wrong with sausage anyway? I dimly recalled the concept of weight gain, but hey, if I ran twenty miles every night I could afford to eat like this. I’d probablyloseweight.

When I had polished off my entire breakfast, I looked up to find Jen Davies studying me. “Aelvesgold increases the appetite,” she remarked. “But no worries, it also speeds up the metabolism, so you’ll never get fat—or old—or, as far as we know, dead.”

“Really? It can make you live forever?” I asked, but Jen wasn’t listening to me; she was listening to the Stewarts in the next booth.

“…just plain vanished. They found his van parked at the top of the lower branch and his tackle scattered in the woods.”

“Wouldn’t be the first fisherman to go missing on the Undine,” the oldest Stewart remarked.

The middle-aged man made a rude noise and cried, “Don’t be filling the boy’s heads with those tales, Dad.” Unswayed by his son’s objection, the old man asked his grandson if he had heard the one about the mermaid and the old fisherman. The conversation quickly degenerated into dirty guy talk, the kind of hearty bluster that usually covered up real fears. Jen was furiously two-thumb typing on her iPhone. When she finished, she noticed me watching her.

“Force of habit,” she said.

“Are you thinking of writing a story on fishing in the Catskills?” I asked.

Jen’s eyes slid to one side and she fiddled with the lid of the tin creamer. “The Grove sent me up to see if there was any unusual activity going on in town—or in the woods. They’re afraid that when word gets out that the door’s going to be closed there will be a mass exodus from Faerie. They want to know if there’s been any increased traffic through the door.That fisherman…” She looked over her shoulder at the next booth, where the Stewarts were getting up to go. “…isn’t the only one who’s gone missing. And where there are missing fishermen, there’s likely to be an undine. Would you happen to know anything about that?”

I almost started to tell Jen about the undine run and seeing Lorelei last night, but stopped. “I might,” I said cautiously. “But I have a few questions of my own first.”

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