“You divorced him,” Ineke said, sounding sharp, “which proves you have some sense. So forget what he said. What’s a little cellulite among friends?”
Grimshaw saw Vicki’s face flush, and he figured she was going to bolt and lock herself in the house, pretty much ending what might have been a pleasant afternoon.
Then Julian stepped forward and looked at Vicki. “We are among friends who don’t judge us by how we look but by who we are, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He shrugged out of the shirt, tossed it toward blankets spread out on the sand, and walked into the water—knees, thighs, waist. Then he dove under.
Ineke looked at Vicki. No question everyone had seen Julian’s scars. Vicki hesitated a moment longer, then pulled off the cover-up and went into the water with Ineke and Paige.
Hector eased up next to him and whispered, “What’s cellulite?”
Grimshaw shrugged. “A female obsession?” He eyed the other man. “But not among the Simple Life women?”
“If it is, it is not spoken of in the presence of men.”
Lucky men.
Watching Julian swimming parallel to the beach, Grimshaw struck out in the same direction, angling to eventually meet up with his friend. They swam together for several minutes before Julian stopped to tread water.
Grimshaw looked around. Another beach but not sand. Stones and shale?
“This is a boundary,” Julian said.
“For what?”
“Don’t know. But I have the feeling we’ve crossed a line and are now in a part of the lake where we shouldn’t be without permission.”
Grimshaw scanned the shore. Was something hiding among the trees, unseen?
“Wayne,” Julian breathed.
He turned and noticed Julian was looking at the water farther out from shore. Ripples, as if a large fish had broken the surface. “You see something?”
“I’m not sure, but I think we should join Vicki and the rest of her guests.”
Something broke the surface. Maybe a large fish catching a meal, or was it something else coming up for air—or for a look at him and Julian? The arch of a back. A glimpse of a delicate, translucent dorsal fin. And at the last moment . . . “Was that a tail?” By all the gods, what had he just seen?
“We need to get back to the beach,” Julian said.
He didn’t argue. And if it felt more like they were racing on the way back, he thought they had good reason.
Ineke had brought a beach ball along with the blankets and towels. When Grimshaw and Julian reached them, Vicki and Paige were on one team and Ineke and Hector were on the other, playing water volleyball—except the idea seemed to be how long they could keep passing the ball between the teams before someone slipped and went under. Since Julian joined Vicki and Paige, Grimshaw went over to Ineke’s team.
He wasn’t sure how long they played—couldn’t have been more than a few minutes—when Vicki and Ineke excused themselves and went up to the house to set out the lunch. A couple of minutes after that, Paige caught the ball and said, laughing, “We should go up now.”
They got out of the water and dried off, but Grimshaw lingered, looking toward the lake. So did Julian. That was why they were the only ones who watched the white pony with the weird-colored mane and tail trot into the water and disappear. That was why they were the only ones who saw the water begin to swirl, a small circle at first but getting wider and wider—and deeper and deeper.
He didn’t ask Julian, didn’t really want confirmation that someone else could see a powerfully built yet insubstantial horse with that same coloring galloping round and round the edge of the whirlpool before the horse vanished and the lake rushed into the funnel shaped by the swirling water. A moment later, water lapped the sand and there wasn’t any sign that anything had happened.
Grimshaw looked at Julian. Julian looked at him.
“This isn’t new,” he said quietly.
“No, this isn’t new,” Julian agreed. “But I think someone has decided to allow us to see it . . . and live.”
CHAPTER 42
Vicki
Firesday, Juin 30
The guest suites in the main house were ready, and the renovated cabins were clean. I dithered about putting a vase of fresh flowers in each room along with a welcome basket, but I didn’t have three vases. Well, I did, but they were old, chipped ones I’d found haphazardly packed away in the attic—all right for my use but not something you put out for guests.
The Milfords sold what they called weekend jars of jams and jellies—small containers that would be sufficient for one or two people for a couple of days without wasting the contents of larger jars since most people didn’t want to eat from an opened container when they didn’t know who had had their utensils—or fingers—in it. At breakfast, Ineke put out jams and jellies in small bowls to avoid waste, and I would need to figure out which way was the most practical for guests coming to The Jumble. The weekend jars could be something guests took with them, whether or not they had opened the jars during their stay. If I did that, it might provide more business for the Milfords, and that would be a good thing.
“Why do we need more humans here?” Aggie asked.
She had watched me go through my list of preparations since early that morning and had become more and more unhappy the closer we got to the arrival of the three couples who would be spending a long weekend with us.
“We need paying guests,” I replied.
“I pay.”
I stopped dithering and looked at her. She reminded me of a resentful teenager, but maybe she wasn’t resentful of intruders, however temporary, as much as she wanted reassurance that she was equally valued?
“Yes, you do, and you’re a great lodger.” If we overlook the whole squooshy eyeball thing. “But I need more paying guests. In order to stay here and be the Reader and help all of you restore The Jumble as a terra indigene settlement, I need to make a living, need to make enough money to pay the bills. I can’t do that with only one lodger. Do you understand?”
“Are you going to make the other terra indigene move out of the cabins?” she asked after a moment.
“Conan and Cougar? No, Aggie. They’re helping me with the heavy work in exchange for using those cabins.”
“I meant the terra indigene who are using the meadow cabins near the kitchen garden.”
When Paige mentioned my having helpers to tend the kitchen garden, I thought she’d meant Conan and Cougar. “There are more terra indigene living in the cabins?”
Aggie nodded. “There’s a Bobcat and a pair of Coyotes for sure. I think the Owlgard took the third cabin there.” She moved this way and that, twitchy movements. “Maybe they should have told you?”
“Yes, they should have told me.” When she seemed to shrink into herself, I added, “If I’d known, I would have gone over and introduced myself and made sure those cabins were habitable.” Enough work had been done to stop further weather damage, but I hadn’t expected anyone to stay there so the furniture I’d left in those cabins had been rickety at best. Then again, maybe the Others often took over abandoned human buildings and thought wobbly chairs and tables with peeling paint or stains in the wood were normal.
That made me sad, so I pushed the thought aside until I could talk to Ilya Sanguinati. He would know if the Others in those cabins were happy with the arrangement or felt slighted in some way. And really, if anyone had felt slighted, I wouldn’t have been hearing about this from Aggie days after my new residents had moved in. I’m sure the Bobcat or the Coyotes—or even the Owls—would have expressed an opinion in a way that was unmistakable.