“Nooooo.” I face-palmed. The last thing I wanted to do was be a character in a cultish reenactment. Because let’s face it, an entire town reenacting a historic event was either, a: the lamest thing on the planet, or b: a sign of very bad things. Like in that showEvil Lives Here, how they start each show by telling you about some horrific killer and then prefacing this with some ominous words. “But there had been signs . . .” Dot, dot, dot. Well, if this town was a serial killer, I would say that reenactinganythingwas a sign of something cultish and completely odd.
“What character?” I asked, eyeballing her.
She glanced over my shoulder. “You’ll soon find out.”
“Hello, lass!” The booming Scottish voice was behind me now. “Congratulations, you have just won the most coveted role in the reenactment. The one that every woman in this town wants.”
I shook my head at him. “Who?”
“Margaret. The jackal slayer.”
“The what?”
“Legend has it,” Logan said, sounding very excited, “that when the Ackermans were on their long trek across the land to find this place, starving and dehydrated and barely hanging onto life, one night a jackal came and took one of their baby lambs. Margaret went out in the middle of the night and single-handedly fought the jackal off with a stick! It never came near them again.”
“Wh-what?” I looked to Samirah. “That’s ridiculous. How the hell could she fight off a jackal?”
“She was a brave, strong woman.”
“And she was pregnant at the time too,” Samirah added.
I rolled my eyes. “You guys, no starving, pregnant woman can fight off a jackal with a branch. I think that story has been grossly exaggerated.”
“Exaggerated or not, that’s what we reenact every single year.”
My eyes widened. “Sorry, let me get this straight—you want me to act like a pregnant woman and reenact an imaginary fight with a jackal?”
“Exactly.”
I burst out laughing at the sheer ridiculousness. “You’ve got to be kidding. No way in hell I’m doing that. Why would you even put me up for such a thing, Samirah?” I turned and glared at her.
Logan cleared his throat and then leaned in closer to me. “I think she put you up for it because of what you said you saw.”
“Huh?”
He nudged me. “Let’s just say that in the reenactment, Mark plays your husband.”
“What?” I threw my hands in the air. “No! I’m not doing that.”
“It’s the most coveted role of the year. Every woman wants it.”
I started shaking my head vehemently.
“Maybe Harun can play the jackal this year.” Samirah perked up, sounding genuinely excited.
“Who are you playing in this thing?” I asked.
She patted her massive belly. “No way I can walk down the whole street this year, but last year I played sheep herder four.”
“No, no, no.” It was all I could say. “I’ve never heard of anything more ridiculous in my life.” I looked around again for Mark. I expected him to be protesting as much as I was. Why wasn’t he also loudly objecting?
“Who runs this thing?” I asked.
Samirah pointed to a man in the corner with a clipboard.
“He used to run a theatre before he moved here,” Samirah added while I looked at him.
I didn’t doubt that. The bright pink bow tie and French beret kind of screamed that.
