Page 71 of Whisper of Nightmares

Maryam beams at the question, though as she looks down at her stall, her smile loses its luster. “Oh, these days, you can find us selling various handmade crafts.”

Euphemia leans over the trinkets, gazing at them with genuine awe. “You made all these?”

“Not these old tumbleweeds.” Maryam holds out her hands, twisting them to show fingers that are as gnarled as driftwood. “That’s what I have the children for. At least that’s what they’re doing until we can get the cooperage back up and running.”

“How is the place holding up?” Kelda asks, reaching into her pocket.

“Oh, about the same. Damn fire keeps catching. The last rain helped put out the last of it, I think. Now it’s just the slow work of cleaning and rebuilding.”

With a grim smile, Kelda retrieves the item. It doesn’t glint like coins as Euphemia expected.

She holds the thing out for Maryam to inspect, and Euphemia recognizes it immediately. A figurine she’d seen in the reliquary, the small stone carving of a beautiful woman draped in a feather cloak.

“What happened?” Euphemia asks, watching Maryam as she shoves the figurine in her coin pouch and disappears under her table for something not displayed.

Her voice is muffled as she answers, “They say it was lightning.”

But Kelda tuts and shakes her head. “Thor would not bring his divine power upon someone as pure as you, Maryam.”

With a disbelieving chuckle, Maryam pops back up, a bundle of leather cupped in her palm. She passes it to Kelda discreetly, Euphemia unable to discern the contents wrapped inside.

It dawns on her then that this is the reason they came today. Not to meet the townspeople. But for whatever is inside that leather bundle.

“Apologies.” Maryam blushes and pats her hands on her skirts. “Here I am, talking your heads off about me, and I haven’t even asked about you. Where is it you said you came from, Euphemia?”

“Nottinghamshire,” she answers swiftly, gaze still snagged on the satchel Kelda is now carefully placing back in her pocket. She forces herself to be polite and turns toward Maryam. “It was about a week’s journey.”

“Oh, yes. I am familiar with Nottinghamshire. Sold a few barrels to a brewer and his family down there. Kind folk. Haven’t heard from him in a while though. Do you by chance know of a Matias in your parts?”

Hearing that name makes the world stop turning.

The waves, once powerful and crashing upon the shore, fall silent.

Everyone on the pier disappears, until it is only Euphemia—Euphemia and the name that belongs to her father.

A name she has not heard in nearly a year.

Euphemia isn’t aware she is falling until Kelda catches her.

Everything else just…becomes fog. The once bright and cheerful day is now shrouded behind a cloak of guilt and shame. Just one more person Euphemia has failed. One more way in which her greatest regret has caused someone else pain.

She’s not aware how they make it back to the carriage, only that they do.

And it isn’t long after the carriage starts to sway that emotional exhaustion claims her, and Euphemia falls into a fitful slumber.

Chapter 15

Spires and Bones

By the time they reach the manor, Euphemia is just waking. As she blinks her eyes open, the first thing she notices is the rain dripping from the window. Outside it sounds torrential. She almost wishes the carriage ride wasn’t ending. She sits upright and draws her cloak tighter around her shoulders.

As she does, she notices Kelda across from her, that keen gaze fixed upon Euphemia as if Kelda never took her eyes off her.

Everything that happened comes rushing back. The beautiful day. The lovely town. But also the shifty folk down by the pier. A kind woman selling baubles. The same woman uttering her father’s name. The world sweeping out from under her feet.

Euphemia opens her mouth to speak—of what, she is unsure. An apology, perhaps? There they were, enjoying the lovely day, when Euphemia had to go and ruin it.

But Kelda lifts a hand, stopping her. She shakes her head as if to say not yet.