Page 17

When the gates opened, we walked in side by side, Grimm trotting off in front of us.

My hand stayed in Wilder’s and his hood stayed down.

“So what would you like to do first? The haunted house? The hayride?” I smiled up at him. “Or do you want a caramel apple?”

I knew this would be difficult for him, but he’d agreed because I’d wanted to come. I’d wanted to come for a very specific reason.

He bent his head low. “The only thing I want to eat right now is you.”

I shivered at his words. “That’s on the agenda, don’t worry. But first.” I started walking to the colorful tent set up toward the back of the festival.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“This is where I make sure to thank the fates.”

The curtain covering the opening of the tent was open so I walked inside. Zelda — Darlene — sat behind her table, a secret smile on her face as we entered.

“Come to have your fortune read again?”

“I come to see if it was a fluke,” I answered.

Wilder sat down beside me, an amused but watchful expression on his face. Grimm had followed us in and lay down at our feet.

“Give me your hand.” She held out her hand to Wilder. He put it in hers without question.

“Don’t worry,” I reassured him, “she’s good. She told me I would meet someone tall, dark and troubled.”

“Troubled?”

“Well, I think she did get that part slightly wrong. More like trouble.”

Zelda smiled as she bent over Wilder’s palm. She didn’t trace it the way she had mine, or frown. She simply looked, the way you’d read a letter from someone you already knew.

“The ghost stepped out of the dark,” she said. “Exactly like the moon promised.” She tapped the center of his palm with one bangled finger. “Now he gets to decide whether to stay out.”

Wilder’s jaw flexed. “Is that a prediction?”

“It’s a fortune. Predictions are for weathermen.”

Something bumped the back of my knee. Grimm stood beside me, pushing his nose under my hand. Zelda leaned closer to Wilder, murmuring something I didn’t catch as Grimm distracted me. By the time I turned back to them, Zelda was sitting back with her hands folded, wearing the look of a woman who had just done something deeply satisfying. Wilder was staring at his own palm, like the lines had rearranged themselves.

“Did I miss something?” I asked.

“No.” He closed his hand, slowly, like he was putting something away for safekeeping.

Zelda waved off my money, the movement making her bangles jingle. “On the house. Go. Eat something with caramel on it.”

Outside, the festival glowed. Lanterns were strung between the booths, music was thumping from the street dance, and a line of kids in glow-stick necklaces waiting for the hayride. A few heads turned as we came out of the tent, Wilder’s hood was still down, his hand was in mine, and the scar was in full light. June and the mayor waved at us, smiles on their faces.

He stopped at the edge, just outside the lanterns’ lights, where the crowd thinned out and the noise dropped to something you could talk over.

“Too much?” I asked. “We can skip the haunted house. We can skip all of it, honestly. I’m already good.”

“No. It’s not too much.” He looked at the crowd. Then at me. “Not anymore.”

He had a look on his face I had never seen before. “Wilder?”

“I love you,” he said.