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“The river is haunted?”
“During the Wars of the Roses—a big fight over who should be the king of England, Richard of York or Henry of Lancaster,” Kami supplied, “Sorry-in-the-Vale stood for Richard. Henry won through vile treachery. Anyway, since Henry was a cruel tyrant, he decided everyone who had fought for Richard—who was king of England at the time!—was a traitor, and started seizing lands and squeezing people for cash.”
“Classic tyranny,” Jared observed. “Not very imaginative.”
“So the people of Sorry-in-the-Vale hid their valuables when the king’s men were going by. You know the tower attached to Aurimere? It used to be a bell tower, but the bell was carved and made of gold. Well, gold leaf, probably, but at this stage everyone says gold. Elinor Lynburn ordered that the bell be sunk in the river. What with one king and another, they didn’t bring the bell up from the river until Elizabeth I was on the throne, and then nobody was able to find it. The legend goes that when Sorry-in-the-Vale is in danger, the bells in the river ring out a warning.” Kami beamed with satisfaction.
Jared glanced over the side of the bridge. It hadn’t rained lately, and it had been a long summer. The Sorrier was a silver trickle. “So the river is haunted by … bells?”
“You do not deserve an ancestral legend,” Kami informed him.
They stepped into the woods under a green arch like a church doorway made of boughs. The woods had the hush of a church too. This was the real woods, and even the quality of the light was different, shadow and sunshine caught together in a net of leaves. Kami had loved the woods all her life, but without loving them any less, she could not forget seeing horror under these trees. She did not let her steps slow. Kami had found it was important not to give people time to say “Wait, is this really a good idea?”
It occurred to Kami an instant later that she was not guarding her thoughts, and with the new blurring of the boundaries between them Jared could see every fear and doubt she pretended not to have. She sent a glance that flashed resentment at Jared, standing on the gnarled roots of an oak tree.
He met her eyes, face calm. The oak leaves above him were already gilded, autumn coming to the woods like a king in a legend, touching all the trees with brightness. The rays coming through those leaves were gold on gold, firing the cold lights in his gray eyes. “I’m not going to ask if this is a good idea. I said I could keep up with you,” Jared said. “I won’t do that by slowing you down.”
Kami’s smile spread, thoughts curling around his. He didn’t feel uncertain. Actually, he felt happy, the restlessness that had been thrumming through him at school stilled.
“So hurry up, city boy.”
They went over fallen leaves and undergrowth that tried to tug Kami’s shoes off, past a hollow tree stump covered with dead vines that looked like an elephant made of twigs, and reached the hut. It looked ordinary by the light of day, the rough brown walls leaning at an angle, the door slightly ajar.
Kami had envisioned crime scene tape garlanding the trees, but of course the police weren’t going to do that for a murdered fox. They had not even taken the tablecloth off the table. It fluttered in the breeze as Kami cautiously pushed the door open. She stared for a moment at the rusty brown stains on it. She felt Jared’s shoulder behind her own, warm and solid, having her back, and for the first time since the well, his physical presence was a comfort. She leaned against him and he stepped away, maybe an instant before he realized she was leaning, maybe an instant afterward.
Kami stepped forward on her own and walked around the perimeter of the hut. It was tiny, and she had studied the pictures from her camera phone obsessively. There didn’t seem to be anything new here. So whoever it was had not come back, she thought. That was good to know.
She went and stood at the door with Jared, trying to find some pattern of broken twigs or crushed undergrowth to indicate which way whoever had killed that fox had fled. But the police had been here, and she and Jared hadn’t been careful on their way in. There were signs of people everywhere. When Kami saw a gleam, she stooped down to the glint of white plastic automatically and without much interest. It was plastic: she assumed it was rubbish. Then she looked at what was lying in the palm of her hand.
“It’s a room key,” Jared said slowly. “For somewhere called the Surer Guest.”
“That’s a fancy guesthouse a few miles out of town,” Kami said, just as slowly. Relief seeped through the shock. It could be a visitor who was responsible, then. Not anyone she knew: not someone from her town.
“Our first clue,” Jared remarked. “High five.”
They both hesitated, checking themselves at the last moment, and deliberately missed touching hands. The gesture was a bit like waving at each other over a distance that was only in their minds.
Kami bit her lip, then tucked the card into her pocket and headed for home, with Jared walking a careful distance away from her.
Chapter Twelve
The Crying Pools
“Something I don’t understand about this place,” Jared said, after a long awkward pause, “is why the stone around here, including the stone in the big stupid mausoleum I have to live in, is the color of pee.”
“It’s Cotswold stone!” Kami exclaimed. “And it is the color of honey. It’s very famous. Most of the houses in Cotswolds towns are built from it. It’s why they are such beauteous tourist attractions.”
“Cotswolds?” Jared asked. “I thought this place was in Oxfordshire. Or Gloucestershire. Someplace ending in ‘shire.’ ”
“The Cotswolds stretches over both,” Kami said. “It’s a range of hills and towns famous for their beauty. Also their sheep, but that’s not the issue here. There’s a quarry on the other side of the woods where the stone used to be mined, and it’s been exhausted for fifty years because everyone likes Cotswold stone.”
“Still looks like pee.”
“Honey!”
“You can sweet-talk me all you want, baby, but I know what it looks like to me.” Jared smirked at her. Kami matched up his expression to his emotions: she wanted to memorize them so she could get used to him having a face as well as feelings.
So this is the “smug idiot thinks he’s funny” face, Kami observed. Not to be confused with other “smug idiot” variants.
