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“I thought we’d get more tourists and would have to increase our shifts.”
“What else?”
I shot him an irritated look. I couldn’t tell him that I’d almost passed out when I heard the news, that it had confirmed the curse.
“Do you know what I thought?”
“What?”
“That this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a look at a remarkably well-preserved archaeological site.” He lifted my hand again. “These are the symbols for the spiritual and earthly planes. They intersect. Why?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t design it.”
“Who did?”
My eyebrows rose, and I gave him a stubborn look.
“When did you get it? This one isn’t henna, is it?”
“No.”
“It had to hurt like bollocks. I can honestly say I’ve never met someone with a tattoo on their palm.”
“I’m one of a kind.”
He studied me again, with a different kind of interest this time. “I suspect that you are, Ellie Lancaster.”
A warm tingle spread throughout my abdomen.Focus, Ellie.
His hand still cradled mine. “What caused the scar? It’s a perfect diagonal across the symbol, and it looks fresh.”
“I thought you had a PhD in history, not an MD.”
He laughed. “It doesn’t mean I don’t recognize a knife slash when I see one.” He looked up, his playfulness fading. “Was it a self-defense wound?”
I jerked my hand from his. He was too smart for his own good. “No. It wasn’t from self-defense.”
“But it was a knife, right?”
“Yes. I slipped with a knife while I was cutting onions.”
“When I was in the village today, one thought kept running through my head:This isn’t normal. Four-hundred-year-old villages do not just appear out of nowhere. The people’s skeletons are immaculate. There’s food in the pots. Fires that look like they’ve only just been extinguished. Have you been out there? Have you seen it?”
“No.” While it was on my radar, it hadn’t occurred to me that it could be a helpful source of information. Until his mention of Manteo’s hut earlier.
“Everyone is scratching their heads trying to find a logical explanation forwhyit just appeared this way, but there just isn’t one. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen. There has to be some other reason for it.”
“Supernatural?”
He lifted his eyebrows in question.
I had to turn this conversation around fast. “Dr. Preston, the supernatural isn’t real. I would think that you of all people would know that.”
He tilted his head with a smug look. “And yet you mark your doors with three-hundred-year-old symbols for protection.”
Four hundred, but pointing it out seemed unwise.
His eyes narrowed. “Doyouknow why the village appeared?”
