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“See? A familiar if ever I saw one.”
I just shook my head, trying to absorb the idea.
“Look, this is going to go on for a while,” Eva said, gesturing around the garden. “But all the younger generation will likely head out soon. It’s a kind of tradition to host a bonfire on celebration nights.”
“Celebration nights?” I asked, incredulous.
“I know, I’m sorry,” Eva said, cringing apologetically. “I realize it doesn’t feel like much of a celebration to you, but that’s how Sedgwick Cove has always treated funerals—a celebration of someone’s life rather than a marking of the end of it. Anyway, it’s going to be on the clifftop tonight at midnight.”
“The clifftop?” I swallowed hard. “You mean where the—”
“No! On the far side of the lighthouse, nowhere near the pyre; and anyway, that will be all cleared away by then. It’s a chance for the younger people to let off a little steam.”
“Oh. Right.”
“So anyway, you should come!” Eva said.
“I… thanks Eva, but I’m not sure if I—”
But Eva put up a hand and I fell silent. “You don’t have to make a decision now. The invitation is open. Come, if you want to. No one will pressure you either way.”
I mustered a smile. “Thanks. I… I’ll think about it.”
Eva stood up and winked at me. “Okay, but don’t think too hard. Thinking too much is how we talk ourselves out of stuff.”
I watched her walk away, and then looked down at Freya.
“So, you’re a familiar, huh? How come you didn’t tell me? Any other big revelations you’re hiding from me?”
Freya merely threw me some side-eye as she groomed herself, as though to say, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
14
Asteria’s celebration continued for hours, contracting and expanding like a living, breathing thing. The music caused spontaneous bursts of singing and dancing. The food was passed around from table to table, and someone had tapped a huge wooden barrel of homemade mead, which I learned was a kind of spirit made from honey—and which soon had many of the adults in a pleasant haze of nostalgia, and celebration, as the potent spirit took its effects. I watched it all unfold in a kind of mystified wonder, but as the moon rose and the stories turned to the years before I was born, my mind began to wander over to the clifftop, and the other celebration that had already begun there.
“Mom?”
My mom looked up from the table where she was sitting deep in conversation with Rhi and several other women who looked to be of Asteria’s generation. One of them was smoking a pipe and sporting an eyepatch.
“Wren!” My mom looked at me in surprise, like she’d forgotten I was even there in the garden. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, I’ve been neglecting you. You must be so… did you eat? Do you need—”
“I’m fine, Mom, don’t worry about me. I was actually wondering if you’d mind if I went over to the bonfire.”
My mom blinked confusedly at me for a moment. “The… the bonfire?”
“Yeah, over on the cliffs? Eva invited me, and I thought I might… but if you don’t want me to…” I was already regretting asking her.
“No, no! It’s not… sorry, I just didn’t realize they still did that around here,” my mom said, and she looked over at Rhi, who nodded.
“Oh, yes. That particular youthful tradition is alive and well, Kerri,” she confirmed.
“Oh. Well… yes, I guess that’s all right. If you think you really want to,” my mom hedged, looking like she hoped I might change my mind.
“I won’t stay for long. And I’ll bring my phone. I just… I thought it might be nice to meet some of the other kids, especially since we’ll be staying for a bit.”
My mom’s anxious expression relaxed a little. “Of course. Yes, you should go meet some new friends.”
“I won’t be too late,” I promised.
