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His pulse quickened until his rapid heartbeat was the only sound inside his skull. He exhaled shakily, and suddenly he was eighteen years old again, standing in the middle of the street after a heavy rain with nowhere to go. No family to take him in, no fiancée to soothe his hurt, no child to take his name, no promises left to keep—
“Can’t be,” he breathed, taking in the entirety of the poster pasted to the wall of the market. Trying to remember how to read. To think. It advertised a concert in Manchester, Pennsylvania, which would pay tribute to the great German musicians. Small print on the bottom thirdof the page listed the members of the orchestra. Fate had glued his hand right to her name:Ebba C. Mullan, flutist.
Ebba Caroline Mullan,hisEbba, had played the flute. She’d been devoted to it. At that moment, he could hear it ringing through his memories: her playing in the front room while he read a book, chiding him for not listening—
“Merritt?” Hulda asked from somewhere very far away.
One of the scars crisscrossing his heart began to bleed. He’d never found out what had become of her. Only that she hadn’t wanted him, just as his father hadn’t wanted him. He’d never gotten any closure, even from her family—
“Merritt?”
He forced air into his lungs. Tried to anchor himself to reality. “Ebba,” he wheezed. He pointed to the name. “This is... Ebba.”
Hulda pushed up her glasses. He tried so hard to focus on her, but something had ruptured in his mind. Something he had locked and buried and poured shovelful after shovelful of dirt onto. Something he had shot up dummy after straw dummy to mask, to hide.
“Who is Ebba?” she asked.
It spread like a sickness, seeping into his arteries, veins, capillaries. “The one... the reason my father...”—he swallowed—“... disowned me.”
Anothersomethingruptured at the thought of his father, but he shoved it down with a hard swallow.
And Ebba... She’d been all he’d had left until she wasn’t. She’d vanished as swiftly as the snapping of two fingers. Shattered his world in an instant and left him to pick up the splintered pieces. He still didn’t knowwhy. That question plagued him more than anything else, even the heartbreak. He’d stepped up, ready to make it right, to take her to the nearest church and work two, three jobs if needed to provide for their family. She’d accepted what he had to offer. Until she vanished. No letter. No word. No trace.
And here she was. In Manchester.
His mind yawned and gaped, stretching the wound wider, until it bled. He was over it. He’d been so good at pretending it didn’t affect him—
The performance was tomorrow night. If he left now, booked a hotel, got up when the kinetic tram got running... yes, he could make it, if the show wasn’t sold out. He didn’t care how much the ticket cost. He could finallyknow. He could finally glue together at least a few of these broken pieces...
Hulda’s gloved fingers brushed his wrist. “You look sick.”
He shook his head. “I-I’m fine.” Stepping back from the poster, he ran a hand through his hair. “I’m fine.” The lie came so easily, for he’d spent the last thirteen years practicing it. “I...”I need to talk to you.But he was unraveling. He couldn’t announce his intentions to Hulda when he was unraveling. She wouldn’twanthim if he was unraveling, just as Ebba hadn’t wanted him—
He cleared his throat. Desperately tried again for an anchor. “I... I’ll see you back to the boat. Wait, no.” He didn’t want Hulda traveling home on her own in the dark, not with the attack so recent. Squeezing his eyes shut, he did some silent calculations. Yes, he could manage. Return her to the island and sail back here. “We need to head back now. I need to—” Flustered, he gestured to the poster. “I need to do this.”
Hulda, stiff, glanced between him and the poster. “But it’s in Manchester.”
“I know. I know.” He rubbed his eyes. “But I have to... I have to see her. I have toknow.” He could take Hulda with him, but then she’d see all his broken pieces. She’d see the broken things pushing out of the darkness, slicing him open, turning him to mulch—
He turned from the poster and started for the dock. His thoughts had devolved into bees, his skull the hive, and sticky honey coated everything. It couldn’t be coincidence! Her family had refused to speakto him. Not then, not in the letters he’d written to them in the ensuing years. He’d never understood it, but now he could.Now he could.
Hulda wasn’t with him. He turned back. “Hulda? Please, I need—”
She shook her head. “You see, Myra invited me to dinner. At the Oyster House.”
Jittery and cold and lost, Merritt glanced down the road. Tried to form a coherent sentence. “The Oyster House?”
She nodded. “Yes. BIKER business. Many of us are meeting... to discuss Nova Scotia.”
His blood pumped fast, eager to get him moving. He had time. He could mask his agitation well enough to see her taken care of. And once he was better, once the mystery was resolved, then he could talk to Hulda. Then he could tell her what he wanted to tell her. “Let me take you there.”
“It’s only three blocks.”
“Hulda—”
“I actually see Miss Steverus now.” She waved to someone in the distance. “Please,Mr.Fernsby.” She smiled tightly. “You’re in a hurry. Don’t let me hold you up.”
Merritt’s gut clenched. His gaze shifted once more to the Oyster House. His brain nailed itself to that poster. “You’re sure? It’s no trouble.”
