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I shucked the sheets off, found my discarded pants, and tugged them off, feeling her eyes on my back. “What time is it?”
“About two,” she replied.
I twisted to look at her. “Isn’t anyone missing you at home?”
“Probably my mom, but I’m a grown adult. I don’t have a curfew or tabs placed on me,” she shrugged. “I’m also pissed off with my dad at the moment.”
“Why?”
Her expression dimmed. “He’s hiding shit from me and being a stubborn goat. So…nothing out to the ordinary but—” she shook her head, “—it still irritates me.”
“Is this about your missing relative again?” I asked.
Mia’s eyes flickered up. “It is, why?”
I wanted to tell her to let it go, but I knew this was bothering her dearly. “I—I suppose I don’t know why you’re so invested in this missing woman.” Perched on the edge of my bed, I hunched over and dropped my hands between my knees. “Can you tell me why it's bothering you so much?”
“I—” she set the cup aside and pulled her legs up, wrapping her arms around them. With her expression troubled, she said, “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not based on a fact or anything solid; it's just my gut feeling. I don’t know how a part of my family could be erased from existence, and no one can tell me why. There is no record of her death anywhere either.”
I heard her, but I couldn’t understand it. Didn’t she have other things to worry about? What about the Texas guys? Had they not contacted her yet?
“Well,” I shrugged. “If you still want, I’ll show you the few things I have stored up at the Meadery.”
She perked up, “I’d love that—” her eyes flew to the door behind us. “—Shall we shower?… together.”
“You know that doesn’tconserve water, right?” I laughed.
“Who cares.” Mia shrugged. “C’mon.”
I just laughed, following her into the bathroom.
* * *
The historic part of the Meadery tour was not extensive by any stretch of the imagination. It simply showed old mead-making equipment: cauldrons, hand presses, buckets, stirring wands, and the like, the original drawing for the scope of the orchard—that was five times larger nowadays—and a few drawings of the first Meadery.
I stood patiently as Mia circled the room, stopping every few minutes to gaze at a map or a painting. She touched a few old ribbons won at county fairs, a portrait of my great-grandmother in her austere black gown, and her hair up in pins.
She dropped her gaze to a felt-lined drawer where only brass jewelry lay. She made to move off but then snapped back to the drawer, her eyes going wide. “Ethan! Please open this drawer.”
I didn’t know why she wanted to look at old jewelry, but I got the key and did it anyway. She fished out a locket and turned it over, and I peered over her shoulder to see S.E.S. Gently, she pried the lock open, and a miniature portrait of a girl, a young woman, rather, was inside.
She looked in the other half. “Sarah….Esther…Sullivan.”
I was dumbstruck. What the hell was happening? “Why is your relative’s jewelry in my family’s possession?”
“Why was your great uncle’s chest buried in my lands?” she asked before looking down at the locket. “You don’t think they were involved, do you?”
“That would be insane,” I shook my head. “There is no possible way they could have been. From what I know, our family’s rivalry had been at its worst in those times. I doubt they could have looked at each other without being raked over the coals.”
“They could have found a way,” Mia replied quietly while turning the locket over and over in her hand. She looked up at me under her lashes and just as softly said, “I mean… look at us.”
“We’re…different,” I could barely manage. “May I?”
She gave me the locket, and I turned it over. Could it be that Victor had taken a shine to Sarah? But how? I was a hundred percent sure, no, athousand percentsure the two could have never mingled in their lives.
But… maybe Mia did have a point.
I wasn’t a romantic by any notion, but… emotions didn’t follow the rules, did they? Love was certainly an emotion, and I don’t believe it was an exception. I tried to see where Mia was coming from. “If they were together…how come no one knew?”
