bristles on his cheek as though he could scrub them out. “This isn’t your community. You don’t live here.”
Those words were a dart, and they hit the bull’s-eye. To my horror, my eyes started to sting. “Excuse me?” I blinked hard. I was not going to let this asshole see he’d made me cry.
But he noticed. “I mean . . .” He had the grace to look a little ashamed and started to backpedal. “You’re not staying, right? I thought you were only here short term to help out your sister.”
“Well, I hadn’t thought about it yet. I’m . . .” I put up a hand, stopping the thought. Stopping him from saying anything else. “You know what? My future isn’t any of your business. What is your business is I represent fifty percent of your wenches, and Faire starts in two weeks. Do you really not want me here?”
Simon’s mouth compressed into a thin line, and instead of backing down I held his stare. We looked at each other for a good solid minute, which doesn’t sound like long until you’re in a staring contest with someone and you don’t want to lose.
Finally he sighed. “You’re right.”
“And?” It was nice to have won, but I still didn’t know what exactly I was right about.
“And we only have two wenches this year, so we can’t afford to lose you. I . . .” He looked over his shoulder one more time. To see if he had stalled long enough, and his drug contact had skedaddled by now? When he turned back to me, something in his face had changed. “Sorry,” he said, and I almost fell over backward to hear him apologize. “This time of year is hard. And this year is . . .” That was all he said, but I watched his face. He looked tired, maybe a little sad. Why did he do Faire every year if it made him look like this?
But I didn’t ask. Because that was the kind of thing a friend would do, and we weren’t friends. I was starting to regret that.
“Anyway.” I half turned away from him, pointing up the lane. “This way back to the front, right?” I knew it was, but something in me wanted to defer to him this little bit. Like a peace offering.
“Yeah.” His voice had gone all rusty again. He cleared his throat. “That way, and it curves around to the left.” He pointed halfheartedly, and I made a little show of watching where he indicated, like he was being helpful.
“Thanks.” I started down the lane, but before the curve I ducked down a side lane. I peered around a tree and watched Simon walk the same main lane as me, heading up to that curve to the left, and as soon as he had disappeared I doubled back the way I’d come. I was better at figuring out these woods than I thought, and it didn’t take long to find the clearing where he and I had been talking. I followed the side lane where Simon had appeared. There was something down here he didn’t want me to see, so naturally I had to find it.
I followed the lane until I came across another intersection. Nothing. There was nothing here. No key to why Simon was the way he was. I stepped onto the lane, the one that was paved, when a flash on the ground caught my eye. It was sunlight, glinting off metal. Off silver.
It was the flask. The one Simon had been playing with during the morning briefing. Now it lay under a tree. He must have dropped it, and I bent to pick it up, but my hand stopped. The flask hadn’t been dropped, it had been deliberately laid down; it stood on its end, leaning against something.
Simon hadn’t been back here for a drug deal. He’d been back here for a tree. A very specific tree.
I crouched in the dirt on the side of the path, and my fingers reached out to the raised plaque resting at the base of the young tree. My fingertips grazed over the largest two words on the plaque: SEAN GRAHAM. Beneath the name was a set of dates, and my breath whooshed out of my body.
Sean Graham. Simon’s older brother, the founder of the Faire. People talked about him in the past tense, but the stories were always fond, and everyone had a smile on their face when they spoke about him. I’d