scream Slate’s name.
He freezes and looks over at me. His eyes go wide, and he blinks. At me, then at the well, then back at me.
“Keep talking to him, Cadence,” Adrien yells.
“Want to grab breakfast with me at the tavern?” I shout, slowly sliding the table closer. Almost there.
Sloshing followed by a heartbreaking cry for help make both Slate and me turn to the well. Gaëlle, who’s back on her feet, pushes in front of Slate, and her face blanches. And then she’s reaching into the well, but Adrien seizes her wrist right before it can vanish over the stone lip.
“Look away, Gaëlle,” he hisses.
She shuts her eyes and winces when the cry for help echoes against the peaked wooden roof sheltering the well. The voice is deep and familiar. So familiar it raises goose bumps over my arms.
My hands slip off the legs of the table. “Papa?”
Fingertips topped with buffed, blunt nails poke out from the well.
Oh my God.
Papa is in the well! I slip and slide toward it.
“It’s not real, Cadence.” Adrien’s heated whisper makes me skid to a stop. “And don’t look into the well.” He turns to the others. “All of you, look away!”
I snap my gaze to the frosted ground. Adrien pushes the table forward, then flips it right-side-up so that its legs straddle the round opening. Tapping begins and then scratching. Adrien flattens his palms against the tabletop to keep it in place.
One of the firefighters shoos a student off the ice and lumbers toward us. “Monsieur Mercier, you really think a bouchon en bois will prevent the well from overflowing?”
“Yes, I believe a wooden cork will do the job.” Adrien’s brow glistens with sweat. “For the time being, at least.”
“I realize you’re trying to help but—”
Adrien shifts to lean his right forearm on the table and fishes his phone from his pocket with his left. “Actually, it’s my father and Rainier de Morel who gave me instructions to cover the well. If you’d like to speak to either one of them directly, I’ll give them a call.”
“No need.” The fireman zips his lips shut.
“Would you have anything heavy to put on top?” Adrien asks.
Whatever’s in there scratches again and yelps a muffled help.
I expect the fireman to rip the table off, but instead, he says, “I’ll go find something to weigh it down.” His cleated boots grip the slippery ground as he trudges toward his squad.
Adrien must notice my surprise because he whispers, “The piece only calls to the four of us.”
I stare at his face and notice it’s streaked with blood, but I’m too perplexed by what he’s just said to comment on it. “The piece?”
“Yes. It’s the piece that’s trying to lure you in by sounding and looking like someone you’d do anything to save.”
Slate’s rough breathing becomes suspended.
“That’s why I heard Papa,” I murmur.
Adrien nods.
“And me, Romain.” Gaëlle rubs her cheek, still red from Slate’s slap.
Slate doesn’t volunteer who he saw. Not that it matters. His hands are locked into tight fists at his sides. His knuckles are cracked, and blood streams off his fingers and into the ice, staining it crimson.
I gasp. “You’re bleeding!” I grab onto his hand, but he tears it away and backs up, letting out a snarl that sounds a lot like the one we heard earlier. His black curls are matted with perspiration and cling to his slick forehead, and his chest is rising and falling quickly again.
“He’s probably still in shock, Cadence. Especially since he touched it,” Adrien adds in a whisper.
Juda emerges from the tavern and tromps over to us, his white hair flapping in the cool breeze, his skin flushed red from the weight of the giant soup pot cradled in his arms. “Heard you needed something heavy. If you fill this old thing with water, not even gale force wind will be able to shift it.”
Adrien asks a fireman to fetch a hose from his electric utility vehicle. The man hooks one end to a fire hydrant on the edge of the square and drags the nozzle all the way toward the well.
Once the pot overflows, Adrien turns to the tavern’s bearded owner. “Get back inside. You’re going to get sick, Juda.”
Juda casts a long look at the well before catching sight of his daughter-in-law. He sucks in a breath. “What happened to your cheek?”
Gaëlle shakes her head. “It’s nothing. Just slipped and bumped it on the post.”
He purses his lips but walks back toward Nolwenn, who’s standing by the