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Graham Buchanan was a very good liar. If Allie hadn’t been watching his eyes so closely, she’d never have realized it. If he thought there was a story here—and he did—it wasn’t a story about other people’s lives. She had no idea what her grandmother had done to make him suspicious, but—in less than a minute—his willingness to see beyond the expected had gone from being a good thing to a potential problem.

And he worked for a tabloid.

Those idiots would print anything.

This sort of thing never came up at home, and the wild ones, while they sometimes made headlines, they just laughed and moved on, but here and now Allie had neither the safety of home nor the luxury to leave.

“… but no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Then she told me she’d be leaving, but one of her relatives would be taking it over and I should talk to her. All she gave me was your name. I don’t know why I thought you’d be old.” He shrugged, the movement surprisingly graceful under all his damp layers. “I mean, it was just a name. You’re…”

“Her granddaughter.”

“Of course.”

Thunder.

Lightning.

The lights went out.

When the lights came back on a moment later, he’d moved closer. Not a lot, but the puddle he’d been in the middle of was mostly behind him and Allie doubted the puddle had shifted. If he’d hoped to throw her off by his sudden proximity, then she could definitely count on at least one thing he didn’t know about the Gale girls.

This close, he smelled amazing.

When she smiled, he blinked and shuffled back a step. “I, uh, I dropped in to set up a time we could talk. If you were willing to talk to me, that is. Just because Ms. Gale, your grandmother, thought you would be, doesn’t mean you’d be. Willing. To talk.” He seemed confused by his reaction. This was not a man, Allie concluded, in the habit of losing control.

This close, she could see the faint shadow of stubble along his upper lip and jaw. “We could talk now. I doubt anyone’s going to brave the storm for a mismatched set of silver spoons and a yoyo.”

“A yoyo?”

A nod toward the box on the counter. “They’re our best sellers.”

“Of course.” Cerulean eyes crinkled at the corners, and even though his smile had become a little masklike, it was still a very, very nice smile.

She was going to enjoy finding out what he thought he knew.

As soon as her friends had yelled one final good-bye out the car window and driven safely out of sight, Charlie pulled her guitar from the gig bag, stuffed the gig bag into the duffel bag, and settled the latter on her back. Given that Halifax Stanfield International Airport was thirty-five kilometers from downtown Halifax, and they knew how broke she was, she couldn’t really refuse the ride. Fortunately, airport improvements meant airport construction meant a near total lack of parking so they’d merely dropped her off and kept going. It was why she’d chosen to “fly.” They’d have hung around the train station or bus station, keeping her company until she boarded.

Three quick steps up and over the curb and she was sinking into loose dirt as she slipped between skinny trees newly planted and into the Wood.

Allie’s song was one Charlie’d been following most of her life. She’d followed it out her first time in when she’d very nearly become just another cautionary tale the aunties told about the family oddities.

“Oh, traveling sounds like fun,” they’d say. “But it’s a lot less fun if you’re lost in the Wood and can’t find your way home.”

No argument from her. Lost was definitely a whole fuck of a lot less fun and had involved near panic resolved by projectile vomiting when she’d finally stumbled into Aunt Mary’s kitchen. Allie, home alone finishing a history essay, had cleaned her up, tucked her into bed, and kept the gathering aunties out of the room until Charlie’s parents could come to claim her.

Charlie’d asked later how she’d done it, and Allie, just turned thirteen and all knees and elbows, had spit the end of her braid out of her mouth and shrugged, saying, “I stood in front of the door,” like it was no big deal to hold off a whole flock of the circling buzzards.

Even for Gale girls, the two years between fifteen and thirteen were a bit of a gap, but that had bridged it.

So following Allie’s song should not require the kind of attention she was having to give it to stay on course.

And then a few notes went missing.

Shadows began to gather…

The path began to shift.

“Excuse me?” Charlie touched the old woman gently on the shoulder, hoping her breath didn’t smell liked she’d just puked up her last three meals against the rough bark of what looked like a coconut palm. “Can you tell me where I am?”

The old woman frowned, mahogany skin pleating. “Oh, merveilleux. Un autre Américain touriste perdu.”