CHAPTER 15

“I FEEL LIKE THE HAT MIGHT BE A BIT MUCH.”

Bel frowned as she said it, studying Al from the other side of the tearoom table. He’d stayed at the caves last night, and they’d met him on the beach earlier, bringing him into the village for lunch. Before he’d left the night before, Bel had managed to sneak a few things from her kitchen, but some apples, string cheese, and a few granola bars weren’t a real meal.

They were planning on moving him into the Institute’s attic later today, and as such, Nolie had thought he’d needed a better disguise than Simon’s old clothes. Hence the baseball cap she’d found for him somewhere in the Institute, which would’ve been fine had it not had a plush Loch Ness monster attached to it. Nessie’s head stuck out over the bill of the cap while her tail poked out in the back, making it look like Al had a sea serpent swimming through his head.

Nolie looked over at him as she used the side of her fork to cut a hunk out of her piece of chocolate cake. “What? No, it makes him look like a tourist, Bel. He’s blending in.”

Al scowled slightly, casting his eyes upward even though he couldn’t actually see the bright green head with its googly eyes. “I don’t know what a tourist is, but they must be mad silly things to wear caps such as these.”

They’d decided to have lunch at the tearoom today since, as Nolie pointed out, that’s where all the tourists went, so it would help with Al’s “hidden in plain sight” thing. It wasn’t a bad idea—the place was pretty full of unfamiliar people, all with cameras or backpacks—but Bel was beginning to think Nolie had suggested it mostly for the cake.

Al seemed pleased with the food, too, tucking into a bowl of carrot soup and an egg-and-cress sandwich. It was gray today, with the smell of rain in the air, and Bel wrapped her fingers around a Styrofoam cup of tea. She’d made one for Al and Nolie, too. Al’s was plain because that’s what he liked, but she’d put loads of milk and sugar in hers and Nolie’s. Breathing in the sweet steam from her cup now, she rested her heels on the rung of her chair.

Leslie’s family ran the tearoom, so Bel hadn’t ventured in ever since their . . . whatever it was that’d happened. Strange how with Al and Nolie at her table, it hadn’t given her pause to come in today, though.

Of course, that might have been because she had more pressing things on her mind than why Leslie Douglas didn’t like her anymore.

“Was this a tearoom when you were alive?” Nolie asked Al, and he paused in demolishing his own slice of cake to glance around.

“No, it was a shop.”

He seemed more interested in eating his cake than giving them further details, but Bel still said, “My family owns a shop. We’ll take—”

She stopped, her face feeling warm. She’d been about to promise to take him by the shop after lunch, but how could she? His face was on the back wall, and, Nessie hat or no, Bel felt fairly certain her mum would think he looked familiar. Also, she wasn’t sure she wanted to explain the memorial to Al.

Nolie looked over at her, eyebrows raised, but Bel just shook her head and took another sip of tea.

The three of them sat there in silence for a bit, and Bel was beginning to think Al would just eat all the cake in the tearoom in silence when he suddenly said, “The fog took the shop.”

Bel sat her cup down with a thump, sloshing some tea over the side. “What?”

He kept shoveling in cake, the Nessie head bobbing. “When it started coming closer. Got all the way up to here, and the shop vanished.” Then he raised his head and looked around. “Pretty sure it didn’t come back once I’d lit the light. This place doesn’t look the same.” He wrinkled his brow, dark eyes searching the walls.

Like Gifts from the End of the World, the Foghorn Tearoom had been designed mostly to appeal to visitors, so there were green-and-blue plaid curtains in the windows, photographs of the Boundary on the walls, a few posters of other pretty spots in Scotland. Even the placemats were plaid, and bagpipe music drifted from little speakers in the corner.

Back when Bel and Leslie were friends, it had been one of Bel’s favorite places to come, and not just because Leslie’s mum’s chocolate cake was so good. It always smelled nice, the earthy scent of tea in the air, the sweet smell of baking drifting out of the kitchen. Especially on a cold gray day like today when the sea just beyond the window looked like stone, and drops of mist seemed to hover in the air.

Nolie had finished her cake, and was looking out toward the sea now. “The fog came in this far?” she asked. “All the way up here?”

They could just barely see the Boundary from here, and it was almost impossible to believe that it had once slid this far inland.

It was impossible. It had to be. Fog could move, of course it could, but it didn’t take things.

Bel said that now, and both Nolie and Al looked at her.

“You really want to start calling things ‘impossible’ when you’re having lunch with a dead kid?” Nolie asked, and for once, Al didn’t argue with her.

Sighing, Bel sat forward, her nails digging little crescent moons into her cup. “There could be some . . . I don’t know, scientific properties in the fog, preserving him. That I can believe. But the fog coming in closer, and taking buildings? Then going back because someone lit a magical lighthouse light?” She shook her head. “Wouldn’t we know? Wouldn’t there be stories?”

“They were probably sad. And ashamed,” Al said quietly. He was stirring a spoon in his soup, looking out the window. “The year I left, Journey’s End sent six people into the fog, and they never came back.”

If it meant saving the village, would people send someone out into the fog now? Bel chewed her bottom lip, thinking about it. She wanted to say that no, of course they wouldn’t, but then she thought of Jaime with his bright eyes and quick smile.

He’d go, she realized. In a heartbeat.

The door opened, and with it a gust of cool, damp air, and then Leslie was standing there, the hood of her slicker pulled up over her brown hair, and as always, Cara and Alice right behind.

When Leslie’s eyes met Bel’s, Bel wished she could suddenly become invisible. It was one thing to see Leslie out and about, but here, in her family’s own tearoom, there wasn’t anywhere to hide, or any way to avoid her, really.

Al and Nolie had clearly picked up on the tension, Nolie looking over at the three girls, and Al lifting his shoulders a little, like if he could just make his neck low enough, no one would notice his hat.

But Leslie had noticed, all right, and she and the other two girls came over to the table, the soles of their trainers squeaking on the hardwood floor. “Hiya, Bel,” Leslie said, and Bel gave her a weak smile.

“Hiya.”

“Haven’t seen you much this summer,” Leslie continued, and Bel fought the urge to snap, “More like haven’t spoken to me much,” and instead just gave a little shrug.

“Busy at the shop.”

She wished Leslie would just go away now, and she could feel Nolie’s eyes on her, asking a million questions.

But then Alice stepped forward. She was taller than Leslie, with the same dark, straight hair, although her eyes were blue, not brown like Leslie’s. They were also kind of mean as she glanced down beside Nolie’s plate and saw her book.

“Monsters of the Minch,” she read out loud, and behind her, Cara gave a muffled giggle.

Leslie just shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

Alice looked over at Al then, and his hat. “Aaaaand a Nessie cap,” she drawled. “The two of you planning to go hunting for fairies after your tea?”

Bel’s face was burning now, and there were two spots of red high on Al’s cheekbones.

Nolie turned her face up to Alice and smiled. “Why? Are there fairies around here?”

Alice scowled, then flicked her gaze over at Bel. “I thought you weren’t supposed to make friends with tourists,” she said, her voice almost sneering. “Isn’t that what you told Leslie?”

Bel’s eyes flew to Leslie, and she watched her former friend squirm slightly, not meeting Bel’s gaze. Was that it, then? Sure, when Leslie had first started hanging out around Alice, Bel had mentioned her mum’s advice, about how people not from Journey’s End never stayed long, but she’d only said it because she didn’t want Leslie to get her feelings hurt.

And yeah, maybe she’d been a bit jealous, but she hadn’t meant that Leslie couldn’t be friends with Alice.

But none of that seemed to matter now, because it was clear Alice had already made up her mind about Bel.

“Anyway,” Alice said, backing away from the table. “Have fun monster hunting or whatever. Come on, I’m not hungry after all.”

The three girls drifted back toward the door, Leslie shooting Bel one last, unreadable look before they were gone.

Al, Bel, and Nolie sat in silence.

“They seem fun,” Nolie said at last. “And by fun, I mean ‘the worst.’”

“Leslie wasn’t all that bad,” Bel muttered, looking into her tea. It had gone cold now, the sugar at the bottom a kind of brownish sludge, and she frowned at her cup before standing up to toss it in the bin.

“We need to get Al into the Institute attic while your dad’s still in Wythe,” she told Nolie. “Then I have to get back to the shop.”

Nolie and Al were both still watching her, but neither of them argued as they cleaned up the table, then set off into the misty afternoon.

Bel and Nolie both had rain jackets, but Al just hunched his shoulders against the drizzle, eyes narrowing a bit.

“At least this beastie should be happy in weather like this,” he said, flicking Nessie’s head with his finger, and Bel glanced around. The city center was nearly deserted, and there were a ton of cheap plastic (and plaid) ponchos at the shop. “Go stand under that awning,” she told Nolie and Al, pointing to the covering above the tiny Journey’s End museum.

They did as she’d asked, and Bel quickly jogged across the street to Gifts from the End of the World, digging her key out of her pocket.

But as she glanced up, something taped to the window on the door caught her eye. It was a plain white sheet of paper, which she snatched down and unfolded.

It was a note, and it was only a few lines, scrawled in a scratchy handwriting that made Bel think of spiderwebs.

If you want answers, I have them. Meet me at the manor house. Sunset.

And under that was a name.

M. McLeod.

M.

Maggie.