Thirteen

Ravens and Secrets

Fin and Eddie left for school early.

Mom hadn’t even been awake when Fin had slipped out of the cottage, backpack slung over one shoulder. They would need the extra time to bring the raven to Nick. Eddie kept yawning and jamming his fist against his mouth. In his other arm, he gently held a cardboard box with holes poked into it. Fin had offered to carry it, but Eddie waved her off.

As they walked, Fin told Eddie everything: about how the cottage had been broken into by the tea monster, about how it had taken Talia’s spare key, about the monster coming out of the tea shop wearing Fin’s face, about the injured raven and the choice Fin had made.

“I know, I know,” Fin said, when she was done. “I should probably have gone after it. I mean, letting Tea Fin go was a mistake.”

Eddie squinted at Fin blearily. “Teafin?” Maybe it was his exhaustion, but the word was more crammed together when he said it—like it was a real name.

“I couldn’t keep thinking of it as the tea monster,” said Fin. “And—well. It looks like me. Exactly like me, except for the eyes.”

“It’s always in the eyes,” said Eddie, with all of the knowledge of someone who’d spent days playing video games. “That’s how you tell one of your companions has been taken over by something evil.”

“I haven’t been taken over,” said Fin. “It just—stole my shape.”

“Well, maybe it was the only shape it could take,” suggested Eddie. “Because you’re the one who brewed it into existence, it has to look like you. Like how butterflies and moths change shape. That blobby thing we saw crawl out of the sink—that could be its larvae form.”

Fin shuddered. “Thanks for making this even creepier.”

“Anytime,” said Eddie agreeably. “So it ate all the tea in the town and, well . . . grew up. Into its final evolution or whatever.”

“You’re making it sound like one of those bad monster movies,” said Fin. “The kind that are all black-and-white and have people in rubber suits destroying cities.”

“Hey, some of those movies are pretty good,” said Eddie. “And I mean, so far it’s keeping to the rules of those films. Next she’s going to grow to the size of a house and—”

“Destroy Tokyo?” asked Fin. “Trap all of us in a tea ball? Wreak havoc upon the town? Just start eating us?”

“Okay, now you’re the one making it creepy,” replied Eddie.

“Well, it is creepy,” said Fin. Their path sloped downward toward the highway. Fin had to lean back a little as they walked down the road. “It looks like me and it broke into two houses and it attacked a raven. All in three days. Who knows what it’ll do next?”

“At least Nick can help with the raven,” said Eddie.

Nick’s full name was Nicodemus Elphinstone, but no one called him that. There were rumors that he couldn’t come into town; Fin had overheard people muttering about everything from a bad tarot reading to the creature in Bower’s Creek hunting for him. All anyone knew for sure was that Nick lived beyond the boundaries of Aldermere in a hand-built cabin with two tin men made of old soup cans dangling from the eaves.

Eddie rapped on the door. It took another knock before there were sounds from inside. Finally the door opened a crack and a man peered out.

He had a nose that looked as if it’d been broken a few times, a thin scar across his mouth—and his hair and brows were dark. He had the look of a worn-out guard dog. Fin wasn’t great at guessing ages, but he looked a little older than Mom and Aunt Myrtle. “Someone need gas?” he asked, voice rough with exhaustion. “Place doesn’t open for another hour. Tell ’em they can wait.”

“It isn’t that,” said Eddie, and he held the cardboard box more tightly. “Sorry about this—but we found a raven. She’s been hurt.”

Nick passed a hand across his face, exhaling hard. He pushed the door open and said, “Come in.” Fin saw he was wearing a gray bathrobe, sweatpants, and slippers with adorable pig faces on them. She blinked a few times.

Eddie walked in, but Fin hesitated on the porch. One of her mother’s rules was to never enter an adult’s home without another adult present.

Nick seemed to see her for the first time. “Ah, the Barnes girl,” he said, with a nod. “You’ve got a head on your shoulders, don’t you?”

Fin wasn’t sure what he meant by that.

“Tell you what,” said Nick. “You can come in or not. Keep the door open, if you like. Prop it open with a planter, if you think it’ll lock.”

“Oh, come on,” said Eddie, from the doorway. He sounded a little exasperated. “It’s just Nick. Why are you—”

“Don’t talk to her like that,” said Nick sharply. “Girl’s got the right idea, being cautious. Someday you’re going to blunder your way into something you can’t get out of, Mr. Elloway.”

He took the box from Eddie and strode into his house.

Fin watched him go. She’d never had anyone talk to her like that—like she wasn’t being overly cautious. Like being careful was something to aspire to. Of course, he was a hermit who lived on the edge of town and sold overpriced gasoline to tourists, but still. She kind of liked him.

Eddie looked baffled; Fin knew he liked his ability to charm most everyone, so finding someone that it didn’t work on, like Nick, must have been startling. “You are coming in, right?” he said, sounding unsettled.

Fin thought of the raven; it had been injured because of her.

“Yeah,” she said, and stepped over the threshold.

She didn’t shut the door, though.

The interior of Nick’s house made her feel better. It reminded her of the cottage—small but clean and organized. Fin walked past a sitting room with a laptop resting on a loveseat. In the next room was the kitchen, with a French press coffee maker and a bowl of fresh fruit. There was a tiny table beneath a window. Nick set the box on the table and pulled it open.

A croaking noise made Fin jump. She whirled around.

A raven sat on a coatrack, tucked in amid a few moldy-looking winter jackets. It hopped down, coming to rest on the nearby table. For all that the ravens were graceful in the air, they had a tendency to bob and stagger on the ground. This raven knocked over a stack of papers as it approached the box.

“Aletheia,” said Nick, and there was a note of warning in his voice.

The raven looked at Nick and fluttered its wings. Fin couldn’t help but think of kids in school who got caught trying to sneak into the hallways during class. Nick clucked his tongue and the raven puffed itself up indignantly, then turned and hopped back toward the coatrack.

“You have one for a pet?” asked Eddie curiously.

“Ravens aren’t pets,” said Nick. “Well, the town ravens aren’t. Aletheia’s a different story. She wouldn’t survive in town, not anymore.”

“What about our raven?” asked Eddie.

Nick bent over the box, looking over the injured raven.

“Hey there,” he said, in an entirely different voice. Softer, almost a croon. He reached into the box, running his fingertips across the raven’s back. “What happened to you?”

In reply, the raven made a soft grumbling noise and nibbled at his fingertips with her beak.

“Sprained wing, it looks like,” Nick said. “Someone grabbed her badly—you see this in birds when kids try to catch them.” He turned his dark, sharp gaze on Eddie. “Was it you?”

“I found her,” said Fin, before Eddie could answer. “She was by the tea shop, sitting in the grass.”

She didn’t mention Teafin. Let him think a tourist kid had done it.

Nick nodded. “I can take care of her here. She won’t be the first raven I’ve returned to the unkindness.”

“What about that one?” asked Eddie, nodding at the raven on the coatrack.

The raven, Aletheia, returned Eddie’s gaze with interest. She bobbed her head, as if trying to get a better look at the newcomers. “She can’t return to the flock,” said Nick. He stepped up to the rack, holding out a hand to the raven. She allowed him to run his fingertips through the short feathers near her beak. She even seemed to enjoy it.

“Why not?” asked Fin.

Nick’s gaze fell on her. He reminded Fin of one of those private detectives she’d read about—all heavy brows and tragic past.

Fin squirmed beneath his scrutiny, wondering what he saw. Probably a skinny girl with unruly brown hair and hands that could never settle. Even now she was toying with a hangnail at the edge of her thumb.

“Do you know how magic works?” he asked.

The question startled her. “I—I mean . . . I think so?”

“Aldermere is a sanctuary,” said Nick. “And to take magic outside is . . . problematic.”

“Because magic vanishes once it passes the town borders,” said Eddie impatiently. “We know.”

“Yes,” Nick says, “if it doesn’t have something to protect it. In Aldermere, that is the forest. Outside, the magic would need something else to sustain it. Or more likely, someone.”

“People can be magic?” asked Fin.

“Not inherently,” said Nick. “But people can carry magic within themselves. Think of magic like a plant. Plants need soil, water, sunlight. Take away those things, and the plant will wither. If you take a magical artifact or animal out of Aldermere, it’s like ripping a plant out of the ground and then expecting it to survive. It won’t. But if magic is in a person—it’s more like removing a plant and putting it inside a pot. It can survive for a time.”

“For a time?” said Fin.

Nick nodded. “For the magic to keep thriving, a person would have to return to Aldermere. Again, think of it like watering a potted plant. It refreshes the magic, keeps it alive.”

Fin glanced down at her raven in alarm. “But we’re—right now we’re—”

“Outside the town line, yes,” said Nick evenly. “It’s all right. Magic takes time to fade. This raven”—he touched the box—“would need to be here at least a week before anything went wrong. I’ll have her back long before then.”

Fin was beginning to understand. “Did that raven, Aletheia, leave Aldermere? Is that why she can’t go back to the flock?”

“She didn’t leave,” said Nick, his voice harder. “She was taken.” He turned to face Fin and Eddie, his face grave. “A man wanted to study the ravens. He lured her with food, caged her, and took her. The flock managed to get word to me, but I arrived too late and . . .” He let the sentence trail off. “She’d forgotten.”

“Forgotten what?” asked Fin softly.

“The old ways,” said Nick. He exhaled hard. “That’s what comes of telling people magic is real—they want to study it.”

Eddie frowned. “But if people didn’t believe at least a little, the town wouldn’t have any business. People come here because Aldermere is weird. If they didn’t . . . we wouldn’t have a town.”

Fin bit her lower lip. They were going to be late for school if they lingered any longer.

“We have to get going,” she said, tugging on Eddie’s sleeve. He seemed transfixed by Nick’s words, and it took a few seconds for him to shake it off.

“Oh, right. School.” Eddie squared his shoulders. “Thanks for helping, Nick.”

Eddie turned and walked toward the front door, Fin following after. She was walking through the door when Nick said, “Ms. Barnes?”

Fin turned and looked at him. He had the kind of piercing look that made her want to shrink away. As if he could dissect all of her secrets with a single glance.

For a moment, he didn’t continue. Then he said, “Some of us pretend for a reason.”

She didn’t know how to reply to that. She didn’t even know what he meant. Maybe he was talking about her, how Fin spent most of her life pretending. Pretending to be normal, pretending that she wasn’t always worried, pretending to be someone else.

Eddie was ahead of her, blithely striding toward the bus stop, and Fin wanted to follow after—but she didn’t.

“Pretend what?” she asked.

“That the magic isn’t real.” Nick’s dark eyes were intent. “I know tourism keeps the town going, but I’ve always thought the advertisements were a mistake. Have you ever heard of Glass Beach?”

Fin shook her head.

“It’s farther south,” he told her. “Near a coastal town. A long time ago, it was a dumping site for garbage, and over the decades, the waves wore it all down. Time and the tides made that garbage into something unique and beautiful. The glass was worn soft and smooth. You could stand on the beach and be surrounded by color.”

“It sounds pretty,” Fin said.

“It was,” said Nick, “until the beaches were opened up to the public, and people began to take the glass. They wanted keepsakes. Most people are not content to observe. And now—now Glass Beach is little more than sand and pebbles. The beauty is all but gone. The same goes for magic. Those like your cousin take it for granted. They think it will always be here. But others understand what a rare and precious thing it is; we know that we have to keep it safe.” Nick’s voice was low, utterly serious. “Do you understand what I’m saying, Finley?”

She did understand. If it became common knowledge that Aldermere’s magic was real, that it wasn’t a tourist gimmick like most outsiders thought, then this place would be overrun. And the magic drained away.

Nick said, “If it was a magic hunter who injured that raven, if it was someone trying to study magic—you should tell me now. I can deal with it.” The way he said that last sentence made Fin shiver. She didn’t know what he meant by “deal with it,” and she didn’t want to know.

She swallowed. Her throat felt too dry to answer, but she managed. “I don’t think it was.”

“All right,” Nick said quietly.

She turned and ran after Eddie, following him down to the bus stop, her heart pounding.

Nick was right—magic was rare and precious, and it had to be protected.

And Fin thought of Teafin, of the way she’d said, “People to find, scores to settle.”

A chill swept through Fin. She’d been mostly concerned with telling Talia about what had happened, about Mom finding out and sending Fin to a counselor—but what if the stakes were higher than she’d assumed?

Teafin was chaotic and unpredictable. What if she changed from a girl to a tea monster in front of someone with a cell phone or a camera? It was one thing for a tourist to get a tarot reading. It was another to see a girl who flaked tea leaves and didn’t hesitate to break into people’s houses. If the wrong person learned about Teafin, about what she was and what she could do, the entire world could find out about Aldermere.

Then it wouldn’t just be tourists who hiked, bought postcards, and posted pictures of themselves with the Bigfoot statue near the highway. It would be scientists looking for whintossers or people who might drag nets through Bower’s Creek. It would be people willing to sift through Aldermere to find whatever made it different, even if that meant destroying the magic.

Fin loved Aldermere. It was the first place she’d ever had a home, not just a place to stay. Fin couldn’t be the reason that its magic was taken away.

She had to stop her double. But she didn’t know how. Clearly a lacrosse stick wasn’t the answer. Fin couldn’t ask Aunt Myrtle for help. There had to be another way to find answers. A way to dispose of tea—

Fin stumbled over a crack in the pavement.

Of course there was a way to dispose of tea. Talia had been brewing it for years without something like this happening. There was probably a step that Fin hadn’t known about. If Fin was lucky, Talia might have written those instructions down.

One thing was certain. She had to visit the tea shop again.