Chapter 28 #2
“Mumford, I need you to explain yourself.” Mayor Lloyd sounded uncertain. He had grabbed a bottle for himself, opened it, and was now squinting at the label. “This does taste just like my water at home.”
Mr. Sheffield raised his chin. “Naturally. The springs in the region have a remarkably similar mineral composition, of course they taste the same.”
“Yes, but…”
“Please. You can see what this is, can’t you? This young lady clearly has business troubles, and she thinks smearing our good reputation will help with that.”
Mira’s cheeks grew hot. “My business is just fine, thank you very much. It would be even better though if you stopped stealing our water!”
For a moment, there was a strange silence, the kind that hung in the air like a thread pulled taut, and you just knew it was going to snap.
Someone coughed. Somewhere behind and to her left, Mira heard someone mutter about shrivelled tomatoes.
She didn’t dare turn around to look, but judging by the accent, the penny had finally dropped for Sabir Ata that the water shortage really wasn’t Cassia and Eren’s fault.
“That is a baseless accusation!” Mr. Sheffield snapped. He fiddled with his cravat. “I will pretend none of this ever happened, but if you keep going like this, young lady, then you will be hearing from my company’s solicitors.”
For the span of a few heartbeats, Mira froze.
Of course he’d make that threat. He would be right, if she really was making unfounded accusations.
She wasn’t, she knew that, but could she prove it?
Mira felt her stomach twist. They’d given away the game now.
If this didn’t go anywhere today, Golden River would have all the time in the world to make any evidence disappear.
They’d get away with it, Emberglen would still suffer from the drought they had caused, and she herself…
“Perhaps we should all calm down down a little.” Mayor Lloyd sounded dubious. “Discuss this in my office later.”
That sent the life back into Mira. “Like last time? When you refused to listen to a word I was saying?” She knew her voice became brittle, but found it impossible to do anything about it.
Why would he not listen? “Look at this! This is spring water. If you wanted to, you could go to the spring itself right now and dump some lavender into the pool, it would turn the whole thing pink.”
The mayor sighed deeply. “I don’t think we will be doing that right now.”
“But-”
“Miss Gardener, if you do not want this to escalate, I suggest-”
“Milton!”
The call from somewhere in the crowd made them all turn around. Roughly fifteen feet away, on the edge of the fountain, stood Harper, holding a small bottle aloft. Next to her in the crowd, Mira saw a familiar shock of black hair, and Yoni’s face peeking out above the rest.
“Harper, what are you doing?” The Mayor scowled. “Get down before you break a bone.”
“In a second!” Harper said cheerfully. “Just for the record, the fountain is fed with spring water, isn’t it?”
From the corner of her eye, Mira saw Mr. Sheffield flinch.
“Milton, this is ridiculous!”
But as per usual, the mayor wasn’t listening. At least he was equal-opportunity apathetic. “It is. What does that have to do with anything?”
Harper grinned and waved the bottle. “Oh, nothing. It’s just that I have some lavender essence right here, and I think perhaps my hand is slipping, and- Oh no!”
She made a show of turning the bottle upside down. Mira watched as the essence drained into the fountain. When the bottle was empty, Harper handed it off to Yoni.
“Oops. So sorry about that. But we should be fine, right? If Mira played a prank on poor Mumford here and just dyed that water to make a scene, then nothing is going to happen, right? We can all put this misunderstanding behind us.”
“Are you mad?” The mayor tossed his hands in the air. “What is wrong with all of you? We have a perfectly legitimate business just trying to do good in our town, and you all are-”
He abruptly fell silent, and in a wave moving out from the fountain, a hush fell over the crowd – before it exploded in surprised chatter.
The whole fountain had turned bright pink.
“Well, goodness gracious!” Harper put her hands to the sides of her face. “Milton, would you look at that! It’s pink!”
“What-” The mayor’s wide-eyed gaze wandered from the fountain to the bottle Mira was holding, to Mira’s face and finally to Mr. Sheffield. “Mumford, what is the meaning of this?”
“I-” He swallowed audibly. “I don’t know. Listen, Milton, this is very clearly a smear campaign, you cannot possibly believe-”
“We all have eyes!” came a call from the crowd. Cassia, flanked by Eren and Kian, who both looked exceedingly angry. “That water is so pink it might as well be strawberry lemonade!”
Mr. Sheffield opened his mouth, then closed it again before he turned primly back to the mayor. “Well, obviously there has to be another reason.” More tugging on the ridiculous cravat. “We talked about this, you and I.”
“Yes, and you reassured me that your company had nothing to do with the drought.” The mayor poked his finger in Mr. Sheffield’s direction. “This is some pretty damning evidence that maybe you were not quite honest about that, mhmm?”
Mr. Sheffield thrust out his chin, cheeks flushed. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Really?” It was Harper, who had elbowed her way through the crowd, Yoni in her wake. “How about we go and check that warehouse of yours down on Applebarrow Lane? Maybe we could get some more samples from there?”
“I will not allow this!”
“Oh, don’t worry.” There was an odd sparkle in Mayor Lloyd’s eyes now. “There won’t be any allowing. Tomorrow morning, I will be launching an inquiry with the authorities in Heartfield into the matter. I’m sure they will come to a proper conclusion, won’t they?”
“You go and do that!” Mr. Sheffield grabbed his hat off the table and jammed it onto his head. “The company will hear about this, believe you me! You lot!” he barked at the employees. “Clean this up! No free samples!”
And with that, he jumped off the platform and pushed his way past the throng of whispering people, followed by stares and obvious questions. Mira stared after him, still holding the bottle. That was it? Just like that, he was running away?”
“As for you, Miss Gardener.”
Flinching, Mira turned to find the mayor fixing his gaze on her. “What?”
“This was a shameful spectacle. Whatever this investigation will conclude, this is not over.”
Mira swallowed thickly. “I just-”
“Save this for later.” The mayor stepped up to the abandoned microphone.
The din of voices in the square died down a little when he cleared his throat.
“Ladies and gentlemen, dearest guests, I am so very sorry about this undignified scene! What transpired here just now is truly unworthy of our beautiful town. I do hope you don’t think that this is all we have to offer.
” He made a sweeping gesture over the heads o the crowd.
“Perhaps you’ll enjoy our evening program more!
After this, we have a charming little performance on the village green put on by our first- and second-graders, and after dark, there will be a bonfire and music put on by… ”
This, Mira decided, was a good moment to slink away and hopefully disappear into the crowd before Mayor Lloyd could think of reprimanding her some more. When she jumped off the platform, she found herself immediately ringed by several humans and one very excited dog.
“Now, that went well, didn’t it?” Harper said cheerfully. “I have to say, that was a pretty good idea.”
Yoni raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure Mayor Lloyd agrees.”
“Milton can stuff that where the sun doesn’t shine,” Harper said acidly. “He had every opportunity to solve this problem for months. If anything, it’s his fault it went this far.”
Something heavy draped itself across Mira’s shoulders.
“Don’t you worry.” Cassia herself did not sound very worried, either. “There’s no way you’re getting in trouble for this. Lloyd’s too much of a coward for that.”
Mira gave her a sideways glance. “We did technically dump a bunch of mineral powder into the spring.”
“Oh, who cares?” Cassia waved that off. “That stuff is harmless. Right?”
“Completely,” Yoni said curtly. “Unlike some individuals, we had no intention of messing with the water.”
“Well, besides that,” Harper reminded her. She clapped her hands. “What an afternoon! We haven’t had a fair this exciting since that one time the fire jugglers were here!”
“I think perhaps we could have done without that excitement,” Kian muttered. He looked at Mira. “That was your idea?”
“I didn’t come up with that alone.”
Kayden elbowed her. “Mostly you did though.”
“You helped.”
“And we will go down with you, yes,” he joked. “Come on. Take credit. We have a reason for an inquiry now thanks to you.”
“And I will make sure that Milton follows through on that.” Harper sounded much too chipper. “Now excuse me, I need to find Penelope, I’m sure she’ll want to hear all about this!”
She went off to do just that. Cassia and Eren followed, and Kian went to retrieve his daughter from a neighbouring stall. Eventually, Mira was left standing there between Yoni and Kayden.
“You know, this is mostly you,” Yoni said quietly. “If you hadn’t put the pieces together, we’d still be wondering why we’re filling our water jugs drop by drop in the morning.”
Mira stared at her feet. “Someone would’ve figured it out, I’m sure.”
“Maybe.” She looked up when Kayden nudged her. “But you definitely did. I think the town owes you one for that.”
Mira chuckled, suddenly bone-tired. “I don’t know. This was just as much about me as it was about everyone else.”
“You could have just left,” Yoni pointed out. “But you didn’t.”
“No.” Mira looked down at the bottle she was still holding. Brushed a thumb over the image of the fountain. Looked back up to find three pairs of eyes on her. A wide, exhausted smile crept on her face. “I guess I just figured that all of this? That’s worth it to stay and fight for.”