Chapter 15
fifteen
Chris
Okay, so maybe canvassing Main Street for reports of strange occurrences—like, say, reliving the same day over again—isn’t the best idea.
It had seemed a reasonable enough place to start gathering clues when Quinn suggested it, but it turns out people aren’t eager to spill their guts to a group of crazy college students harassing them on the street.
Most smile politely in a way that suggests they’d rather be anywhere else. A few encounters go even less smoothly.
We pass a woman pushing a stroller with one hand while tugging on a small boy with the other. They’re both dressed in far more layers than the mild October chill deserves and appear equally miserable. We probably would’ve skirted around them if not for the comment we catch as we walk by.
“—can’t believe that actually happened,” she’s muttering to herself. “Why, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life!”
Quinn and I share a look. I muffle a sigh when I catch her face scrunching up with determination.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this, but it’s nigh impossible to talk Quinn down once she’s made up her mind, and a quick glance at Percy’s intrigued expression shows I’ll find no help from him.
I’m not sure what happened to his earlier hesitance, but he seems to have embraced our investigation whole-heartedly.
I trudge after Quinn as she approaches the frazzled-looking woman, Percy a few steps behind. “Excuse me?” she calls. “Miss?”
The woman pauses, fixing Quinn with a distrustful scowl. “Can I help you?”
Quinn gives an easy smile. “I hope so. We couldn’t help but overhear you say something incredible had happened to you?”
The woman’s scowl deepens. “Incredible is far from the word I’d use to describe it. Incomprehensible, more like.”
Quinn leans forward eagerly. “Incomprehensible, you say? It certainly sounds like a lot to deal with.” Her voice oozes sympathy, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes. She’s laying it on even thicker than she did with Oshkoff.
The woman, however, eats it up. “You don’t know the half of it!
As if it’s not bad enough my good-for-nothing husband bowed out of our family vacation at the last moment.
‘Work,’ my ass,” she snorts, shaking her head.
“Now, here I am, supposed to somehow manage two kids on my own in the middle of all this mess!” She tugs on the little boy’s arm as she speaks.
He winces, trying to pull away, and the woman turns her ire on him.
“Be good, Em! You’ve caused enough trouble this morning as it is. ”
Anger flares in me as I watch the little boy bow his head and muffle a sniffle.
The woman I assume is his mother doesn’t even seem to notice his distress, already turning back to Quinn.
How dare she treat her own son like that!
Like his feelings don’t matter—like he doesn’t matter beyond how his actions reflect on her.
Dimly, I’m aware of Quinn commiserating with the woman, continuing to coax her to open up, but all I can focus on is the woman’s hand gripping her son’s arm and the way his face quivers with an all-too-familiar mix of pain, dejection, and shame.
A hand squeezes my arm, and I look up sharply to see Percy there.
He must’ve stepped beside me while I was focused on the kid.
I tense, preparing to snap at him, but something in his expression stops me.
He’s focused on the boy, not on me, and the quiet sympathy he radiates soothes my own ire like a balm.
I resist the urge to shift closer to him.
Squeezing my arm one more time, Percy drops his hand and moves to kneel next to the boy. “Hi, there,” he says, his tone full of false cheer. “I’m Percy. What’s your name?”
The boy hesitates, peering up at Percy with wide eyes. “Emmett,” he finally says.
“Nice to meet you, Emmett. How are you enjoying your trip to Mackinac Island so far?”
“It’s all right, I guess.”
“Yeah, it took me a while to warm up to it, too.” Percy wrinkles his nose, waving a hand before it. “Especially the smell.”
There’s only the faintest whiff of manure where we’re standing, but Emmett giggles anyway. “Do you live here?”
Something like sorrow flickers across Percy’s face, replaced an instant later by a soft smile. “No, but I’ve visited a lot. I used to come here with my parents every summer.”
Emmett nods solemnly. “This is my first time. It’s pretty boring.”
Percy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Boring? What do you mean?”
“All my mom wants to do is shop.” Emmett kicks at some loose gravel on the sidewalk. “My dad’s not here, so I have to go with her everywhere.”
I glare at the boy’s mother, but of course, she doesn’t notice, too deeply invested in her conversation with Quinn now that she has a sympathetic ear to complain to. So what if her kids aren’t having a great time? It’s her own happiness that matters, right?
Part of me knows I’m being deeply unfair.
I barely know anything about this woman or her family.
Watching her treat her son the way she had just hit a little too close to home.
Percy would tell me I’m projecting…if we still talked about anything meaningful, that is.
Shaking away my unhelpful introspection, I tune back in just in time to hear Percy finish relating some story from when he was a kid.
“—so, Owen and I snuck into the shop when our parents weren’t looking,” he says, a merry glint in his eye, “and practically threw ourselves in the big tins of fudge cooling there.”
Emmett’s eyes are wide as saucers. “Did it hurt?”
Percy chuckles. “No, thankfully. We were lucky—it had been cooling for a couple hours by then, so the fudge was mostly set. But that didn’t stop us from getting completely covered in the stuff. Our moms were mortified when they found us lying there, making fudge angels in the pans.”
That same sorrowful look flits over his face again. It makes me want to reassure him the way he’d reassured me earlier. My fingers are already raised, poised to reach for him, when I catch myself and lower my hand. He doesn’t need my comfort. We’re amateur sleuths solving a mystery—nothing more.
“What happened?” Emmett demands. “Did you eat all the fudge?”
Percy reins in his expression, his smile dimmer than it had been.
Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to notice my momentary slip.
“Our parents ended up having to buy the entire batch of fudge from the store. They made us carry it all the way to where we were staying and sent us to our rooms for the rest of the day. But that night, we snuck downstairs and ate so much chocolate we both puked. Our parents thought we got exactly what we deserved.”
It’s hard to imagine the moody teen I’ve glimpsed around the Royal Lilac as the carefree boy from Percy’s story.
Then again, I have a tough time imagining Percy ever being like that, either.
He’d always been so serious when we were together—so concerned about what other people thought and so desperate to keep everyone else happy.
What had happened to the little rebel who’d been willing to defy his parents not once but twice in a single day?
Of course, I suppose some of that rebelliousness had lingered.
After all, we’d dated in secret for almost three years, lying to cover it up.
Had that been why he’d pulled away from me in the end—too much pent-up guilt over the deception?
Emmett grins at Percy, utterly oblivious to my melancholy. “I want to eat so much fudge I barf!”
Percy glances toward the boy’s mother and furrows his brow. “Maybe you shouldn’t eat quite that much, but if you can, you should definitely get a few slabs. You can’t beat Mackinac Island fudge.”
Emmett frowns. “I suppose. What else is there to do for fun?”
I watch the two of them as Percy launches into another story, a sudden warmth unfurling in my chest at how much he’d brightened the kid’s day.
Yeah, he’d broken my heart when he cut me off two years ago, but maybe it’s okay to leave our past in the past, at least until we can figure this time loop shit out.
Maybe being stuck here with Percy won’t be so bad.
“Excuse me?” Percy and Emmett fall silent, and we all turn to find Emmett’s mother glaring daggers at Quinn. “I don’t know what you’re implying, but I assure you, we’ve done nothing untoward since we arrived here on the ferry.”
Quinn makes a soothing gesture. “I wasn’t trying to insult you.”
The woman’s eyes flare. “Oh? You could’ve fooled me with your rude questions. The only part of my mind I’m losing is thanks to my irresponsible husband and my misbehaving kids, not some…some freaky witchcraft or whatever it is you’re talking about.”
“I only—” Quinn tries, but the woman cuts her off.
“This conversation is over! Leave me and my children alone, or I’ll report your harassment to the police.” She tugs roughly on Emmett’s arm, making him stumble. “Come along, Emmett!”
Emmett attempts a weak protest, his eyes flicking to Percy, but his mother either doesn’t hear or ignores him, dragging him angrily down the sidewalk.
My jaw clenches as I watch them go through narrowed eyes.
I don’t realize I’ve taken a step toward them until I feel Percy’s hand rest on my shoulder.
“Don’t,” he says quietly. “It’s none of our business.”
Knowing he’s right doesn’t make it suck any less. Staring after Emmett, I can imagine my younger self in his place all too easily. I jerk my shoulder out of Percy’s grasp and approach Quinn. “I take it the lead didn’t pan out,” I say tightly.
Quinn shrugs. “Turns out she was angry about an antique store that wouldn’t allow kids inside.”
She doesn’t seem too put off by the latest in our string of failures today.
I wish I could take this in stride like her.
Then again, I suppose it’s not her head on the chopping block if we can’t figure this shit out and the day resets.
Or, at least, she won’t remember about it if it is. Ignorance is bliss and all that.