Chapter Seventeen
I spend the next few mornings in a similar routine. I go to the diner, Jack gestures me to the kitchen stool while Braxton
gets me coffee, and Jack hands me breakfast—always something different that I did not order. Always something delicious that I probably wouldn’t order, if I’m honest, though I can’t remember why when I taste
the things he’s made.
Jack kind of keeps his distance, but not in a I read your dreams and think you’re psycho way. More like he’s distracted with other things. Or possibly because my dreams aren’t really the help he thought they might
be.
I think this is best, because I am mostly distracted by the way Jack looks when he laughs with Marleen, and it is not good
for my focus. If my dreams actually helped and if he’d taken them so seriously as to come and talk with me about them . . .
Well, I could do some really, really dumb things for a pair of eyes that green.
Besides, I have decided to own my gifts and help the best I can either way.
How lovely to have that put to the test immediately, I tell myself.
Surely there’s something metaphoric in thinking my dreams are the key after all these years of being a curse, only to find they’re not really much of anything.
Also, I am trying to focus. After these cozy breakfasts on that stool that show me glimpses into who Jack might be beneath
all the glowering, I spend at least the morning and often the afternoon with Harrison. I learn about the history of Midas,
demon deals, and the Darlings.
Harrison mostly avoids talking about my grandmother. I think they must have been good friends and it makes him too sad, so
I don’t pry. No matter how much I want to ask him why he thinks Amelia told him that our father remembered everything that
was happening here, when that shouldn’t be possible, according to everything he’s teaching me. Or that she suggested Logan
and I would know, too, when that doesn’t track with any of the stories he tells me about other Midas residents who left.
They go. They have reasons for not coming back that can’t be argued with, because they have different memories. Midas protects
itself—and the Feed. That’s what I’m getting from all of this.
But I’m not going to force a sweet old man to psychoanalyze his friend when he’s still grieving her death.
Harrison never complains that I need a breather, or when I have trouble hiding that my mind is wandering. He shares his stories,
his history, and lets me go when I can’t sit still any longer. Every day, he wishes me well.
Sometimes I wonder if I should tell him about the dream notebook even though Jack told me not to, because maybe he would have
a different take on what’s in those pages. But I never say anything.
Logan usually comes in search of me sometime around lunch.
I fill him in on what I’ve learned, and he grills Harrison on logistics.
Where do the foundlings come from? No concrete answer.
How does a person know if they’re dealing with a demon?
Harrison feels like he’d just know, but he hasn’t come face-to-face with one.
None of his answers ever satisfy Logan. For him, the longer the days stretch on, the more edgy he gets. I think he misses
New York. His job. Feeling like someone important.
I find myself realizing that I don’t miss home much at all. Not that Midas is somehow morally superior to the big city, like
most of the people around here seem to think, as if that’s obvious. It’s just that the longer we stay, the more I think Midas fits me better.
I wonder how Logan would take that if I told him. I wonder how anyone who knows me would take it. Would it just be another
in the long line of Lexi’s Gone Crazy jokes?
Would it matter?
But that’s not what’s important in this moment. The only goal right now is to try to find some connection between history, my dreams, and what everyone knows. Before
Halloween. Before the Feed.
But every day, there’s only so much of these back-to-school history lessons I can take before my brain refuses to engage.
When I glance at the big picture window today and see the sun is starting to set—the sky a dusky kind of orange—I congratulate
myself on sticking it out. This is the longest I’ve managed to stay.
“It’s later than I thought,” I say, nodding toward the window. “I think I’ll head over to the knitting shop and see if Nora
needs any help closing up the store.”
That’s another thing I like about Midas—the knitting shop. I’ve been in too many knitting shops to count, and I like them,
but none of them were mine. I don’t even mean legally mine. I just mean that I know Nora and Cleo, and they know me, and are still reliably happy to see
me.
It feels a lot like those real friends I told Logan I’d never had. It feels a lot like that belonging.
Maybe it just feels good to walk into a place filled with the thing I love the most—yarn—and not have to use that yarn to
hide from people.
“Nora . . . She’s a good girl,” Harrison says now, with an odd carefulness to his tone. He’s studying me with his bushy eyebrows
drawn together.
I feel like I’m being tested. “I really like her.”
And I genuinely do. All the brash determination I’ve developed to mask what’s going on underneath and inside me usually weeds
out the quiet and shy pretty fast. And Nora is both.
But she’s also certain. There’s a kind of steadfastness inside all her nervousness. I don’t know anyone like her. I’m not sure I know her all that well, but I’m trying. And I think she’s trying, too.
And she’s an easier nut to crack than Cleo.
Or Jack.
Harrison nods slowly, brows still drawn tight. I can tell he wants to say something else, so I wait. “We tried our best with
her, my Betsy and I. We really did try.”
I don’t quite understand what he’s getting at. Is he afraid I’m not being nice enough to her? What did they try so hard to do?
“She’s great,” I say more firmly, so he understands I’m not just being polite.
“Amelia was a strong personality,” Harrison tells me, almost sorrowfully. “Sometimes too strong, if you know what I mean.”
I decidedly do not know what he means. I did not know my grandmother and I’ve never been too keen on men calling women too strong since that’s never even close to a compliment, but this is Harrison. He’s a good guy. Just a little old-fashioned, I remind
myself.
Maybe there’s some way to gently explain to him that’s kind of a dick way to phrase things.
“Oh, she was a wonderful woman. Don’t get me wrong,” he hurries on like he sees the disapproval on my face when I’m trying so hard not to show it.
“Nora’s such a sweet thing. She did sometimes absorb what Amelia told her without necessarily developing her own backbone.
You know how it is, I’m sure. Amelia had her own opinions and sometimes it felt as though she insisted that anyone in her orbit share them. ”
I think of the way Logan often maneuvers everyone in his life to agree with him. To think what he thinks or what he wants
them to think. It’s one of his superpowers. Except it doesn’t work with me, of course. And I’ve watched it not work with Nora,
right here in Midas, in real time. It’s kind of funny to think that someone with no backbone could manage that when law firms
filled with shark-toothed lawyers do Logan’s bidding.
Yet one granny with a knitting shop influenced Nora unduly?
I don’t quite understand what Harrison wants me to take away from this . . . warning? “What kind of opinions did my grandmother
have?” I ask.
“Oh, you know. This or that.” Harrison chuckles. “Different families have taken on different theories about the town as the
generations have passed on.” He holds my gaze, his own a faded green, in case I wondered where Jack got his. “I won’t tell
you what to think, Lexi. I want you to make your own choices. You get to decide. What you believe. What you want. Not one
of us knows the true answers. Not yet.”
I’m still a little confused, but this is important. He’s reminding me that I have choice and agency and don’t have to follow
the beat of anyone’s drum except mine.
That’s powerful, and I want to be the kind of powerful that believes in my own instincts. In my gifts. I want to thank Harrison for saying that, but my throat is a little tight. So I just nod and get to my feet.
But Harrison pats my arm. “One thing I know, Lexi dear, is that you’re important to this.” He beams at me. “Critical.”
And I really want to cry then, but something crashes over on the doll wall. I shudder, because I do not like the doll wall. I make a point of completely avoiding the doll wall, in fact. I pretend it’s not there.
“Oh, these dolls.” Harrison tsks, moving away from me and toward the dolls. “Minds of their own.”
I take that as my cue to get the hell out of there, so I don’t have to think about dolls and their minds.
I consider walking out through the diner but then think that might be a little too obvious. Might as well take out a billboard
to announce I’m just wandering around, trying to get a glimpse of Jack. Not that I think Jack would even notice.
I shake my head and walk out the front door without going through the diner. But I am immediately greeted by a familiar face
when I hit the sidewalk.
Cleo doesn’t greet me. She just says, “Knit and Sip. Tonight. Nora’s too shy to ask, so I decided to demand.”
“You don’t have to demand. I’m happy to go.”
“Great. Come on, then.”
I nod. “I need to tell Logan, but my phone doesn’t seem to want to send texts here. I’ll meet you at the store.”
Cleo wrinkles her nose, but she falls into step with me as I walk across the street. “Why are you two joined at the hip?”
“You don’t have siblings.”
“No, but I know people who do. They don’t text each other where they’re going to be constantly. In fact, usually they ignore
texts from each other. On purpose.”
“Are they twins?”
“No.”
I raise my eyebrows at her.
Cleo sighs, but she’s grinning. “What, are you like those Witch Mountain twins?”