Chapter 14 Caroline

Chapter 14

Caroline

Fresh from Emily's unofficial, predawn funeral, Caroline walked—slowly—along the shoreline near her family's home, pondering the new, disturbing knowledge they'd gleaned from their night on Vixen's Fall.

Could a member of her own family be the cause of all their heartache? Could one woman's need for control echo so far that she would hurt any member of her family who unknowingly defied her?

From what she had seen of that ghost—the malevolent, smirking presence in The Wilted Rose—yeah, Caroline could believe that. She'd seen it for herself, the callousness, the speed with which Rose had pushed Emily off Vixen's Fall—not one moment's hesitation. But how was she able to do it? That was the question. What was Rose's attachment item? If it was the portrait, they were screwed, because they still hadn't located it, and she wasn't sure how to feel about it. The coven didn't believe the portrait was her attachment object. And yet, it was important enough for someone to take it. Why would someone do that? There had been so many strangers through the barroom during construction. Maybe one of them thought it was valuable? A couple of vintage beer taps had come up missing, too, so it was possible. But it was also possible that her brothers had just put the taps in the wrong place. Then again, it was also possible that her brothers had thrown the portrait into a dumpster, because it was easier than carrying it to the storage area.

After they'd taken a day to recover from Caroline's sleepwalking theatrics, they'd returned to the cliff. It had taken surprisingly little digging to recover Emily's skeletal remains. As they gently laid the bones (and Emily's shoe buckles) in a lovely rosewood box Riley purchased from Alice's shop, they sang songs they hoped Emily would enjoy. The academic in Edison was in an emotional fetal position, changing historical space this undocumented way, but he silently supported them as they carried Emily's remains to the churchyard.

Mina and Josh had been included in the effort—under Ben's uneasy supervision—and Caroline didn't think it was a coincidence that Rose didn't try to stop them. Mina probably had a good point about being immune to Rose. Caroline's ancestor wouldn't like that. How they'd all managed to bury the remains under some ivy growing near the building's historical marker, Caroline had no idea. Emily had shown up at the churchyard gate, smiling.

"Right at the cornerstone ? Oh, I like you." Emily had chuckled as Ben took the kids home. Riley, Edison, and Alice wanted to stay, but there were things that Caroline wanted to say to Emily in private.

"I'm sorry it was my family that did this to you," Caroline said. "I really didn't know."

"I understand that," Emily said. "But did I enjoy that it was Rose's own blood that would give me what I wanted? Yes, I did. It all worked out for the good."

"I'm assuming that you and Rose aren't on speaking terms," Caroline said, making Emily snort. That was something Caroline didn't even know the dead could do. "But I think maybe Rose cursed her descendants, so that we couldn't leave the island. I don't want to believe it…but from what I've seen… How, how could she do that?"

"Rose would rather tear something valuable to the ground than allow someone to defy her, to think they'd won." Emily reached out to pat Caroline's arm, sending a shiver down Caroline's spine. "The woman wanted to run her own little kingdom, where she was queen—unquestioned, unchallenged. And she met any opposition like most mad monarchs do."

"Swift violence and unrelenting bat-shittery," Caroline nodded. "Got it."

"That's an interesting word," Emily mused. "‘Bat-shittery.' I like it. It's almost enough to make me want to stay, to learn more. But, a bargain is a bargain. And I have nothing left to hold me here. I want to move on to what's next, to see if I can find Emmett in whatever's beyond."

"Good luck to you," Caroline told her. "And thank you. I'm not sure we would have learned what we did about Rose without you, well, provoking her."

Emily grinned. "You're a good woman, Caroline Wilton. Better than she ever was. Just…don't let Rose lie to you. She's good at that, and you, being an honest person, won't see what she's planning for you."

"I appreciate the wisdom," Caroline said.

Emily's smile began to fade as she faded, gently transitioning from this plane to the next until she was just a tiny speck of light in the early morning shadows. It was always easier, almost beautiful, when the ghosts moved along voluntarily.

So now, Caroline found herself shuffling through the silty shores, close to the Wilton family home. The old house rose in the distance. Overlooking the water, the shabby Dutch colonial with peeling blue siding and white trim that hadn't been painted since…since Chris. The bushes, once so tidy and trimmed, were wild and overgrown. Her mother didn't have time to tend to them, much less replant the flowers that had once bloomed in the window boxes on the first floor. While Caroline didn't have flowers planted either, her own little cottage was at least recently painted a sunny yellow. Her mother had hated it, calling it the color of a "half-rotten egg yolk."

She wondered when her family had moved to the old house. She'd never thought much about it. The house had always just been there. Surely, they'd moved there after Rose had died. Maybe it was because Rose's ghost was making them uncomfortable, living in the bar?

The lights were off upstairs, but there was a lamp burning golden in the little den her father had claimed as his own a few years before. He'd insisted that it was so he didn't wake her mother with the TV when insomnia woke him in the middle of the night. But she and her brothers knew that he simply waited for her mom to drift off—usually before nine—and crept down the creaky stairs to sleep in his drooping mustard-colored recliner.

She could just go home, she told herself. She'd had a long day, and the sun was barely rising. She could shower and drink some coffee and catch an hour of sleep or so before she returned to Riley's for a team meeting.

She sighed, staring at the lonely light in the window.

Shit.

Instead of the much more comfortable option of walking to her cottage, Caroline climbed the creaking porch steps. Her parents still didn't bother locking their doors, something she could not understand in the age of Dateline .

The house smelled as it always did, of old cooking and older paper. Her father's paperbacks were stacked on every available surface in the den, but somehow, their smell permeated throughout the room, reminding Caroline where she'd gotten her love of the written word. She followed the sound of the TV playing some seventies cop show involving a lot of car chases and screeching tires.

Denny Wilton was sprawled in his easy chair, his green terry-cloth robe open over his worn pajamas. Caroline stilled, tilting her head against the doorframe as she watched her father doze. When Chris died, her dad hadn't turned to gambling or alcohol, which Caroline would have almost understood, given the family's vocation. He'd turned to grief. It was his whole day, sitting in this dark room, thinking about Chris. And part of it made her angry. He had three children left. What about them? Why couldn't they be enough reason to carry on?

Caroline wasn't being fair. She knew that. The death of a child and the devastation that followed wasn't an algebraic equation that ended in all sides being equal. But it didn't stop her from feeling this way.

The pajamas and robe were normal attire for Denny before about three p.m. After three, Mom got home from work, and she'd fuss if she found him in his pajamas. But at this time of day, she was probably upstairs getting dressed for work.

His brown eyes fluttered open, and he smiled when he looked up and realized she was there. "Hey there, apple dumpling."

The corner of Caroline's mouth lifted. "Hey, Dad."

"You're up and about early," he said as she sat on the drooping goldenrod-colored couch beside him. "Your mom said you're just about ready to go back to work."

"Yep." She nodded. "No crutches, no brace."

"Well, that's good, dumpling. I know your mom needs your help. Get back out there and give 'em hell." He reached out and patted her knee.

Caroline nodded. She could let it go. It was early. She'd already been through the emotional wringer—for the day, for the week, for the year. But…she might never have this opportunity—or the nerve—again.

She took a deep breath and thought of Emily—who had to work every day for someone who tried to convince the whole town she was a murderous, poisoning husband-seducer. By comparison, having an emotionally difficult conversation with her own relatively harmless father wasn't so scary.

"Well, I'm glad that's your attitude, because I'm here to give you the same advice."

Her dad practically did a double take. "What? What are you talking about?"

"I love you. I'm saying this because I love you," she said, fighting back the sour, wet heat gathering over her eyes. "Chris's death was…awful, just freaking awful, but it's been years. And while I understand you needed us to support you and take care of the things that you couldn't for a while, it's time for you to give a little of that support back. Mom has carried the weight of the family and the bar and everything for so long that I don't think she remembers what it was like not having everything on her."

"That's not fair," he shot back.

"No, you're right. It's not fair that we lost Chris. It really, really sucks. But you're not being fair to Mom ," she told him. "She needs you. She needs her partner back. Even if it's just small stuff like covering a shift at the bar or cleaning the house or having dinner ready when she gets home. She needs you to do more than sit in the dark and stare."

He stood up and turned on her. "You don't know what it's like to lose a child."

"Again, you are right, I don't know what that's like, but I know what it's like to lose a brother. And I know what it's like to lose a father to grief. And I know what it's like to lose a mother to work and regret and stress. I'm not saying you have to ‘get over it,' because that's not how it works. Ever. But you have to try more," Caroline said.

"Well, if you're so worried about your mother, why don't you help more?" he asked testily.

"When?" Caroline asked. "I'm working my shifts. And then when the boys don't show up for their shifts, I work those."

"So ask the boys to show up for their shifts," he said. She stared at him for a long, silent moment, before he added, "OK. That was a stupid thing to say."

"Asking us to do more is not a more reasonable solution than you leaving this house and getting involved in our business and our lives," Caroline told him.

Her father seemed to sink in on himself, becoming even smaller. "It's my fault. It's my blood that got Chris killed. Nobody else on the island has had this happen to them. Maybe your mom should have married some other man, so you would have been safe."

An anger rose in her, a burning, acidic fury that she didn't know she was capable of—and then the frustration that she couldn't explain about Rose or her insanity because…her dad would never believe her. For most of her life, he'd been a "brick and mortar" man. Unless he could see it and touch it with his big, scarred hands, he refused to believe it existed. Until Chris died, he'd called the curse "superstitious bullshit." She wasn't entirely sure he believed it now, but he needed to blame his son's death on something —even if it was himself. And even if she showed him what the coven could do, acknowledging the existence of magic and hateful ghost grudges could be too much for him.

Caroline felt the temperature in the room change, like she was drawing the heat into herself for some sort of magical storm. She could feel it in her hands, gathering, and she didn't know what was going to happen. Riley could move haunted objects with her mind, but she didn't think there were any of those objects in this room. And if this energy had nowhere to go, would it hurt her dad? She took several slow breaths, focusing on letting that magic drain away into the air around her.

"Chris dying—Was it because of anything you did? A choice you made?" she asked him.

"No!" Denny exclaimed.

She swallowed heavily. "And if Chris had died of a heart defect or a tumor or anything else he could have inherited from your genes, would you have blamed yourself like this?"

Her dad nodded. "Maybe."

"Would you have processed it a little quicker?" she asked.

"Maybe," he sighed.

"Dad, I'm not saying you have to work through it right this second. I know that's not how it happens, but you have to start trying, OK?" Caroline asked.

He whispered, his eyes welling with tears. "I don't know if I can."

She wrapped her hands around his. He clung to them like a lifeline, as if she could pull him out of this undertow of despair that had him trapped. She cleared her throat. "Are you going to make me give you the Batman advice?"

He groaned, lowering his head until it was almost touching their joined hands. "No."

Denny looked up at her. For the first time in years, her dad's smile was genuine, a shadow of its former self, but there and sincere. It was such a promising first step that she couldn't help but take the next step and the step after it. She nudged him with her shoulder. "It always worked on me."

"I don't need the Batman advice," he huffed. "And for the record, I gave some version of that advice, even before the movie came out!"

She grinned. Once she had Denny Wilton indignant, she had him.

"It's not even Batman speaking," Denny sighed.

"And yet, we call it the Batman advice," Caroline said, throwing up her hands. "And what advice is that?"

"It doesn't matter that we fall down, it's about how we get back up," he said. "Or something like that."

"It's time to get back up, Dad," she told him. "Or at least, prop yourself into a sitting position."

Her dad nodded. "I'll get there."

She stood and kissed his forehead. "That's all I ask."

***

Days later, Caroline sat at Ben's breakfast bar, sipping from her mug. She wasn't really sure how to feel about any part of it.

It felt weird to be sitting "unchaperoned" in Ben's kitchen while he slept upstairs. She wasn't sure she'd ever been left alone in this house, even when they were kids. It felt weird to have her own mug at Ben's house, but the kids had simply ordered a copy of her I could be reading mug and put it next to her breakfast plate one morning. It still felt weird, sleeping in the same house as his kids, not that she and Ben engaged in "adult activities" with the kids there because that seemed super inappropriate. But still, the kids had greeted her in the mornings, asked if she wanted jelly or cream cheese on her bagel. They didn't make a big deal out of it, so she was choosing not to, either.

The weird cherry on top of this weird sundae was that…it felt so normal. She'd felt like she was a part of the family unit—not quite a parent, but not "the houseguest that won't go away," either.

And at that moment, she wanted to wallow in the normalcy, in having something in her life that mattered, and yet had nothing to do with ghosts or the bar or her family. It was her own, to make or break.

And yet…

She loved these kids. Seeing her father barely climbing out of his very real trauma after all these years was a reminder that the danger the kids faced was very real. And beyond her personal stake—of adoring those kids and fearing for their safety down to her soul—the very idea of Ben facing that sort of loss, the pain of it—it was just intolerable.

The question was, what could she do about it? Could she do anything about it?

The clatter of the side door opening and the clonk of boots in the mudroom caught her attention and made her lips tilt. How was it that teenagers could never get from point A to point B quietly? And how was it that she could so easily determine the sound of Mina's footsteps from Josh's?

Well, OK, Josh's size-twelve foot probably had something to do with it.

"I have secured for you the very last of Iggy's cherry rugalach," Mina said, solemnly setting the blue-and-white Starfall Grounds box on the counter in front of Caroline. "I had to fistfight a tourist from Missouri to get it."

"You did not," she huffed, opening the box. She paused. "You didn't, right?"

"You may never know," Mina snickered.

Caroline laughed and poured a coffee for Mina. "You were out late last night."

"Your mom asked me to drop by to finish up some inventory in the basement," Mina said.

When Caroline opened her mouth to protest, Mina added quickly, "Just the section under the stairs. I was only there for an hour or so. And I didn't see Rose once. I think she's learned not to mess with me. Which means I win."

"Or she's saving her strength to shove you off a cliff," Caroline muttered.

"I think you should be more worried about the fact that you have cocktail sauce down there," Mina countered.

"What's so bad about cocktail sauce?" Caroline asked.

Mina winced. "I asked your mom, and you haven't served anything with cocktail sauce since the 1980s."

Caroline grimaced. "Ew."

"So, yeah, we're gonna need to call some sort of hazmat team, because I don't think I'm qualified for moving it or disposing of it," Mina said.

"No, you are not," Caroline agreed, shaking her head. "OK, so you were only at the bar for an hour or so. Where were you the rest of the night? And I'm asking not in a supervisory adult way, but as someone who knows that there's a psycho ghost with a grudge against your coven roaming free on the island."

"Good point, and um, I snuck down to the beach to hang out with some kids," Mina said, blushing slightly. "There was a bonfire, the obligatory guitar played by a guy who only knew three chords, some beer—which I didn't drink because I don't want my dad to have an actual cardiac event."

"I'm sure he appreciates that," Caroline grinned. "Any particular kids?"

Mina began toying with the string that kept the bakery box closed. "Just this one guy, Derek Branner. His dad runs the Starshine ferry line."

Caroline searched her memory for a Derek, but the Branner family were Seventh-day Adventists and never came into the bar. She could remember a chubby-cheeked little boy who'd wiped out his bicycle in front of the Rose about twelve years ago. He'd been pretty brave about the whole thing, but Caroline didn't know if that was enough of a recommendation to date Ben's daughter.

"I don't know. I like him. He's really smart and funny and nice—and not the fake ‘nice to your face while he's texting his buddies about how fast he thinks he can get your bra undone' kind—but the real sort of nice. He's kind . But he's pretty set on staying here and helping his dad run the family business, and I'm gonna be leaving for school next year…" Mina said.

Caroline again attempted to do the mental math on the bike kid. How much older was he than Mina? Oh god, she was not capable of doing this math. Ben should be doing this math. But she was sure he would freak out completely at the idea of his daughter dating a college boy. Mina needed a mother figure right now, and Caroline was struck with a sensation eerily similar to her dream of being shoved from Vixen's Fall. She was not qualified for it, but she was all Mina had. She wracked her brain for what she wished someone would have told her before Ben left.

Mina looked at her, her shoulders nearly to her ears. "I don't know. Everything feels temporary. And I get that's sort of normal, but…I don't want to get in some weird long-distance relationship."

"I think you might be overthinking it, a little bit," Caroline suggested. "I mean, I'm sure this boy is nice, and kind, but he's just a boy, you know? One of dozens of boys you're going to know over your lifetime. I wouldn't worry about it so much."

"I'm a teenager. Worrying about boys is my job right now."

"Understood. But remember that you're going to like the next boy," Caroline promised. "And the one after that. Look, you're a smart girl—to the point that you scare me a little bit. You're Mina freaking Hoult. You can go anywhere in the world and do anything. So go out and do it."

Caroline sincerely hoped that was still true and that magic wouldn't keep Mina bound to the island. But that wasn't knowable yet, so Caroline decided to take her own advice and try not to worry.

She heard creaking behind her, as if through glass, but she was on a roll and continued panic-talking. "So don't let some boy determine how and when and where you're going to do anything. You don't want to spend your college years tied to a long-distance relationship, afraid that you're going to outgrow the other person, hurt them, when you're supposed to be out living your life."

The words almost burned as they came out of her mouth, voicing what she wanted for Mina, even when Ben doing exactly that had hurt her so badly. But Mina was a different person, her own person. She had to make her own way.

"Enjoy it. You don't want to spend your time pining after one guy. You're going to be a completely different person by the time you're grown up—according to your dad, that's literally on a cellular level. Don't hold yourself back because you're afraid you're going to miss out. Go meet new people. A lot of new people. Find out what the world has to offer."

Mina was chewing her lip thoughtfully. "You're making good points—Dad?"

Caroline turned to see Ben standing behind them, all sleep-rumpled and grumpy. The panic subsided just a little bit. Ben would be able to help Caroline convince Mina she was right. "You want some coffee?"

"No," he said, his tone cold enough to make Mina's chin draw back a bit. "Mina, honey, could you go to Petra's and get me a bear claw?"

"But I got a whole box of pastries right here," Mina said, frowning.

"Go get me a different pastry, please," Ben said, taking his wallet off the counter and handing her some cash.

Oh, so Ben wasn't "just out of bed" grumpy. Ben was mad. And given the rigid set of his shoulders and the red in his cheeks, he was really mad.

Shit.

"OK…" Mina said, sharing a confused look with Caroline as she left the kitchen.

"Is everything OK?" Caroline asked, even though, obviously, it wasn't.

"No," Ben said, turning on her. "I'm really trying to stay calm here, but…what the hell are you doing, telling Mina that if she likes a boy, it doesn't matter? That she should enjoy as many of them as she can?"

"OK, that's not exactly what I said," Caroline protested. "And I would think you would want me to tell your teenage daughter not to prioritize boys when she should be studying and enjoying college!"

"I don't want her to treat people like they're disposable!" Ben insisted. "She's already seen enough of that from her mother."

"I never told her to treat people like they're disposable! Where is this coming from? Wait, is this about you and me? I thought we'd talked this through, Ben," Caroline said.

"Well, it turns out, I'm still a little mad about it," Ben cried, throwing up his hands. "And for the record, we didn't tie ourselves to a long-distance relationship because that's not what you wanted. You told me to go, so I went."

"Yes, because that's what was best for you !" she cried. "Also, you walked away from me ! Do you think I wanted to be left alone? With my family ? I wanted to be with you, but you needed to be somewhere else and even though it hurt, I let go."

"Well, no one asked you to do that. I didn't want a martyr, I wanted you!" Ben told her. "But you…how did you act like I never existed? I would come back to visit, and you would just pretend I wasn't even there! How are you even capable of that?"

"Because I was trying to make things easier for you ," Caroline insisted. "And yeah, maybe for me a little bit, too. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me, watching you come back to the island all content and successful and being happy for you , but dying a little bit inside every time I saw it? Do you think if I thought of people as disposable, I would still be anywhere near my family? Do you know how easy it would be to walk away from people who treat me like I'm a convenience? A tool? I might as well be a fucking can opener for all the family affection I get. I stick around because I have no choice. Where else am I going to live? Work? Move? And pardon the fuck out of me if I want Mina to have more than that. I want her to have the whole world. I'm terrified she's going to be stuck here, not just because of some boy, but because of her magic, too. It's the same life I have to live, and I want her to do better."

"But what if it ends up being what she wants? I thought we were doing pretty great together, this time around." Ben scowled. "I'm sorry you're stuck here with me now. I didn't realize you've had such a miserable life and that, since you're trapped and can't do any better, I'm your disappointing consolation prize."

"I'm not saying that!" Caroline cried. "Where is this even coming from?"

"Look, I think there's some old stuff coming up here," Ben said, shaking his head. "The Mina conversation is obviously bringing up hurt feelings that are very clearly still left over from when we were kids."

"Well, that's on you," Caroline said, her voice so hard and cold that she barely recognized it. "If you're going to freaking ambush me like this, when I was just trying to help your daughter, throwing around historical bullshit you haven't bothered to bring up until now, I don't know if this is going to work."

Ben deflated. She didn't know if it was the glacial flint in her tone or the fact that she'd already picked up her purse and her shoes. But there was a finality to what had just happened. She wasn't sure exactly at what point she'd lost control, but it felt like there was no coming back from it.

"It probably won't," Ben said, nodding.

"So we should probably just stop now before we do something that means we can't speak again," Caroline said, swallowing thickly. "I'm gonna go."

"Caroline, please—"

But she was already out the door.

***

Caroline did the only thing she could think to do, being this upset. Riley's house was right there, next door, and she ran to it like a sanctuary. How had it gone so wrong so fast? Ten minutes before, she had been quietly contemplating her life with the kids, and then she and Ben had a relationship-wrecking fight and tore it all down.

Maybe this was better. If it could fall apart so easily, maybe they shouldn't have tried at all. Ben could go back to raising his kids, finding someone better, someone who knew what they were doing with adult relationships and healthy connections with teenagers. And she could go back to her casual weekend relationships. They didn't hurt.

Shaddow House's front door swung open before she'd even reached the porch.

"Thanks," she muttered, though she still wasn't sure to whom. Riley was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, in her robe, looking very confused. Mina was pacing and wringing her hands. Plover seemed to be hovering behind her by two steps, looking equally distressed. Around them, various haunted objets d'art were rocketing around the room.

"I'm so sorry," Mina said, her cheeks streaked with tears. "Dad doesn't get mad like that. And he never sent us out of the house with my mom, even when it was really bad—"

"No, no," Caroline said, putting her hands around Mina's arms. "Honey, there is nothing for you to apologize for. This is a conversation that probably needed to happen a while ago, OK? It's adult stuff—old, wet, unstable conversational TNT. It wasn't caused by you. You just happened to be in the room when it went off."

Mina sniffled and buried her face in Caroline's shoulder. The haunted bric-a-brac settled onto their various shelves and surfaces with a clatter. Plover was not pleased—emphatically.

"Explain this, Miss Caroline," he demanded. "What has upset Miss Mina so thoroughly?"

"Ben and I had what people of our generation would call a…" Caroline said.

"Epic ‘burn it down to the ground' fight?" Mina suggested, wiping at her eyes.

"You weren't even there," Caroline reminded her.

"I listened at the door," Mina said, her mouth drawing back at the corners.

Caroline gaped at her. "Mina!"

Mina flung out her arms. "He sent me after bear claws! What was I supposed to do?"

"Is that a modern euphemism?" Plover turned to Riley. "Miss, I request that you take my mail tray next door to Gray Fern Cottage so I might have a discussion with Dr. Hoult."

Riley chuckled. "Plover, you know that wouldn't work. The locks keep you in place here."

"Well, we didn't think the children were going to be granted magic before, did we?" Plover exclaimed. "We haven't tried taking my object out of the house!"

Caroline smiled sadly at him. "It's sweet that you're worried, but I can handle this myself."

Plover grumbled to himself in a distinctly British tone. "I'm not worried. I am… put out with the doctor."

"My dad never got this mad when he fought with my mom," Mina said. "Because he'd given up on her a long time ago. So, if I were you, I would consider that a good sign?"

"Grown-up business, Mina," Caroline told her.

"Fiiiine," she sighed.

Now that Mina's emotions were somewhat contained, Caroline finally noticed the papers and notebooks spread across the parlor's coffee table. Riley had been taking some pretty serious notes on her family tree, and…

"Um, Riley, when did you have time to test my DNA?" Caroline asked, pointing to the reports on the table.

"Did you know you drool in your sleep?" Riley asked. "Especially when you're on pain meds?"

"Rude," Caroline gasped. But even in her distress, she was grateful to have something to focus on besides her mess with Ben. She would grasp on to anything at this point, even ill-gotten genetic infographics.

"I used a private lab. I was checking for any sort of genetic markers that were unusual—good news, there weren't any. There's not a single marker for any sort of cancer or any gene-based disease. And I started thinking—isn't that in itself, weird? So I did some digging on genealogical sites, and no one on your father's side of the family dies of disease. If they don't leave the island, they live a long, long life. The people who marry into the family? Completely normal life spans and incidence of disease compared to their demographic. And that includes accidents. But any offspring they have with your father's side seems to pass along the disease-proof gene," Riley said.

"I'd never thought about it," Caroline conceded. "But yeah, I guess that's weird. Also, I'm assuming Edison helped you with this."

Riley looked offended. " That's rude."

"Sweetie, there are charts involved," Caroline said, giving her a sympathetic look.

"Fine," Riley huffed. "But I was thinking, it's extremely odd for Rose's ghost to be so intertwined with different family members. So, what if the attachment object isn't an object…it's you?"

Caroline frowned. "Sorry?"

"What if Rose is so attached to her family that the attachment object is your blood, literally? She can go off the island with you because she's attached to you . She'll protect and nurture you as long as you stay in her good graces. But if you break her rules, she can…I don't know, mess with your nervous system. When you think about it, human bodies are this awkward engineering wonder that shouldn't work, in terms of physics and physiology. So much can go wrong with every step we take. All it would take is a split second of her messing with your inner ear, preventing your optic nerve from communicating the right information with your brain—hell, making you place your foot wrong when you put it down, and bam—you step out in front of a bus or step off a ferry gangplank. Bottom line, she makes you pay dearly."

"That's sick," Caroline breathed.

"Does Rose strike you as a particularly well-adjusted person?" Mina asked.

"Good point," Caroline said. "So…why hasn't she hurt me in the last few months, now that she knows I'm aware of her?"

"You're pissing her off, but you're not violating the terms of her ‘user agreement,'" Mina said. "Rose strikes me as a stickler for the rules."

"So, how do we get rid of the attachment object when I'm the attachment object?" Caroline mused.

"Very carefully?" Riley guessed.

There was a long moment of silence.

"Do you want to go back to talking about your fight with my dad?" Mina asked.

"Double nope," Caroline told her.

***

It took a few hours before Caroline felt comfortable that Mina's magic was under control enough for her to go back home. As mad as she might be, Caroline did not want anyone or anything in Ben's house to be subject to magical teenage tornados.

Regular teenage tornados were bad enough.

Caroline promised Riley she was going to retreat to her cottage and drown her sorrows in ice cream—a strategy Plover did not support, but Riley contributed a pint of Regina's Rocky Road Trip. She'd changed into some real pants and a T-shirt she wouldn't miss in case of an ice cream mishap when her phone beeped. Sticking her spoon in her tub of ice cream, she checked her screen. Will's girlfriend had texted her.

That was…weird.

Tabby never texted her. Because they didn't need to talk to each other really, and there was no point in it when she could just text Will. Plus, Tabby lost her phone so often that there was maybe a forty percent chance she would see any phone communications.

The text read, Will says the Rose is finally ready for inspection! Come by ASAP. Your mom is so excited.

Tabby had attached a photo of Will and her mom, talking in the barroom at the Rose. Will's hand was raised, and his head tilted toward her as if he was trying to explain something. Her mother was looking into the camera with a stern expression.

Tabby added a second text that read, As excited as your mom gets.

Caroline laughed for what felt like the first time all day and tucked her phone into her back pocket. This was what she needed. Distraction. She rushed out of the kitchen, realizing about halfway to town that she'd left a perfectly good tub of Regina's ice cream on the counter.

Oof, she could never tell Regina, who would revoke Caroline's sprinkle privileges.

At least one thing was looking up, she supposed as she wove through the early evening crowds. If the Rose was ready for inspection, they might actually be ready to open by Labor Day and recoup some of their summer losses. She would have something to focus on, besides her hideous fight with Ben and the wreckage of…whatever they'd been on their way to becoming.

Just outside of the Rose, Caroline overheard tourists griping about the construction fencing, how they liked "that old place" and it wasn't a summer without a visit to the Rose. She smiled to herself, careful to slip through the mesh fence when she was relatively sure no one was looking. She didn't want someone to follow her through.

She used her keys to open the front door, locking it carefully behind her. The barroom was completely dark, and it was a weird feeling. She'd only ever seen it with at least ten neon signs lighting it.

Even in the dark, she could make out that the walls were lighter, a sort of pale blue or gray, maybe, which was nice. The space seemed more open, but she supposed that would look different when they brought in the tables. But it smelled pleasantly of new paint and freshly sawed wood, and that was a good change.

"Hello?" she called, setting her purse on the floor near the bar. "Mom? Will?"

Tabby had sent her a photo of her mom in the dining room. Where was she?

A shadow moved in the corner. The light color of the walls made it a little harder to see her, but Rose was there, smirking at her. Like she knew something that Caroline didn't. Which, she supposed, was fair.

Wait.

Now that she thought about it, the background of the photo had wood paneling. These walls were painted, so the photo couldn't have been taken that day.

Was this some Parent Trap thing from the kids? Could they have recruited Cole to get Caroline and Ben into the same place?

"Mina? Josh?" she called. "If this is you, kids, I appreciate it—and I'm sort of impressed that you got Tabby involved, but…"

The floorboards behind her squeaked and she thought, This doesn't feel right .

Stars exploded behind her eyes. The pain of being hit by a tiny motorbike was nothing compared to the agony at the base of her skull as she dropped to her knees. She couldn't even feel her feet, it hurt so bad. But she could feel her face when she flopped forward, and her cheek made contact with the floor. What the hell did Rose hit her with?

Her eyelids drooped as she heard footsteps behind her.

Wait, Rose couldn't make footstep sounds. And she was still hovering in front of her. As Caroline's eyes drifted shut and the sight of heavy boots seemed imprinted on the back of the retinas, she thought, How many times can you be knocked out in a year?