Page 78 of Found Objects

“I will be, and that would be great.”

“Good.”

After a moment he said, “It’s beautiful in here. Your whole house is like⁠—”

“Our house,” I corrected him. “You live here now, if you want. I would never force you to stay where you⁠—”

“I go where Cole goes until I either go to college or work with him in his construction business. I already help him every summer.”

I nodded.

“You’re sure you don’t mind me being here?”

“I’m thrilled to have you here,” I assured him. “But there’s other people too, and we should get back to the kitchen so I can introduce you to Ondine.”

His eyes went wide as he stared at me.

“Goddess, what?”

“Is she magic, like Teague?”

“Yes, but don’t bring up Teague, all right? She’s not all that crazy about him.”

“What did he do?” Of course that was his first question.

“Oh, she’s gonna like you,” I told him.

As he followed me out, Cole and Ondine came out of my bedroom. Ondine’s smile when she saw Evan was big.

“Hi.” He rushed over, holding out his hand. “I’m Evan.”

“Ondine.” Her voice was silky and warm. She didn’t take his hand; instead she held out her arms for him.

Immediately, he went into her embrace, and after a moment, he took a big breath and his eyes welled with tears.

“Oh, love,” she murmured, rubbing circles on his back. “You are utterly safe here. You saw it yourself, didn’t you? When all your friends passed out but you alone remained on your feet.”

He nodded but didn’t let her go.

“And those forgotten patches of magic, those don’t show up hardly ever. I promise you, we can walk from one end of Merritt’s land to the other and won’t hit one. We might see some bears and coyotes, and so many deer, but no spooky old magic.”

“Okay,” Evan said, his voice breaking, his breathing uneven.

“Shall we go play a game until the food is ready?”

He sniffled, nodded, then took a step back and smiled at her.

“I have headsets. How are you with a flamethrower?”

His eyes got big.

“Come on.”

She led him up the stairs, chatting the whole way, and showed him the secret way to unlock her door. When it opened, a rush of briny sea air filled the house like a wave.

Cole turned to look at me, pointing up at Ondine’s room. “I wanna know what it looks like in there.”

“It looks like the bottom of a lagoon, with sunlight on top and deep water on the bottom.”