LITMIR.BIZ

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a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Hudson had already walked Ringo, so they, along with one other couple who looked to be in their seventies, ate a breakfast of a spinach quiche, fruit cup, and cinnamon rolls that, the owner of the establishment confided, were baked at the local bakery.

      “You own this place long?” Hudson asked as the tall, lanky man brought them a new pot of coffee.

      “Nearly twenty-five years. Will be this September. My wife and I decided to give up the rat race and move here from Chicago. This old house was for sale and we converted it to a B and B. We’ve never looked back.”

      At the next table, the woman waved her hand. “Is there any more orange juice?” she asked, and the owner/waiter hurried off to the kitchen. Becca looked out the window toward the ocean, now calm, beams of sunlight bouncing off the restless gray water.

      The beach far below was littered with debris, driftwood, seaweed, the shells of dead clams and crabs. Seagulls wheeled and cawed above the small strip of sand. Waves came and went, lapping the shore and leaving bits of thick foam as they receded.

      They finished their meal and then Hudson opened a thick sliding door and he and Becca stepped onto a deck that ran the length of the building. Despite the sun, the air was crisp and cold, and though there was no wind, the surf continued to echo against the cliffs. To the south was the bay, a few brave fishing vessels having already slipped over the bar and into the sea, and to the north was a curving peninsula of rocks and trees, a narrow cape stretching clawlike into the ocean. A few black rocks, islands unto themselves, protected the cape’s shoreline. Farther out, atop a rocky mound, was a lighthouse, a tall spire rising into the heavens. Farther still, an island sat on the horizon, mist shrouded and about a half mile out.

      Becca stared at the lighthouse and shivered against a sudden rush of cold air. She turned back inside.

      They checked out of the bed and breakfast, packed up the car, then walked into town. It was nearly noon, a few people on the streets. Hudson had the address and knew where the key to the cabin where Renee had stayed was located. The yard was overgrown, the carport sagging a bit, but inside the cottage was cozy, though it seemed to Becca as if she’d stepped back in time at least twenty years. The futon had to have been built in the seventies, and the television was similar to one her parents had bought while she was in grade school.

      She noticed the desk, imagined Renee working here, her near-black hair shiny under the tension lamp.

      Unexpectedly, her throat thickened and tears burned the back of her eyes. She couldn’t believe Renee was gone. Gone forever. She thought of Hudson’s twin and wondered what Renee might have been doing.

      “Feels odd,” he said, his mood matching hers as he walked through the few rooms, his footsteps creaking on the old floorboards.

      “Yeah.” Becca noted the faded pictures on a wall of a family decked out in yellow windbreakers while standing on the deck of a fishing vessel, the open sea swelling behind them.

      “Okay, I think I’ve seen enough,” Hudson said and they locked up the cabin and walked into the center of town, where, unlikely as it was, Becca felt that same chill deep in her soul, the one that had been with her since driving into the town. A few pedestrians littered the streets, a man walking his dog, a woman jogging behind a stroller, skateboarders weaving along the sidewalk, the hoods of their sweatshirts nearly hiding their faces as they flew past.

      The Sands of Thyme bakery was filled with customers, a line for cinnamon bread that had just come out of the oven, the shop filled with the warm scents of spices. The pizza parlor had a sign that said it was closed for the winter and a kite shop, too, was locked up tight.

      They bought coffee and walked along the waterfront where beachcombers searched the strand for treasures washed up by the storm.

      On their way back to the car, while Hudson tied Ringo to a post outside, Becca wandered through the open door of a shop that smelled of soap and candles, where antique dressers, tables, and armoires displayed smaller items. Everything, including the hanging lights, had price tags attached.

      The clerk, a prim woman in her sixties with straight white chin-length hair and a wary expression, sat on a stool near an antique cash register, a half-finished knitting project on a ledge near the window where a calico cat sat, tail curved under its body, as it basked in the sunlight streaming through the windowpanes.

      There was one other customer in the shop, a stooped woman with iron-gray hair and gnarled hands who was interested in a case of antique buttons.

      Her knitting forgotten, the tight-lipped clerk eyed the woman like a hawk, as if she suspected her of pocketing some of the merchandise.

      The old woman was oblivious. “Aren’t they pretty?” she said, looking up at Becca with flat eyes. She was fingering a mother-of-pearl button that glittered under the overhead lights.

      Becca eyed the luminescent button. “Yes. Very.”

      “But only one…I need two.”

      “Can I help you with something, Madeline?” The clerk, obviously displeased, let out a put-upon sigh as she reluctantly slid off her stool, its legs scratching against the wood floor. The cat, disturbed, leapt onto a highboy from where it peered down imperiously.

      Madeline? Becca stared at the old woman, who stared back. “You look like one of them,” the old woman whispered.

      “Madeline,” the clerk reproved.

      “One of who?” Hudson was just stepping through the front door.

      Madeline’s head snapped up and she viewed Hudson with a furtive glare as he wove his way between the displays to stand next to Becca.

      “Siren Song,” she whispered.

      “Are you Madame Madeline?” Becca asked.

      “Maddie!” The clerk was heading their way.

      Instead of answering, Madeline placed her twisted fingers on Becca’s abdomen, then shrank away, quickly sketching a sign of the cross over her chest, then shuffling to the door.

      “Did she take that button? Damn it!” The clerk stamped a small booted foot. “She always does that!” She started for the door, but Madeline was gone, through the door and hurrying off. “I should call the police, but for the most part she’s harmless.”

      Becca was unnerved that she’d touched her abdomen. “Who is she?”

      “Oh, yeah, she calls herself Madame Madeline. She pretends to be a psychic. She’s a town fixture, lived here all her life.”

      “And what did she mean by Siren Song?” Hudson asked.

      “It’s a tract of land run by…well, some locals. They mostly keep to themselves. The property is valuable, it stretches from the mountains on the east side of 101 and across the highway to the ocean. They’re this clannish group, like a colony, some even say cultish. Different, you know. All related.”

      “Colony?” Hudson asked.

      She smiled then and took a long look at Becca. “I see what Maddie means, though, you do resemble them…a little.”

      “Them?” Becca felt a little weak in the knees. What the hell was all this? Maddie placing her hand over Becca’s stomach as if she knew she was pregnant, and then this talk of resembling members of a—cult?

      “I’m not related,” she said firmly.

      The woman didn’t argue with her, but did add, “This is the second time in the last few months that someone has asked about Siren Song. I’ve owned this shop for six and a half years. Before that I worked in one of the spas that closed, and I can go for months without anyone mentioning Siren Song, maybe years, but lately…Oh, well.” She straightened the little case of buttons that Madeline had pawed through.

      “Who asked about Siren Song?” Hudson wanted to know.

      “A visitor in the town. Can’t remember her name.” The shopkeeper frowned,

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