A voice from one of the barstools near Pierce rumbled, “Join me?”
Pierce felt eyes, glanced around to meet them. “Thanks.”
The man had long, shaggy, dark hair, a wolf’s pale eyes, beads in one ear and
braided into his forelocks. For a second Pierce, light-headed with travel, saw
the full face of the wolf, taking him in through its long, lean muzzle as well
while it regarded him without discernible human expression. Then the man was
back, beginning to smile, gesturing with one broad, capable hand at the
barstool next to him.
Pierce sat. The stranger pushed a bowl of assorted pretzels, chips, and nuts
over to him. “Tye’ll be down in a moment to take your order. Passing
through?”
Pierce, his mouth full, nodded and swallowed. “From the north coast. Cape
Mistbegotten.”
The man sipped beer, musing. “Isn’t that where the sorceress lives?”
Pierce’s fingers drummed on the mahogany; he wished suddenly, urgently, for a
beer. “She retired. She’s running a restaurant now.” He felt the wolf’s
eyes, alert, waiting. He added reluctantly, “She’s my mother.”
“No shit.”
He shook his head. “Nope. She spends her time trying to grow weird heirloom
vegetables for the only decent restaurant on the cape.”
He heard rhythmic descending steps. “Which would make you Heloise Oliver’s
son Pierce,” the bartender said, reaching the floor. “I’ll be a cockeyed
halibut. Have one on the house.”
“How—” Pierce began, then stopped, not wanting to know. She was his past,
what he had left, like the perpetual mists and the big, silent house up the
twisty coastal road. How could she have found her way into this bar with him?
“What’ll you have?”
He consulted the chalkboard dangling, by no visible means, above the draft
handles. “I’ll try a Goat’s Breath Dark.”
“Excellent choice. You look like her. That red hair. Those eyes.”
Pierce nodded briefly, wondering how they knew her. He didn’t ask. He didn’t
need to know; he was on his way south, and he would keep going until the voice
of the ocean changed from a roar to the siren song of Severluna. The
bartender, a tall, burly man with lank hair the color of duck fluff and a pair
of square, dark-rimmed glasses on his nose, set a beer in front of Pierce. He
drank deeply, came up for air, and found the mild eyes behind the glasses
studying him.
“I’m Tye Fisher,” he said. “My brother Hal owns this place. He and your
mother are related in a roundabout fashion; they know each other in the way
that big families do. You need a place to stay, we can open one of the rooms
for you.” Pierce felt his expression change, lock into place. Tye added
quickly, “Stay the night, I mean. The old hotel hasn’t been officially open
for decades.”
“Hotel.” He swiveled on the stool, trying to find it. Remnants surfaced in
the shadows: a huge stone fireplace at the far end of the room, what might be
stairs inset to one side of it, the kind that fanned out over the floor, then
did a slow curve upward and out of sight.
“We’re trying to get at least part of it back in business. We’ve been
trying for years. Soon as you get one leak fixed, another starts, then the
wind picks up, slats go flying into the bay, and the windows cloud up. You
know how it goes.” He nodded toward the chandelier. “This used to be the old
reception hall. Through those doors there along the inner wall was the sitting
room, even bigger than this one. The restaurant’s in there now. Kingfisher
Grill.”
Pierce glanced behind him, then turned back to his beer, not wanting to know,
wanting to make himself clear from the start. “I’m just passing through,”
he said. “On my way south. I want to find a job cooking in Severluna.”
“You any good?”
Pierce smiled. “I don’t know. My mother taught me a few things. I’m hoping
to learn on the job in a restaurant on the beach. Someplace like my mother’s,
simple, fresh, and local, only down where it’s warm, and nobody has to wear
socks.”
Tye grunted. He pulled a square of wood and a knife from under the bar, then,
as if he had a little orchard down there as well, an orange and a couple of
limes. He began to slice them. “We could use a cook. Ella—that’s our mother
—she’s been running the kitchen since the Grill opened, and she needs to
slow down a little. If you meet anyone down there who wants a job up here. Or
if you don’t find the right beach.”
Pierce took another swallow. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He put his glass
down, met Tye’s easy expression, whatever was in his eyes hidden behind a
blur of light over his lenses. “I could use a room, thanks. Just for the
night. I have my stuff in the car. It steered itself into your parking lot
when I saw the sign.”