“Don’t lie. You didn’t even mention it once,” he continues.
“I didn’t forget,” I insist. “I’m sorry, Miles—?I should have said something. I just didn’t know what.” My knee is almost touching someone’s overturned ice-cream cone that is melting in the dirt. “What happened to your glove, Miles?”
His face fights against crumpling.
“I lost it somewhere.”
“Let’s look for it. I’ll help you.”
I take his hand in mine then. It is cold, like stone, almost as cold as Mother’s always was in the dream I used to have. He lets me hold it for half a minute. Then a sudden burst of applause marks the speech’s end, and he pulls it away again.
We retrace Miles’s steps across the grounds, past the booths of pies and snuffling piglets and confetti left like pieces of gold glinting in the mud. The crowd drifts toward the orchard, settling into seats with glasses of wine and steaming mugs before the concert starts. Beas sits in her chair, glancing over her music one last time. A woman walks over to her, and Beas nods as they speak. I look more closely at the woman, who wears a sharply pressed skirt and has ruby nails and a severe hairdo. I recognize her. It’s the lady from my first day in town. The one who put the note into my bag.
The woman reaches out to tuck Beas’s hair behind her ear, and my stomach curls. It’s the kind of touch only a mother would do.
And then Eliza springs up to them. She is flushed and too giddy to play at being aloof. The beads on her costume hit against one another, shimmering.
“Let’s see if the school has a lost and found,” I say to Miles, edging closer to the orchestra seats. Curious to know what has suddenly made Eliza so happy.
“Guess what?” Eliza clutches Beas’s arm.
“Let’s see . . .” Beas says wryly. “All three of your tournament events have already forfeited to you?”
“No.” Eliza’s voice gets higher. “William asked me to go to the Christmas Ball with him!”
I stop walking. The air thins, and my heart feels like a fist clenching. At any minute it’s going to crumble in on itself and become dust.
Mrs. Fogg turns around and sees me and Miles. I hurry past the three of them, into the darkness of the school, with Miles on my heels.
Just find the blasted glove. Don’t think about anything else.
“Where did you last see it?” I ask, forcing my voice to brighten. Blinking back tears when the guard at the front door tells us that no one has returned a missing right glove.
“I went on the hayride with my friends,” Miles says hopefully.
“We’ll check there next.” We cut through the crowd and to the front of the line. I ignore the displeased mutters and hoist myself onto the wagon. The wooden boards creak, and for one moment I catch myself waiting for the dry, sweet smell of the hay bales.
And then I see it: one black cotton finger, barely visible between the bent tufts of straw.
“Aha!” I jump down from the wagon and hand the glove triumphantly to Miles. His face shines at me, and I resist the urge to smooth his cowlick. “Don’t lose it this time.”
I see Will walking toward us. He smiles, lifts his hand into a wave, but I pretend not to notice. Instead I pull Miles along in the other direction.
“What happens if we make it to midnight and nothing has disappeared?” someone asks to my right. “Does it mean it’s over?”
“Don’t say it out loud,” someone else hisses. “There’s still hours left.”
“Even then—?remember the year the dreams went?” a third voice interjects. “We didn’t realize for days.”
“Aila!” George grabs my arm. “Where’d you go earlier? You just disa—? Oh, never mind. Poor choice of words.”
“Hey, George,” I say. “This is my brother, Miles.”
“Miles?” George says. “Not Kilometers?” He grins at his own joke.
Miles sighs heavily and shoots me a look. “Never heard that one before,” he says dully.
“Well, anyway, nice gloves,” George says. “And—?oh—?uh, hide me, will you?”
He ducks down between us.
“George . . . what are you doing?” I ask, glancing around. Will has vanished into the crowd again.
George cocks his head and squints up at me. “Did you read the paper I gave you at the race—?about the Mackelroys?”
I glance at Miles. He doesn’t know that I snuck out to see the Tempest races. And I don’t want him to.
“Yes,” I say, drawing out the word and shooting George a look.
George straightens and peers around again. “Remember how it said that Charlton Templeton married someone else, instead of my ancestor Lorna? One of his heirs is a girl our age, from Corrander. Her name is Margeaux Templeton.” He runs his hands through his hair. “My mother wants me to make amends with her. Show a united front so people won’t think our families are behind the Curse.”
“I see. Making amends seems to be going very well,” I say, grinning obnoxiously. I steal a handful of his kettle corn.
“Well, Margeaux makes it a little hard,” he says, swatting my hand away. “She always looks as though she’s planning ways to bump me off.”
I casually scan the crowd. There is a girl glaring in our direction. She’s wearing a jeweled headband perched atop curly mouse-brown hair. She might have been pretty if not for the perpetual scowl. It’s hard to tell.
“Ah,” I say. “I think I found her.”
“See? She’s downright scary.”
“I bet you could buy her affection with this kettle corn.” I plunge my hand in for another fistful. Send pieces flying when I put it in my mouth. “It is that good.”
“Be nice,” George says. “I think it’s a rule that you have to be on my side.”
“So how does your mother want you to make amends?”
“I’m pretty sure she wants me to propose.”
I choke on a popcorn kernel.
“Or . . . at least ask Margeaux to the Christmas Ball,” he continues.
“Sounds like a more reasonable place to start,” I say, recovering. With Miles in tow, we find a place to sit in the grass, which is silvered and cool in the moonlight, tickling my bare leg. From this vantage point we have a good view of Beas’s row.
“Oh, well, um, about that . . .” George says. His freckles darken. He lowers his voice so Miles won’t hear. “I was kind of thinking it would be more fun, if maybe . . . we went to the ball together.”
“Oh!” I say, and, in a moment of panic, stuff another handful of popcorn into my mouth. I spot Dr. and Mrs. Cliffton a few rows away. She is leaning against him. The breeze rustles her hair. I do not look for Will. “Okay,” is all I can think to say.
“Great,” George says, settling back into the grass.