Bone River by Megan Chance Page A

the water peeling back from the bow and the rasp of Lord Tom’s snores. We’d made this trip at night a hundred times before, and both Junius and I knew the bay well. He didn’t need anyone’s help to manage it, so there was nothing to do but keep watch. The sense of disquiet I’d felt since talking to Bibi only intensified here, on the nearly silent water, with the moon suddenly making the shadows hard-edged and cold before it disappeared again. I shivered a little, wrapping my arms around me.
    “So you have a good talk with the other girls?” Junius asked me.
    I glanced at him in surprise. I’d already forgotten it. “There’s a tea for the pastor in Oysterville next week.”
    “The pastor? You should go.”
    “I haven’t decided yet if I will.”
    “Hmmm. Jack Boone told me tonight about a collection that might be for sale over there,” Junius said. “I thought I’d go lookinto it tomorrow—unless Bibi was talking about trading the canoe?”
    Of course he’d seen me with her. I found myself hesitating to explain, and not just because I’d failed to get what he wanted—though I’d been too unsettled to really try. I both wanted his confident dismissal of
that Siwash nonsense
and felt that such a reaction was somehow...wrong. I glanced at Daniel, who sat across from me now that Lord Tom was snoring in the hold, and I realized he, too, was waiting for my answer. I remembered how he’d been watching me speak to Bibi. I remembered her warnings about him.
Very important now he is here
, and I wondered how I could say that, how I could tell Junius that the widow agreed with him about his son while that son sat listening.
    “It was about the bracelet,” I said finally.
    Junius looked confused. “Bracelet?”
    “The one she gave me the last time I saw her. Remember? That bit of twine?”
    “Oh, yes. What was that about? Some charm, wasn’t it? Something about a dream and the mummy.”
    “Yes. Bibi wanted to be certain I wore it.”
    “Protection talisman, is it?”
    I glanced at Daniel. His watching was so intent and careful that I had to look away, over the side of the boat, into the water foaming back from the bow, pale in the darkness. “Yes, I suppose.”
    “More Siwash nonsense,” Junius said with a disappointed sigh. “But you should wear the thing the next time we’re in town, Lea. Perhaps it will soften her toward trading. I need that canoe—and soon. Otherwise...” He let the words fall; I knew what he didn’t say. I should have forced things with Bibi. Next time, I would not let her distract me.
    We fell into silence. The breeze was light and steady; the sail fluffed, and Junius tightened the line, and we picked up speed again. Then he said, “Did you enjoy yourself tonight, boy?”
    His voice was stiff; I felt his effort in it, and I knew he did it for me.
    “Well enough,” Daniel said.
    “Everyone seemed to take to you. The women especially. I’ve never seen so many worried husbands.”
    “They hardly need to worry.”
    “I suppose not, if you’ve a girl back home. Leonie tells me you do.”
    Daniel tensed. “Yes.”
    Irritably, Junius said, “You’ll have to help me out a bit, boy. I’m trying to make conversation.”
    “What have the two of us to talk about?”
    Junius threw me a look and settled back into the seat as if he’d made his effort and meant not to make another, and I searched my own mind for something to say and found nothing, because the only things I could hear were Bibi’s words and Junius’s warnings, and I wanted to ignore them. I wanted to be charitable, to give Daniel a chance to prove himself.
    But just then the moon emerged again, and I was drawn to looking at him as if the moon willed it, so I saw him change within its light, pale blue and white and black, full of sharp edges, and it was as if it illuminated something within him, and it felt dangerous and frightening.
    Bad luck.
    I turned away quickly, back to the water, letting the silence