Braiding her hair, she stared at her features in the mirror. Her slanted eyes were too big for her heart-shaped face and too dark for her pale skin. The black curtain of her bangs obscured the high curve of her eyebrows. She looked nothing like the sturdy Larmoriens with their brown hair and sharp noses who inhabited the islands and Larmor-Baden on the mainland. Her physical appearance had always set her apart, reminding the villagers she didn’t belong.
She was an outcast and people her own age were wary of her. They disliked and teased her because of who her mother was. Even though her mother had been dead for twenty-three years, the tradition-fast Brittany people remembered. There was no chance of her being accepted through the slow process of forgetting. They were a community who held fast to their roots and who told the same tales their pre-Celtic ancestors, famous for erecting their standing stones, had. To a people who’d held onto their culture for more than six thousand years, twenty-three was a drop in the ocean. Only a few of the older people had learned to look past who she was.
Erwan’s red boat appeared in the window frame of the attic room that looked out over the sea. He came from the east, from the direction of Île Longue. Quickly, she finished her grooming and went outside to meet him.
He removed his rubber boots on the stone steps of their veranda. The boat was already anchored. There were no crates or net. He rolled up the legs of his blue pinafore and left the pipe that always seesawed in the corner of his mouth in the astray on the garden table.
“Mat an traoú,” he said by way of greeting.
Erwan still spoke the Breton language and encouraged her to practice it, even if the younger people all spoke French these days.
“Ya, mat-tre,” she said.
He patted her with a weathered hand on the shoulder as he entered the house, his frame stooped and his wrinkled face brown from the long days on the salty water.
She followed and poured the strong tea he liked into his breakfast bowl. “You didn’t go fishing, Erwan.” She’d never called him grandfather. It wasn’t because he wasn’t her biological grandfather. It was just the way it had always been.
“Nah.” He lowered his body with a flinch into the chair.
She watched him with fondness from under her lashes. He was getting too old for taking out the boat, even if he wouldn’t hear anything about retiring.
She put the bowl in front of him and waited until he cupped the warm brew before she asked, “Where did you go?”
“Larmor,” he said, avoiding her eyes as he blew vapor over the bowl.
She sucked in a quiet breath. “There was another fire, wasn’t there?”
He slurped his tea.
“Which one was it this time?” she asked.
He took a while before answering. “The mayor’s house.”
Dear God. “Was anyone hurt?”
“It started in the kitchen. Brendan woke up before the flames got to the bedroom.”
“What about the house?”
He shook his head.
“At what time did it happen?” she asked, her heart pounding like a hammer between her ribs.
“Four. I saw the glow from across the water when I went out to get the boat.”
She turned her back on him so he wouldn’t see the anxiety in her eyes. Standing on tiptoes, she opened the overhead cupboard and took out a mug.
It wasn’t easy to ask her next question. “Did you check on me before you left?”
There was a long silence. When she finally faced him again, he stared at her with compassion.
“Did it happen again?” he asked.
“I woke up in the woods this time.”
“I see.” He studied his tea.
Gripping the edge of the table, she exclaimed, “What if it’s me, Erwan?”
He looked up. “You were fast asleep when I left.”
“I could’ve gone before, taken the dinghy, and been back before you noticed the flames.”
“You haven’t started a fire since you were three.”
“Who’s to say it’s not starting again?”
In the past month, fifty houses had been burned mysteriously. The village was swamped with police, firemen, and forensic experts who couldn’t determine the cause of the fires. The villagers suspected arson. If they’d known about her weird ability to involuntarily set objects alight, even if it only happened to her as a toddler, they would’ve had her on the proverbial stake in the blink of an eye, condemned as the witch they’d accused her mother of being.
“Clelia, it happened twice. You were just a baby.”
He wanted to believe it as much as she did. Once, while playing on the beach, she’d seen a boy kicking a dog. When she’d told him to stop, he’d laughed and picked up a stick, starting to chase the helpless animal. She couldn’t remember everything, but Erwan said the stick in the boy’s hand had caught fire. He’d had a fright, had thrown it down and run away. The second time was when she’d almost been trampled by a horse while visiting the stables with Erwan. The hay had burst into flames. Erwan had told the bystanders he’d dropped his pipe.
Now one house after the next was burned to ashes from the same time her sleepwalking had started. And the dream. She hadn’t told Erwan about her dream. Deep down, she knew the dream, the sleepwalking, and the fires were connected, but she was too petrified to voice the thought.
She became aware of Erwan watching her.
“Joss is back in town,” he said in a quiet tone.
Her body went colder than the icy Atlantic. Although she’d never said anything about her feelings for Joss, Erwan wasn’t blind. He was a wise old man who didn’t need words to know the truth. She reminded herself of this as she carefully pushed back her emotions, trying not to show her shock. She even managed to keep a straight face when she
