Page 81 of Seer

Craig hissed between his teeth.

Foster said, “You asked Cal out? Crap, did he say no?”

Without looking up I shook my head.

“No, against all odds, our Greg somehow managed to get Cal to agree to go out with him Friday night. To dinner at somebody else’s house. Greg, is that really where you want to take Cal on your first real date?”

“No,” I whined, shaking my head again.

A new voice said, “Well, I was going to ask who the bourbon shots were for, but I think I can guess.”

I looked up. Our server had been replaced by one of her coworkers, a motherly type with poofy blond hair. She set the shot glasses and my whiskey sour in front of me, then distributed everyone else’s drinks.

“Thank you.”

“Y’all want anything to eat?”

We came here all the time, so I didn’t need to look at the menu. We placed our orders.

Once she was gone, I downed my first shot. “Good call,” I told Malcolm.

He bumped his shoulder into mine. “You poor bastard. You’ve got it bad.”

“Yeah,” I said glumly. I threw back the second shot.

Thursday I went to work for most of the day, but things were quiet so I left a little early to look through the books from TWIST. I doubted I’d find anything, but at least it’d be an excuse to reach out to Cal.

To my surprise, I struck gold with the first book I picked up. I called Aileen to verify my suspicions, then I texted Cal.

Can I call you? I found something in one of the books.

He called me within a minute.

“Hey.”

“Hey, what did you find?”

I had to remind myself that we were trying to save lives, and I couldn’t expect Cal to ask me how my day had been or anything.

“This is the last entry in the diary of a Sorcha Erskine. That’s Aileen’s last name too, so I called her. Sorcha was one of Aileen’s relatives.”

“You mean she was a Wonder?”

“Yes. A brownie. Aileen says Sorcha went back to the Elf dimension. She left the diary behind along with most of her belongings.”

“Okay. So what does the diary say?”

“Right, sorry. This entry is from June 7, 1741.”

“Wow, that’s a long time ago. Got it. Go ahead. 1741.”

I read the entry.

This morn Cameron told me the troll under the bridge down by Dunfermline has disappeared. His dog, a constant companion, was left in his cottage without food or water. Those who were friendlywith him say he’d never have done that if he’d left of his own accord. He now be the third of our folk in the area to vanish in as many weeks. Cameron and I are of a mind to return to the saoghal breith at least for a time. I sent a message to Airdsgainne in London, but the post is slow, and there may be naught they can do.

“Wow,” Cal said. “Three Wonders disappearing over three weeks. That’s awfully similar to what’s been happening here.”

“Agreed. There weren’t any District Monitors back then, so if they didn’t have a Seer locally, lots of Wonders could’ve gone missing and no one would’ve ever known what’d happened to them.”