* * *

Two Sisters already had a handful of customers by the time Violet arrived. Trudy was at the counter ringing up a lady purchasing a couple of hand-painted coffee mugs, while two more customers pondered the fish sculpture on a side table. This particular piece was a showstopper—three feet tall and just as wide. Trudy had made it from thin pieces of driftwood wired together in the form of a blowfish, complete with spiny fins and pursed lips made from pink sea glass.

The day carried on as it normally did, with regulars settled down for tea and conversation while customers—some familiar, some tourists—floated in and out on the breeze, most leaving with a little something tucked into a lemon-yellow Two Sisters bag. With Violet in place behind the register, Trudy returned to her work at the back table, determined to force the uncooperative fishing line into submission. Violet heard her now and then, sniffing in frustration or angrily swiping a hand through her hair. Trudy occasionally grew exasperated by her work—a shell not fitting where she thought it should go, or pieces of wood refusing to sit side by side—and Violet knew better than to make light of it.

“You know you can take a break if you need to,” she offered as she waved hello to a pair of customers entering the shop. “Go for a walk or something. I’ll be here.”

Trudy reached for her notebook. I have to keep at it. If I stop now, I’ll never come back to it.

“I understand. Can I help?”

Only if you can make these two pieces of wood stop arguing and sit nicely next to each other.

Violet laughed. “Like disobedient children.”

A noise came from Trudy’s throat that sounded suspiciously like the beginning of a laugh. Trudy’s hands stilled on the table, as if the noise had surprised her as much as it had Violet.

“Trudy?” Violet stared at her sister. “Was that—?”

But the bell jangled over the door, disrupting the sacred moment like a finger popping a soap bubble. Trudy’s gaze slid to the doorway, and Violet’s eyes followed. There, standing just inside the front window, was the same young woman who visited the store yesterday. Violet glanced back at Trudy, still clinging to the startling sound she’d just heard coming from her sister, but Trudy gave her head a small but firm shake and motioned toward the door with her chin.

Violet forced her knees to unlock and her shoulders to lower as twin urges crashed in her chest. Remembering the delicate shell box, she wanted to ask—to demand—why the girl had taken something that hadn’t belonged to her, but a ping in her chest cautioned her to go slowly. To take a step, not a leap.

“Can I help you with anything?” Violet’s words were soft and tentative, the way she spoke to her birds so she wouldn’t startle them and cause them to fly away.

The girl eased into the shop, her eyes scanning the space. Two men waited at a table under the front windows as their wives shopped, and a handful of other customers were scattered throughout the shop. The air was filled with a pleasant hum of sound. The door opened again, setting the bell to a jingle, and the girl flinched at the noise.