I will love you either way, my Eve. I always have, and I always will.

Lucille

The tears fell, hot and silent. Eve closed her eyes. Tried to make sense of the swirling sensation inside her chest. It felt like sorrow. But also like hope. Those two things should have been contradictory.

How many times this past year had she thought about how Sawyer, with his rough hands and his soft beard, inspired contradictory emotions? About how this whole town did?

She kept her eyes closed. Her eyeballs physically hurt. Okay. This was going to be okay. This letter felt like a bomb exploding in her lap, but it wasn’t actually telling her anything she didn’t already know.

This was her dream job. This inn with the Little Free Library. The fairy tales they both held.

This was her dream, period. This town. Her old—and new—friends.

And maybe, if he would have her, Sawyer?

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She blinked, thinking at first that tears were making her see things. But no, there was something there, in the mirror. It was angled so she could see out the reflection of the window.

She leaned forward, squinting.

Balloons. It was Maya’s camp.

Dozens of balloons were floating up, up into a sky as blue as the lake.

And they were all shaped like mermaids.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The next morning, Eve woke to a pounding in her head. “Oh,” she groaned.

“Ugh,” Maya said. “Seconded.”

They were in the pink room. After her revelation last night, Eve had summoned Maya. And Maya had come with wine. So much wine. They hadn’t even talked. She’d shown Maya the letter and burst into tears. Maya had poured wine down her throat, and held her while she cried ten years’ worth of tears. Tears for lost opportunities but also for found ones. Tears for lost voices and found voices.

Eve rolled over so she was face-to-face with Maya. “I’m staying here. I’m keeping the inn.”

Maya smiled. “Of course you are.”

“I think what Lucille was trying to say was that in the end, the Disney version is the right model, you know?” Eve paused, trying to make the swirling thoughts of yesterday coalesce into a plan of action. “Better than the tragic version, anyway? So I was thinking. In the movie, Ariel is trying to figure out where she belongs, right? She wants to be part of the human world, but she doesn’t feel like she fits.” She blew out a breath. Man, this was going to sound corny. “Well, this is my world. This silly town is where I want to be.”