In practice she wasn’t hosting anything. She was 100 percent on the defensive.

“I say this with love,” Pearl said, fondling a wineglass that had “Drink Like a Fish” written on it along with a picture of a mermaid, “but this place has gone downhill.”

Eve did wonder about that. “I remember some of this mermaid stuff, but not like this. Lucille thought of mermaids as these fantastical, mythical, borderline-scary creatures.” She picked up—or tried to, but of course it was glued down—an Ariel figurine that couldn’t have been more different from the sad mer-girls in Lucille’s bedroom. “She loved the original fairy tale.”

“That’s right!” Pearl said. “I had forgotten that. The tragic story of the mermaid who gave up her voice to come to land for the love of a man.”

“And her tail,” Eve added.

“Yes! And walking on legs was like walking with knives shoved into her flesh at all times.” Pearl’s chipper tone was at odds with the gruesome images her words conjured.

“But then it was all for naught because her prince betrayed her and married another, and instead of murdering him, which was the only way to get her old life back, she decided to throw herself into the sea,” Eve said.

Pearl frowned. “I thought she became some sort of magical spirit being?”

“Yeah, well, she kind of did. There was this surprise loophole where if she performed three hundred years of good deeds for humanity, she’d get her soul back. Three hundred years.”

“It’s funny,” Pearl mused. “I definitely remember Lucille’s obsession with those dark fairy tales, but she kind of dropped it in recent years.”

“Hence the Disney explosion?” Eve asked.

“Hmm.” Pearl looked around like she was assessing the inn with new eyes. “I think there are two things going on here. One is that people kept giving her this junk. She kept talking about wanting to renovate, but I think she was getting too frail to actually do it.”

Guilt complex: activated. “And the second thing?”

“Some people get more rigid and cranky with age, but some of us stop caring about all the crap you young ones worry about and just have more fun. Maybe Lucille just decided to lighten up a bit.” She put her hands on her hips. “Regardless, some of this junk has got to go. A theme is cute, but this is not a theme. This is a sledgehammer to the skull. When you reopen—”

“I’m not opening the inn.” She had decided this morning. She would take on more debt if she had to, in order to pay the bills until she could sell.

“—you want people to be charmed, not overwhelmed. You want—”

“Pearl.”

“Sorry, what?” Pearl had been slowly spinning in place, but she stopped and looked at Eve—finally.