Now he looks confused that I’m confused. “We’re looking for Abigail, correct? Frederick named his first ship after her.”

I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, but Mason is clearly waiting for me to figure it out on my own, so I do my best to scan through the rooms in my mind. The walls had actually been fairly devoid of decoration, besides the mermaid. And I definitely hadn’t seen other images of any women’s faces. So where were we supposed to look?

“The library?” he says hopefully.

My favorite room in the house. I think of the full shelves and sliding ladder. The sections on travel and tarot and sailing…

And then I remember what Sage had written in her letter. Frederick’s first ship had been a gift from his father-in-law, named for his new bride. The Abigail. That’s what the strange half statue was—it was a ship’s figurehead. She had probably been on The Abigail. Maybe she was Abigail.

“The statue,” I manage.

“Bingo,” Mason says. “They put them on the front of all the ships for luck.”

“Hot damn,” Violet says. “Mason, you are something. I told you that you needed him, Willow. Didn’t I?”

Mason’s smile is now bordering on smug, which is a new look for him, but honestly, he deserves it. I knew he was smart from what I’d read in his notebook, but how had his mind worked that quickly? I’d been puzzling over the clue for nearly a full day.

“Is there anything you don’t know about my family?” I ask.

He hesitates, then says, “Still figuring you out,” and his dark eyes meet mine. The aunts immediately hoot with delight, but even so, pleasure spins slowly through me, fine as cotton candy. He’s flirting with me, right in front of the aunts, which is embarrassing but also a tiny bit magical. I’m excited to find Sage’s next letter, but I might be even more excited to find it with him.

“Told you,” Marigold says. “Love match in the making, mark my word….”

A tiny noise erupts from my throat, half dismay, half horror.

“Marigold!” Violet says. “We don’t tell people who they’ll fall for. But he sure is something.”

I don’t respond because it is suddenly very important that I stuff a bite of waffles into my mouth. She’s right. Mason is most definitely something. Literally every second I’m with him makes me like him just a tiny bit more.

“You two had better get going,” Violet says. “The curse can’t wait all day.”