She’d clearly not met the Moons yet. “There is little her mother enjoys more than having guests—and you’ll be the most important one she can claim, so I can’t imagine she’d ever see you as an imposition.”

She didn’t seem entirely comfortable with the thought of being an important guest though. It hummed through her fingers and into his arm. “I’m looking forward to making their acquaintance.”

Was she? Because she sounded a bit more like she was afraid of it.

She shook off whatever doubts plagued her over meeting the Moons and smiled up at him. “And how has your day been, Mr. Tremayne?”

With most new acquaintances, he would have equivocated and talked of neutral matters. But this new acquaintance already knew the gravest of his concerns. And his grandmother had embarrassed them. It seemed only fair that he give her the truth instead, so he drew in a long breath, let it carefully out. “Concerning, to be honest. You remember the mention of the young man who died in Piper’s Hole a few weeks ago?”

She nodded. “Johnnie Rosedew.”

He was a bit surprised that she remembered his full name, but she did like to categorize things, so perhaps it was natural for her. “That’s right. Well, since then, a few locals have reported strange noises in said cave and supposed sightings of a White Lady on the coastlines. Which has led to a bit of speculation that it’s his ghost rendezvousing with another.”

“They actually believe such tales?”

He shrugged and led her toward the shortcut into the Gardens, through the back wall. “Most of them don’t, not really. But sometimes the stories of the unexplained, the mysterious, the ancient are more compelling than the simpler explanations. And when you combine that with a community still reeling from grief and shock . . .”

Her nod looked thoughtful. And hesitant. “But as a man of science . . . ?”

“I know that generally there are logical explanations able to be discovered if one can collect all the data—though more often than I like, it’s impossible to find what I know must be there.”

He liked the way she looked up at him. With thought but curiosity. Respect but challenge. Perhaps he shouldn’t like it quite so much.

“You said ‘generally.’”

He looked forward again, to the world he knew so well. The one that, most of the time, he understood. But because he knew it, he also knew where it ended. Where the else that Beth was always seeking could really be found.