She looked at him openmouthed. “What on earth can you mean?”

Calvin was suddenly hesitant. “What did you mean?”

“I meant that he was so preoccupied with it, he hardly seemed to notice me at times. It became a bit of an obsession.”

“Siân, I am very serious about this…”—he closed his eyes for a moment and then mouthed the single word distinctly—“…curse. My mother told me flatly that the key must pass between the women of the family. It should never have been given to Will. She said it would cause mischief.”

“You don’t really believe that? That Will’s accident was because of some curse.” Siân had lived too long around a family of nonsuperstitious minds to give this idea a moment’s credence.

“I do.” Calvin was stoical. “I’m deadly serious. The whole accident was too strange. Sudden fog. The river. You said he was a really good biker. And to die from a cranial aneurysm—my understanding is that’s often like an ancient wound coming back from the past to kill you. It usually happens if you’ve had a head injury before, and something needles it again, to set off the time bomb.” His blue-gray eyes were half-hostile to her. “It should never have happened. And I might just as seriously suggest that you two probably broke up because of that key.”

Siân’s jaw dropped. She was angry, upset, and completely astonished. She wasn’t at all swayed by his argument. Will was sporty and physical. He’d had a dozen falls or blows in the course of his life. She understood about the clot: this was no curse. But she was worried by the fact that this strangely altered man with her genuinely believed in it. She searched his face to try to understand him. He was religious—she knew that—but it had never seemed to her that he was irrational. Only that he had a strict belief system that was different from hers, made him prefer to live somewhere else and just stay the night sometimes. And now to suggest that she and Will had parted because of some ill luck attached to an inanimate object? It was ridiculous.

Calvin had been examining his fingers for a few moments, as if deciding whether to say more, and then he committed himself. “This girl Lucy certainly shouldn’t have it. It’s dangerous. It’s very unlucky. Someone who knows what they’re doing should be in control of it. It should return with me to my mom.” He closed the conversation without further explanation, and left, slamming the door heavily.

15