“In fact,” Madeleine continued, “whenever I’ve thought about leaving, I’ve felt the strongest pull against it. Like a little voice telling me I need to stay here until I figure this out. I don’t think it’s a bad voice. Not that I’m saying I’m hearing voices, it’s not like that, it’s just…” She trailed off.

Hæra said nothing, which seemed like its own kind of miracle. She waited.

“Look, whatever’s going on, I’m not ready for—for what we did in that alley.” Madeleine’s face burned. “It isn’t just that you’re not…like me. Although it is that. It’s a lot of things. It’s—I mean, for one thing, you’re a lot younger than me, aren’t you?”

“No,” Hæra said. “I’m nearly one hundred years old.”

For a second, Madeleine grew dizzy. She put her hand to her forehead. “Oh.”

Hæra frowned. “Why would our ages be important?”

Okay. Madeleine could deal with this too. She could deal, somehow, with all of this. “I, um…I guess in the bigger scheme of things they’re not. Listen, I can’t imagine I’m the only one who should think about this. If you’re not like me, then I’m not like you. Doesn’t that give you pause?”

Hæra pursed her lips. Then she nodded, looking as if she didn’t want to.

A strange feeling squirmed in Madeleine’s stomach. It felt like an improbable mixture of relief and disappointment. “There you are. We both have a lot to figure out. But…” She took in a breath so deep that it was painful to exhale it. “I think we should figure it out together.”

Hæra’s face changed again. Its long, sharp planes softened. Her eyes glowed. In relief, possibly. How could Madeleine learn to interpret her?

Unless she stuck around?

“However it happened, we were brought together for a reason,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t know what to believe anymore, but I believe that. And I want to see what it means.”

“So do I,” Hæra said. “I thought I knew what it meant once. Now, I’m not sure.”

“What did you think it meant?”

Hæra hesitated. “Nothing. Never mind. It wouldn’t make sense to you.”

Did any of this? Madeleine stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets again. “I’m not saying I’ll stay all summer. But my plans just got more flexible.”

She’d have to tell Becca, who might be supportive of her extended stay. Or Becca might think she’d lost her mind, and she wouldn’t be shy about saying so. And that was without putting the whole “supernatural creature” element into the equation.