24That evening, the inn bustled with excitement. Mrs. Wyatt decorated the house with colorful wreaths and lined the windowsills with candles. A clutch of sailors lounged on the lower steps of the staircase strumming crude instruments with bows—the same sort Lena and Javelin had once unearthed from a small passenger ship for their grotto. Then, the wooden artifacts had been fractured or reduced to rubble. Now, beautiful melodies drifted through the halls. Music spun through the air like a swirling current and seemed to fill the empty spaces in Lena’s heart. She wondered if her brother’s ghost would return this evening to hear it too.
Mrs. Wyatt was in high spirits, which only added to the strangeness of the day. She chirped her instructions rather than barking orders, and hummed along when
