THAT WAS EASIER SAID than done, though, since Chief Wilder was far too busy to even take meals with his wife and daughter that day and the next. In fact, instead of hunting down the cause of Haven’s collective depression, I ended up suffering through an afternoon surrounded by giggling cousins as they fitted me for my wedding dress (groom to be announced). The trauma was lessened only slightly when I realized that Quetzalli was even more shell-shocked by the episode than I was.
Since Cricket was darning socks in the corner as a sort of mood stabilizer, I did my best to smile and nod, otherwise ignoring what was going on around me. But even my hard-boiled mood couldn’t overlook the excitement of my youngest cousin, Iris. “You’re so lucky,” the teenager trilled as she hemmed the edges of a
