The Key to Anchor Lake ✓

42 : Blaire

B L A I R E

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It's safe to say that I've been riding pretty high for the past forty-eight hours, ever since Sukie literally took my breath away – several times, actually, until we were both red-faced and it was clear she'd had her hands in my hair, and Elizabeth gave me a knowing look once we were alone.

She left after lunch a couple of days ago, with the reminder that there's a book club today, and her promise not to tell the others anything about Elizabeth. Not until I'm ready, and she is too. After weeks of sifting through her life without a clue that it was her trauma, the last thing I want is to expose those wounds to everyone else. I can see her pain more clearly now; she makes more sense to me, and in the three days since I found out the truth, we've been closer than ever.

I'm making toast when she comes into the kitchen and her hand brushes my elbow, a gentle squeeze to say good morning. It is a good morning: I slept well last night. My dreams were sweet after I fell asleep thinking about Sukie.

"Hey, Elizabeth?"

"Mmm?" She flicks the kettle on and takes out a couple of mugs, a spoon of coffee in each. I'm predicable, always starting the day with a sweet white coffee, but she isn't. She chops and changes between coffee and tea, sometimes white, sometimes black, sometimes herbal, so making drinks is usually her job in the morning.

"Is it okay if I stay for a while?"

"What do you mean?"

"Can I live with you for a while?" I ask, taking my eyes off the toaster to look at her. She looks confused, eyebrows furrowed over those sky-blue eyes.

"Of course," she says. "Was that not the plan already?"

I shrug. "I don't know. This was sprung on us. On you. I just wanted to make sure."

She touches my shoulder and kisses the top of my head, snippets of affection that I'm still getting used to from her. "You know you're welcome here, Blaire. And anyway, it's over a year before you'll have access to your inheritance – it'll still be months before I have it, what with solicitors and probate and all of that nonsense. I assumed you'd be with me until at least then."

A sense of relief slowly sinks in, like I've addressed a worry I didn't even know I had. It's been hard to think of this as my home when for so long I've felt like a shadow of a guest in a B&B, but I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere.

"We're the last of our kind," Elizabeth says, stirring half a teaspoon of sugar into my mug, dissolving as it swirls. "We have to stick together."

The toaster pings, four slices of perfectly browned toast popping up. I pass two to Elizabeth, another part of our ritual. I didn't even notice the patterns we were forming until they'd become routine, the way she always boils the kettle and I always make the toast, and we always factor in the other.

"Maybe we should leave, find somewhere less cursed to live," I say. Though the thought of leaving now, now that things are going right, doesn't sit well with me.

Her expression turns sad, resigned. Her shoulders slump as she shakes her head, buttering her toast. "No, I can't." She looks up at me with that sorrowed smile, the kind that comes with a deep breath, a long sigh. "I buried my daughter here, Blaire. I can't leave Anchor Lake."

I think of Mum on the mantelpiece, the way I carried her from one end of the country to the other. If she had been buried in London, I don't know if I would have been able to leave.

"I get that," I murmur.

"My life's too tangled up in this town," she says, passing me my mug. We take a seat at the same time, fresh flowers on the table. Sukie brought them over yesterday and I didn't even notice until she left. "There's a whole world out there for you, though. You've already seen it for yourself."