Chapter 175: That Sounded Like Somebody Else’s Fish

Dove read Nolan’s note at the counter while Iris finished her cold drink. The thing beneath the dock was part of a dead fish, according to the men who had first pulled it clear. Nolan wasn’t certain what kind. The hard growth along its back looked wrong, and he had kept everyone away from it until somebody with more knowledge could take a look.

"I’m very flattered," Dove said, "but selling buns hasn’t made me qualified to inspect a mysterious fish."

Iris shook her head. "He asked me to pass the warning on because you used the lake road. He’s sending word to the base’s survey team."

"Excellent. I support experts having an afternoon."

She meant it. She could be curious from here, where nothing dead was dangling under a dock. They marked the hotel shoreline as a place to avoid until the people looking at it had something useful to say. Sprout saved Nolan’s report as unconfirmed, not as proof of a new creature it had secretly understood all along.

The real question concerned their next trip. Nolan had also mentioned a recreational-vehicle dealer beyond the campground road. He had seen its sign from the highway but hadn’t searched it. Dove’s first thought was chairs, storage boxes, kitchen equipment, and camping supplies. Her second was a bed that could come with them.

Sprout showed a locked shop truck: a driving cab, shelves, and a window that opened for customers. The next husband upgrade. Dove recognized Ash’s portrait beside it and shut the preview. *You are not selling me a dragon with cup holders,* she told it privately. She could inspect an ordinary vehicle without owing that man anything.

"We’re checking it first," Thorne said when he saw her face.

"I haven’t said anything," she protested, although she had already started imagining where they would sleep.

"You looked at the word motorhome and stopped blinking. I know that look."

Edrik took the note. "We can look."

Dove turned to him with open affection. Thorne sighed at both of them.

"Looking becomes wanting. Wanting becomes bringing home a vehicle none of us has checked."

"Then we check it," Dove said. "I didn’t say I wanted to drive off in a box held together by curtains."

Iris laughed into her drink. She knew a transport mechanic who sometimes took outside work. If they found something worth inspecting, she could ask whether he would look at it for an agreed fee. Dove asked how much he usually charged before her imagination spent their food money.

Dove thanked her and put the note away. For now, they still had a shop to close and a room they had paid to keep. She could enjoy the idea without dragging everybody out of bed before sunrise.

After Iris left, a customer came for the last working wall fan. Dove demonstrated it during the power window and traded it for sealed food and a good hand tool Edrik had wanted. The broken repair fan stayed on its shelf. Selling the sound one didn’t magically fix it.

Her husbands finished the day’s work while she counted the remaining stock. Sprout’s final record left her with nine hundred and seventy-two normal coins and fourteen Favor after the retained food tray. The new shelf had cost a lot, but she had already eaten one very convincing argument in its favor.

She put the record away and called Edrik behind the curtain, empty-handed.

He looked at her for a moment, then obeyed. Thorne stayed at the front to finish with a late customer, leaving them a little privacy. Dove sat on the bed and patted the space beside her.

"I noticed you didn’t tell me the motorhome was stupid."

"It isn’t stupid. Wanting it before we know anything would be inconvenient."

"That’s a nicer word for stupid."

"No. I’ve done stupid. This isn’t close."

She looked up at him, curious. He had spent enough time depending on other people’s routes to understand wanting a place that moved when she chose.

Dove picked at a loose thread on the bedspread. "I don’t want to run forever."

"Then don’t buy it to run. Buy it if it lets you go somewhere you want."

That was different enough to make her quiet. She hadn’t noticed how often she imagined leaving as something done to her, even now that she chose the road.

Edrik waited. When she leaned against his shoulder, he put an arm around her without turning the moment into a promise he couldn’t prove.

Thorne joined them after closing. Dove explained what she’d been thinking, less neatly this time, with stops while she found words that didn’t sound like she hated their room. He listened, then sat on her other side.

"I like coming back here," he said. "I also like you having a choice. We can look without deciding."

She smiled against Edrik’s shoulder. "You’re both being reasonable. It’s very suspicious."

"We ate well," Thorne told her. "Enjoy it while it lasts."

Before dinner, she laid the warning beside the map. "Sprout, can you tell whether that fish was sick or changed by a power?"

"A secondhand description is insufficient for either conclusion."

"Wonderful. Something ugly happened and we’re all equally qualified. Can you at least keep the warning with the route?"

It could record what she had been told. That would do. She wrote Nolan a thank-you and no offer to inspect anything with mysterious growths. Edrik read it at her request, one arm along the back of her chair.

"Not volunteering us for the fish?" he asked.

"You’re handsome enough already. I don’t need you growing a second head."

"Would you kiss both?" Edrik asked, offering his perfectly good face for her to consider.

She pushed his face away, laughing, then reached for him again before he could move. "Let’s try keeping this one."

They made a generous dinner from their pantry, cooking what they took out and leaving sealed goods for later. Dove glanced toward the single postcard above their bed. She wanted another view to put beside it, preferably one they had visited without being chased away.

Later, she checked the map with both men. The RV dealer lay beyond a retail strip they hadn’t searched, and the gate could tell them whether the western road remained clear. It could be a normal salvage day even if every vehicle was useless.

Then she noticed a detail Nolan had underlined on the copied sign. The dealership had advertised winter storage for privately owned vehicles before the disaster.

Somewhere behind those gates might be homes people had expected to come back for, and Dove needed to know which doors she had any right to open.