"Unusual how?" Cavendish asked, curiosity getting the better of him. Barbara set down her glass, the milk leaving a faint mustache on her upper lip that she wiped off with one brisk swipe of her sleeve. "Farmer says he heard something howling down there. Kept him awake three nights running. Cows are jumpy, dogs won't go near it."
Cavendish grunted. That was nothing new on the edge of the forest; critters were always digging holes. "You woke me up for a haunted well?"
Barbara rolled her eyes. "Three other people in the village have gone to look. None came back."
Now Cavendish's interest pricked, just a bit. Disappearances were... well, they always paid better than exorcisms. He tried to keep his face neutral, but Barbara noticed, of course.
"Thought you were bored out here," she said, nudging her glass toward him for a refill. "Figured you'd want an adventure. Unless you prefer milking pies for the old comrade and die here alone."
Cavendish hesitated, the unspoken challenge catching him off-guard. He'd intended to stay retired. Had planned it all out: a life of regular meals, predictable days, no more endless cat-and-mouse. No more waking up with a pounding heart every time the wind shifted.
Barbara, curse her, knew all of this. She was practically smirking behind her empty glass.
"What's the bounty?" Cavendish asked, careful to sound disinterested.
Barbara shrugged. "Town council's offering thirty gold to investigate, another fifty if you solve it. Plus, rumor is, the last guy down there was carrying something valuable. Family seal, maybe a signet ring?"
Seventy gold. That was almost enough to fix the roof and buy a new mattress. Maybe even pay off Greggory at the post.
Cavendish swung his legs off the cot and stood, stretching until his back popped. "If it really pays that well,It's worth a look. Pays well, too, if we bring back proof."
"Let's not put the cart before the corpse," Barbara said, but she was already fishing through her satchel. She pulled out a scrap of parchment, unfolded it with a flourish, and shoved it across the table. "Here. The council posted this in the square yesterday."
A few lines of hasty ink, the dire news embellished with a woodcut of a furious-looking bovine. Cavendish read it twice, then a third time, lips moving slightly. Had to be some kind of animal, or a bandit at most. All the same, seventy gold for a stroll and a peek sounded like the best offer he'd heard in weeks.
"I'll need to pack," he said, already making a mental inventory of the gear he hadn't pawned. Rope, the lantern, the good boots if he could find them. "And you're not planning on showing up to a haunted cavern in that dress, are you?"
Barbara grinned, sharp and crooked as ever. "Packing already?"
Cavendish scowled and started rummaging through his single battered trunk. The inside was a time capsule: remnants of his old life jumbled with the tools of rural subsistence. He ignored the dried-up lock picks and ancient wanted posters, digging instead for the stout hemp rope and his well-used lantern. Memory flared—cold wind, moonless nights, Barbara's laughter echoing off wet stone—and for a terrible second he regretted every yes he'd ever given her.
He straightened, rope over one shoulder. "When do we leave?"