“You know,” said Barnabas. “If we keep going east after Sunville, we’ll pass through Zenda and the swamps.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to visit the mermaids?”

“Do you?”

“I want to know if you do.”

“I’ve seen them already.”

Barnabas sighed. “I wanted to know if you wanted to—reconnect, or something. I would love to go, if you wanted to. They hold no interest for me otherwise.”

“So you want to see my deep dark past?”

“No. I thought you had fond memories of your years there.”

“I do. But I don’t want to go back.”

“Why?”

“Because they don’t want me back.”

Barnabas doubted it.

“They sent me away,” said Vincent.

“They probably thought it was for the best.”

“Ugh.”

“They live in the water and you don’t. I’m sure they didn’t want you to grow up feeling like there was something you could never be a part of, that you didn’t belong.”

“But I do feel like that.”

“That isn’t their fault, though.”

Vincent didn’t say anything.

“You just don’t want to go back because you’re afraid they might not have missed you.”

“I don’t have any reason to think they have.”

“Wouldn’t you rather know?”

“I guess. I’ll think about it.”

Barnabas kissed Vincent on the forehead and went to get some snacks. They ate bean burritos and drank lavender tea and watched the landscape slide by. Barnabas was just contemplating a nap when they found they’d arrived in Sunville. They didn’t like it. Someone had told them that the town had been named such so that people would visit it, so, naturally, they assumed it would be gloomy and dark and plagued by rain. It was not. When they got off the train, it was so sunny that Barnabas could barely keep his eyes open.

“We can stop in at a gift shop and get you some sunglasses,” said Vincent.

“I don’t want sunglasses, I want clouds.”

“We can’t buy those.”