Moon Cursed Read Online Free PDF

outside?”
    “I meant in a cup.”
    “We have dat, too.”
    In seconds Kris did, along with a bag of ground beans to take back to the cottage.
    “You must be de writer woman stayin’ at Effy’s place.”
    “Word travels fast.”
    “Word is all we have here of a misty eve. I’m Jamaica.” She offered her hand. “Jamaica Blue.”
    “That’s really your name?”
    The woman just smiled.
    Over the intoxicating aroma wafting from her cup, Kris smelled a story. “Care to join me?” she asked.
    Jamaica’s exotic eyes flicked around the currently empty shop. “Don’t mind if I do.”
    She grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler. “I drink my share of coffee before seven A.M. ,” she explained.
    They took a table by the window and watched the crowds stream by.
    “Is it always like this?” Kris asked.
    “Some days are busier dan others, but…” Jamaica took a large swig from the bottle. “Yes.”
    “Nessie’s good for business.”
    “Nessie is our bizness.”
    Kris took a sip of coffee. “Mmm,” she said, the sound a commentary on both the taste and Jamaica’s remark. “How long have you lived here?”
    “Ye dinnae think I’m a local?” Jamaica replied with a perfect Scottish brogue.
    Kris lifted a brow, and Jamaica laughed.
    “I opened dis place … oh, ’bout five years back.”
    “Have you seen Nessie?”
    “Of course.”
    “Really?”
    “You t’ink I’m lying?”
    Kris thought everyone was lying, but that was just Kris. “You said yourself, Nessie is your business.”
    “Mmm,” Jamaica murmured, the sound very Scottish.
    How long had Jamaica had to live here to acquire the talent for a murmur that said both everything and nothing? Perhaps it came with the ability to speak in a brogue.
    “You are right. Nessie is good bizness.” Jamaica gazed out the window in the direction of the loch. “But I have seen her.”
    “When? Where?”
    “De day I arrived I drove along A Eighty-two. Sun was shinin’ like today. Saw something move on de loch, and when I turned my head, dere she was. Plain as dat sun, swimming along right next to de road.”
    Kris opened her mouth, but nothing came out. What could she say? The word in her head— bullshit —just didn’t seem appropriate.
    “She welcomed me to my new life. Led me right into Drumnadrochit.”
    “Have you—uh—seen her since?”
    Jamaica shook her head, and her dreads flew. “I don’t need to. I know she’s dere.”
    “Mmm,” Kris said, the comment not Scottish at all.
    “You don’t believe?” Jamaica drank some water, but she kept a measuring gaze on Kris.
    “I didn’t say that.”
    “You didn’t have to.”
    “I met a man last night,” Kris blurted.
    Jamaica’s perfectly arched brows arched further. “Already? Good for you. What’s his name?”
    “I’m hoping you might know. He disappeared before I could ask.”
    “Disappeared? You sure he was dere?”
    Kris sighed. Questions like that always gave her a headache.
    “I’m sure.” Quickly she described her mystery man, ending with, “His hair was wet. Anyone like to swim in the loch?”
    Jamaica snorted. “De experts say de loch too cold to support a monster. Which makes it too damn cold for swimming.”
    “ Monster, by definition, means something beyond anything we know. So how can the experts say the water’s too cold for a monster?”
    “Experts say a lot of t’ings,” Jamaica observed. “Most of it’s crap.”
    Kris laughed. She liked Jamaica more with each passing minute.
    “I t’ink in dis case dey talkin’ ’bout de plesiosaur principle. You know it?”
    “Sir Somebody theorized that the Loch Ness Monster was a plesiosaur, a long-necked reptile that swam through warm inland seas in the days of the dinosaurs.”
    “But Nessie would have to be a herd of plesiosaurs. Just because dey might not be extinct don’t mean dey be immortal.”
    “Right,” Kris agreed. “The shape and size of what people have seen is about right for a plesiosaur,