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Molly gave the bus another look. It was missing its stop sign and “School Bus” lettering, and had blue and pink paint swirled across the front section. “He makes pancakes in a school bus?”
“Yes, it’s like a food truck, and you can sit in the back while you eat. He has tables and chairs back there.”
“Have you been inside?”
“No, because he just got back to town. Want to try?” Her eager expression made Molly think of the last time they’d met for brunch in Manhattan. Lila had wanted scrambled eggs, but the place refused to make anything so simple. Eggs had to be either poached on a bed of New Zealand spinach or whipped into a chanterelle omelet. Not once had she seen this level of anticipation on Lila’s face.
“I don’t know, I might get PTSD flashbacks from school.”
Lila laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll sit next to you. Remember when you used to glare at everyone so they wouldn’t sit with you, but I just ignored that and did it anyway?”
Molly had tried her best to scare Lila away, the way she’d managed with all the other kids. By that point in her school career, she knew the stench of her home life followed her everywhere. She couldn’t smell it, but other people could if they got too close. Sometimes she managed to get up early enough to splash water on her body at the kitchen sink. But she didn’t want to take too long doing that because there were often random drugged-out strangers spending the night. The last thing she wanted was to run into one of them half-naked.
But Lila had ignored both the bad smell and the glare Molly had directed at her. Morning after morning, the dreamy blond sprite had perched on the bench seat next to her. Even better than having a seat mate was the fact that Lila had some kind of fragrance that floated around her and made everything it came into contact with smell better. Including Molly.
Then on Molly’s birthday, Lila had given her a square blue bottle that contained a mix of essential oils that her mother had custom-blended for her.
“It’s to help with mental focus and clarity in adverse circumstances,” Lila had explained. “Because you said it can be hard to find space to study at your house.”
It also made her smell delicious, and Molly never knew if that was a side-benefit or the main point. It didn’t matter. Lila could have handed it to her and said, “this is to mask your repulsive stench,” and Molly would have forgiven her. Never in her life had she received such unquestioning acceptance from another person.
The least she could do in return—well, besides flying to Alaska in case she was in trouble—was to eat some buttermilk pancakes in a half-painted yellow school bus.
“Sure, let’s go try some bus grub. He doesn’t cook the pancakes on the manifold, does he? My mother used to do that when our power got turned off.”
“Maybe he does. Crepes a la Diesel. Could be a thing.”
Molly laughed, suddenly so glad to be with her old friend that none of the weird circumstances mattered.
“Before we go inside, I just need to say one thing.” Lila put a hand on her arm, her expression deadly serious. “There’s no point in questioning me about why I needed to come here. I don’t know why. I just got a feeling that I had to, and that it was a matter of life or death.”
A chill slithered down Molly’s spine, as if someone had dropped snow down her shirt. “Whose life? Or death?”
“That’s the thing. I have no idea. Every day I wake up dreading the news that someone has died.”
“Has anyone?”
“No. I hope I’m wrong. Before I got here, there were a few fatal accidents, though. A man froze to death in a trappers cabin. A skier fell off the glacier near the Ice Falls. So maybe that’s what I picked up on.”
Maybe, but Lila’s intuition never lied.
“Should we watch our backs?”
Lila shivered as she tucked her chin under her scarf. “That’s the other thing. I feel like you’re all supposed to be here. I don’t know why, but the last time I had that feeling…”
“We avoided a school shooting,” Molly finished for her.
“Exactly. I really hope Charlie and Ani come soon. I want everyone here where I can keep an eye on them.”
“Well, that won’t be hard in a town with one road.”
Lila’s face cleared and she smiled at Molly’s jaunty tone. “It has more than one road, silly. It has at least three roads and so many mountain trails that you’re going to want to move here.”
As they climbed the steps into the emergency exit-turned-entrance into the Magic Breakfast Bus, Molly decided that she was definitely going to watch her back, and Lila’s too, and she wasn’t leaving until all chance of danger had passed.
12
On day two of the late storm—likely the last of the season—Sam holed up on the glassed-in porch of his house and watched the thick waves of snowflakes race past, hurried along by wind gusts up to fifty miles per hour. His house was perched on an outcropping with a view of treetops—birch, cottonwood, spruce, fir—and the stunning sunsets that gave Firelight Ridge its name.
