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“Double or nothing,” I said with a forced grin.“You can pay me later.Are you going to knock?”
She stared at me for another moment.I smiled blandly back as if I didn’t know exactly what she wanted to talk about.I didn’t see any point in having the discussion.She wasn’t going to die.That’s why I’d agreed to this scheme—to make sure of it.
The truth was, she didn’t want to talk about it either.That’s why she knocked on the door instead of making us have some sort of emotional conversation about what might happen.I was like her in that way: When faced with a problem, the only thing I wanted to think about was how to solve it.
We waited.I could hear music from a passing car, someone’s kids playing in their backyard, and the distant roar of a plane overhead.All of it made me itchy.Missoula wasn’t a big city, but I’ve spent my whole life sharing thousands of acres with a few hundred people.When the Lodge was at capacity in the middle of the tourist high season, it doubled the population of Twisted Pines.
Mom checked her watch, then raised her hand to knock again just as the door swung open.
My still-pounding heart stopped short.
The woman had wild wide brown eyes, wild bronze hair in a halo around her head.Her skin was brown as the richest suede and flushed with heat.She wore neat trousers and a silky T-shirt covered in dust.With an irritable gesture, she shoved her glasses up as they slipped down her nose.“Yes?”
“Hello.We’re here to see Professor Matthews.We have an appointment,” Mom informed her when the woman just gaped at her.
The woman swallowed and closed her eyes.When she opened them again, the confusion and pain I saw there winded me more thoroughly than the stairs.“I’m sorry to tell you this, but Professor Matthews is dead.”
