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“It’s a small island,” Saber said. “I brought up Ansel today and everyone knew who he was.”
Her dad looked at her pointedly.
“Why were you talking about Ansel?”
“Oh, uh, we were just talking about rich tech dudes who live on the island. I wasn’t, like, bragging or gossiping or anything.”
She was not about to tell her dad theexactcontext.
“He’s a very private guy.”
“Should I not have told people we went to his house for dinner? It’s not like it’s a secret that you work for Glacier, it’s not weird. I didn’t say anything except that he had that painting.”
“No,” he sighed. “Sorry I got defensive. It’s fine. He asked after you, complimented me on raising such a smart kid. I told him I had very little to do with it.”
They ate in silence for a minute. Saber was worried that if she said anything else it would make her idiotic crush on her dad’s boss obvious.
“It’s going to be cold next week,” her father finally said. “Do we need to go clothes shopping?”
“Oh,” Saber said, looking up. “Most definitely.”
6
The days got shorter still, the air cooler. The rain, usually a misty drizzle, sometimes a downpour, came and went like a tide that ebbs and flows, never fully retreating. Saber hated being stuck indoors during the only hours of daylight. It seemed like a kind of subtle torture to be kept inside while the sun was visible. It barely was anyway.
School let out early every Wednesday, and Saber found that she was grateful for the chance to walk outside, usually alone. She ambled down trails that snaked through parks and woods around her house, along waterside ridge lines with the crashing surf beneath, like the heroine in some Gothic English novel. She walked even if it was wet and chilly, a combination that made the cold stick to the skin of her hands and face like a film. Always, there were the ravens, gathering, gathering, along the telephone wires and tree branches, circling above with observant patience.
It was on one of these walks that she met Doug.
She came upon him, an older man holding a gnarled walking stick, standing over a dead animal.
“Wow,” she said as she walked up. “Is that somebody’s dog?”
“Look again,” he said, and she looked.
It wasn’t a dog.
“Is that awolf?”
“Coyote,” he said, poking it a little with his walking stick.
“Oh,” she said. “I’ve never seen one before.”
He laughed.
“Then you must not have lived here for very long.
“A little over a month, I guess? Six weeks?”
“Keep an eye open, and they’re everywhere, like the ravens.”
“There are a lot of ravens, aren’t there?”
He nodded.
“Sometimes you’ll see these guys hit by cars or caught in nuisance animal traps.”
“That’s sad.”
