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Until Lozen and Saber both got texts at the same time from Caroline and both looked at each other in utter horror.
“What?” her dad asked. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah,” Saber said. Her voice sounded a little choked, but she forced it to be normal. “This girl we know, Laurel Jennings, didn’t come home last night. People are looking for her.”
Lozen looked at Saber.
“Do you know what happened to her?”
“No,” Saber said. “Last time I saw her, she was fine.”
“What happened?” Saber’s dad asked, and they both looked at him.
“This girl we go to school with is missing,” Lozen said. “We kind of knew her.”
“Oh, I hope she’s ok,” Jim said, and Saber swallowed and looked down at her dumplings swimming in soy sauce.
On the way back from the ferry ride, Saber invented a reason she needed to be alone, dropped off Lozen, then looked up Doug’s address online. She drove straight to his house and found him in his yard, dumping mulch over his raised garden beds. His yard was beautiful, with a few enormous, mature cedar trees and some orderly raised beds in metal troughs. A stream ran through the backyard.
“Doug,” she said, a little breathless, and he seemed surprised to see her and took a moment to place her.
“Young Saber,” he said. “How nice to see you, however… surprising.”
He put down his trowel and smiled at her kindly.
“Doug, hi, sorry. I looked up your address.”
“I’m flattered. Do you have a question about… plants?”
“No.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes before she spoke again. “I saw something really crazy, and I don’t think I can tell anyone but you.”
He looked at her with vague concern, like maybe she wanted to involve him in something he didn’t want to be involved with.
“Come inside, Saber,” he said, waving his hand. “Let’s put on some tea.”
Doug’s house was so charming, like something out of a storybook.
A small cottage with a very quaint stone fireplace in the center of his living room. It was filled with plants, books, and an assortment of indigenous pieces, like masks and woodensculptures, all with the big, swooping black painted design native to the region.
“Are you married, Doug?” Saber asked, looking around the room.
“Is that your polite way of asking if I live alone here?”
“You have a very unique house.”
There were a lot of plants, thriving under the two skylights that were set into the fir-paneled ceiling, and on the walls were a vast collection of landscape paintings and biological illustrations.
“I live alone,” he said, pouring two cups of tea in little, white, hand-thrown ceramic mugs. “I had a wife. She lives with her partner Cynthia in Olympia now. We’re still friends. My daughter lives in Seattle.”
The tea was toasty and grassy.
“Wow,” she said, indicating the tea.
“Genmaicha,” he said. “My favorite. So, young Saber, tell me, what is it you think you can tell only me, a man you hardly know?”
“I went to a party the other night, a party with a lot of adults as well as teenagers.”
“Is this one of the parties at the house on Phelps Road?”
