“How come the trees ‘round the lake are dead but not the ones up here? Seems like a disease wouldn’t be so contained.”
“I really don’t know.”
Her voice matches her eyes, a round, cold, ocean blue, and I like it even though it carries lies. “But you’re local. How can you have heard nothing?”
“I don’t like you people looking at my voice,” she mutters. “I feel like you’re listening to something private.”
“It’s a pretty voice.”
She tightens her lips and pretends to read her magazine, an out-of-date Saturday Evening Post. I stand for a few seconds to make her uncomfortable, then head up to the second floor. A lazier film of dust has settled on the wall runners and door panels than I’d expect from a place taken over by professors of the Miskatonic Institute.
Inside my room’s old hotel: a s
