The sun was just starting to rise, blazing over the horizon, and Mackie was razing a path from across the street. She might know about how the families had met. Emily leaned her head against the lodge’s front door and hoped, fervently, that the story that she dug up would be a good one. Because otherwise she was going to be fired. Nobody was allowed to up and leave their job like this. She’d brought the papers she had to mark, but hadn’t even unpacked them. They had to be due some time. Someone was bound to complain. And of course, she only had seven days left to hand in a completed thesis draft to her committee.
Suddenly, Mackie was at the door, pushing her way inside, and Emily was stumbling backward. “Thanks for coming over,” she said. “I wanted to ask if you remember the first time yo
