Chapter 9: Snowed In

Greta's POV

Cal had told me everything at three in the morning, on my porch, with snow melting off his boots.

I made him say Tuesday twice.

Then I made him drink a cup of tea, and he sat at my grandmother's table and held it in both hands without drinking.

By Sunday afternoon we had a plan, and it was a short one.

On Tuesday I would be wherever Rupert was going, and I would see what was on that paper.

Until then I was cleaning my house.

"You don't have to help," I said.

"I know." Cal was on a stepladder, rehanging the kitchen curtains that someone had pulled off the rod. "My mother told me to."

"Does your mother tell you everything?"

"She told me not to knock anything over."

"Have you?"

"A lamp." He didn't look down. "It was already broken. I improved it."

I laughed before I could stop myself.

It felt strange in my chest, because I hadn't laughed in three days.

The stepladder wobbled.

I was across the kitchen before I thought about it, with both hands on the rungs.

"Hold still."

"I'm holding."

"You're swaying."

"The floor's uneven."

"It has been uneven for a hundred years. You grew up next door."

"I know where the floor's uneven," Cal said. "I just don't care for it with a rod in each hand."

He came down in one step and landed close to me, closer than the ladder needed.

My back was to the counter.

He was holding the curtain rod in his left hand, and his right had found the edge of the counter beside me.

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