Chapter 20: Hazel's Seat

Hazel made the guest list herself, on the back of a Highcrest menu, in purple marker.

Torin. Mom. The housekeeper. Jasper. Dad.

"Dad is last," she told me, "because he's on probation."

"Who taught you that word?"

"The King."

"I used it once," Torin said from the stove, "and she remembered."

On Saturday morning the Highcrest kitchen smelled of bacon, and Torin was burning it.

"Turn it down," said the housekeeper, without looking up from the waffle iron.

"It's turned down."

"It's on fire."

Jasper sat at the end of the long table with his legs swinging, dropping bottle caps into a jar.

He had arrived at eight with the healer's husband and a small paper bag.

"For Hazel," he had said solemnly, and opened it.

Eleven caps, all different, from every soda she had ever liked.

Hazel had looked at them for a long time.

"These are really good ones," she'd said. "Can I put them on my window?"

Jasper had burst into a smile that showed the gap in his teeth.

Declan arrived at ten to nine, which was ten minutes early.

I knew because I'd watched his truck sit at the lodge gate for twenty minutes first, engine off.

He came into the kitchen with his hands empty and his phone in his pocket, and put the phone in the bowl by the door without being asked.

"Morning," he said, to the room.

"Morning," said Hazel.

She had a chair waiting for him, I saw.

It was at the middle of the long side, not at the head, not beside me, between Jasper and the wall.

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