Chapter 4: The Hall

Ridge Hall sat at the end of a dirt road forty minutes outside town, and every window in it was lit.

It was a big timber house with a wraparound porch and boots lined up along the rail.

Abel carried the lasagna in and I carried my own bag.

"Ronan will be along," Abel said. "He's checking the fence line. He does that when he's, you know, thinking."

"Does he think a lot?"

"Constantly. It's exhausting. Do you like garlic bread?"

The kitchen was warm and loud and smelled of onions.

Four old women sat at a long table shelling peas into a bowl.

They stopped when I came in and looked me over in a row.

"This is her?" one of them asked.

"This is Mara," Abel said. "Mara, these are the aunts."

"You're so small," said the oldest aunt. "Sit. Eat. Nobody's afraid of you here."

"I'm a little afraid of you," I said.

That got a laugh.

The oldest aunt put a plate in front of me with a slab of lasagna on it the size of a paperback.

"Good answer," she said.

I ate all of it.

A boy of about nine slid in through the back door, looked at me, and said, "Are you the human?"

"I'm the human."

"Can you do magic?"

"I can do paperwork."

"That's not magic."

"You haven't seen my paperwork," I said, and he decided I was funny.

By nine I had met half a dozen people who all said Ronan had never brought anyone home.

I had nine questions about that and I asked none of them.

Abel showed me upstairs.

My room was at the end of the hall, with a quilt, a desk, and a window over the pines.

The lock on the door was new.

The key sat on the pillow with a note under it in square handwriting.

"Only one," the note said. "Yours."

I stood there longer than I needed to.

Across the hall there was another door, half open, with a woman's cardigan hanging on the back of a chair inside.

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