Excluded and Uninvited novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Empty Chair

The first Saturday in November, Katja opened all three cabins again.

By noon every one of them was booked through the new year.

She read the reviews standing at the counter with her coffee.

When she reached the one from the woman in the minivan, she held up the phone so I could see.

It was five stars.

It said: "I was wrong about the owner. Come for the lake, stay for the gate."

"She's good," I said.

"She's a convert." Katja set the phone face down. "Go and get the chairs."

I carried folding chairs out onto the porch one by one.

My ribs were mostly healed, and the scar over my left eyebrow had gone white.

The table was the long one from Cabin Two.

Katja had dragged it out herself the night before and refused my help.

She'd covered it with a quilt that had belonged to her grandfather.

Down the middle she had put a row of jars with pine branches in them.

At every place sat a small folded card with a name on it, in her square handwriting.

I read them as I set out the chairs.

Jo.

The captain and his wife.

The woman who ran the lights, whose name I had finally learned.

Katja's neighbor from down the lane, with his sawhorse.

The tall man, who had pleaded to the assault and been given a sentence he could carry.

His nose still had a small bend in it.

The last card said Caleb, and next to it one more card, face down.

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