Rise of the Phoenix novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Wahlberg Lodge

Garth mumbled the directions with his eyes shut.

"Left at the dead cedar. Past the mailbox shaped like a trout. Don't honk."

I followed every word, because I had nothing else.

The sun came up gray over the ridges as I turned onto a snowed-in drive.

A long log building rose out of the pines with smoke curling from one chimney.

A sign on a post said Wahlberg Lodge, Closed For Season.

The gravel truck was already in the yard.

The van's doors hung open, and people in grey lab clothes were moving through the front door into the light.

A woman was waiting on the porch.

She was sixty-six if she was a day, and she was built like a grizzly in a flannel shirt.

A long grey braid hung over one shoulder, and she held a wooden spoon in her fist.

"You must be the one who set the road on fire," she said.

"How do you know about the road?"

"I have a radio, honey. The whole county does." She came down the steps in her slippers.

She wasn't looking at me at all. "Where is he?"

I opened the passenger door.

Garth slumped out into her arms with a dart still in his chest, and she caught him.

"Oh, you stupid, stubborn boy," she said, and her voice shook.

"I told you to come back before you froze. I said it in October. I said it in November."

"Hedda," Garth slurred. "I got her out."

"I see that."

"She's warm."

"I can feel that too." She pulled the dart out of his shirt with two fingers and flicked it into the snow.

"Bring him in. Both of you. And you'd better keep your hands in your pockets, young lady, because I just had this roof re-shingled."

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