☂ . ☂ . ☂

Haley and Olive ride in the bed of Mr. Westbrook’s pickup truck. They sit amidst boxes bursting with clothing and rain gear, packed hastily after Mom and Dad flew off the handle. The last few days were a flurry of arguments, sudden plans, and phone calls to old friends and neighbors who might be available to give two naughty girls a ride to the only place willing to house them for the remainder of the summer.

The girls still haven’t talked about what happened. It’s not their first time being kicked out of summer camp, but they’d never before managed it in such record time.

Mr. Westbrook, being a good sport, hasn’t asked.

The rain is kept at bay by ratty tarp stretching over the truck bed, secured by frayed, flapping cords. The girls huddle underneath it, deep in thought, neither outwardly expressing her anxiety.

Haley, ever putting on a brave face, lays on her back, looking up at the sky through a tear in the tarp. Her chaotic red hair splays about her head like a small flame. Her feet press against the line of boxes, which slide whenever the truck takes a turn.

Olive, ever projecting a quiet stoicism, sits in the corner of the truck bed, cross-legged and well out of reach of the rain. She has a hand on a small, flower-patterned suitcase, a relic of an uncharacteristically prissy childhood that her goth-lite clothes forcefully reject. She’s all dour lace and black nails and dark hair, which hangs around her pale face like a fog.

Olive's muted clashes with Haley's loud – her slouchy green hat, jeans torn at the knees and hems, overlarge jacket pushed up to the elbows, revealing a hodgepodge of knicks and scrapes and scabs. They hardly look like they might be friends, let alone siblings. And at 15 and 17, they are certainly not the children their parents had prepared for.

Rain patters against the tarp. Haley is the first to speak.

"When you look straight up into it, the rain looks angry."

Olive doesn't say anything. A duct-taped box starts sliding, and she pushes it back into line.

Undeterred, Haley pontificates. "I guess all fast-moving things look angrier when they're coming right at you. Like bears. Or trucks. Or football players. Or parents. Except ours look angry no matter what speed they're going."

The truck hits a bump, and Haley is splattered with rain. She splutters and sits up.

Finally, Olive responds. "How are you in such a good mood?"

Haley shrugs. The car hitches upward and scrambles up a steep, gravelly forest road – the girls brace themselves. Trees whip against the sides of the tarp, branches smelling of pine and rain. The truck comes to an abrupt stop and the boxes shift; Haley is buried in a small pile. Olive has managed to remain upright, arms around her small flowery suitcase.

The driver opens the back hatch as Haley extricates herself from the boxes. She exhales and takes in her surroundings. Olive scoots to the edge of the truck bed, dangling her legs over the side and holding up the tarp so she can see out.

The truck is parked on the shoulder of an unpaved forest road, perched partway up a steep incline. Puddles sit in the divots of the road, surfaces speckled with drizzle. It all looks very... halfway. As if this could not possibly be a destination; as if the truck stopping were by mistake.

But sure enough, there is the house, a lodge of a building with a peaked roof and windows trimmed with green, cracked open as if the rain were a welcome guest. The door sits inset a vine-entangled veranda built of battered wood. The door sits crookedly as if it were, by default, thrown rather than opened.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

The woods are lush and lovely, even in the rain (or especially because of the rain). A dense thicket of scraggly hemlocks, strung thick with moss, frames the sides of the house. A modest yard – more weeds and wildflowers than grass – struggles to distinguish itself from the thicket of forest. These are not your carefully landscaped trees; the trees predate the house, and posture themselves as if they know it.

And then, beside the house sits the inn.

It looks like a natural outgrowth of the house – same stately wood, windows patterned by delicate lace curtains. Among the features they share is a seven-foot-long stretch of wall; as a result, the commotion in the inn is frequently audible throughout the house. The front door to the inn looks like it has never been used (in fact, it has only been used three times, by people who'd run out of gas on the way in or out of town, and who had mistaken the inn for a place where people should be).

It looks just as Haley and Olive remember it from childhood. It doesn't change – it wasn't designed for so mortal a concept. No, the recently deceased tend to be more interested in themselves than in their surroundings, and the inn is partially there to keep things that way.

Above the inn's unused door is a wooden sign, stamped with metal letters: Inn Memoriam. The letters are mismatched and crooked, as if the name were an afterthought, or a joke, rather than a proper title. (Which is, after all, the truth.)

The driver stands beside the truck, holding an umbrella. "Sorry there wasn't room to sit up front." (There had been room, but for only one of the siblings, so both had politely refused.) “Are your things alright?"

The siblings stare off into the woods, lost in their own internal worlds. One brave-faced, one stoic. (Though, upon further reflection, the expressions are quite similar, aren’t they?)

The driver hands out his umbrella and Olive wordlessly takes it, though the rain is softening. He speaks in the manner one might adopt to soothe a stray cat. "Are you alright?"

At this, Haley and Olive look at one another, sharing a moment of silent guilt.

Haley's mouth turns down in an anticipatory wince. "How... mad were they?"

Mr. Westbrook tugs his cap awkwardly. "Well, I won't sugar-coat it... they were having a bit of a fit. I’ve known your parents a long time, and though they’re wonderful folks, I wouldn’t necessarily call them mild-mannered. Although... er..."

He looks like he's just had an embarrassing thought.

Olive fills the silence. "Although they've put up with us for a decade and a half."

Mr. Westbrook laughs. "You said it, not me. Look, they'll come around. How can anyone be mad on a Caribbean cruise?"

"Oh, just watch them," Haley says.

"They'll come around. They always do."

Haley frowns, struck by the un-truthfulness of this statement. It should be true, but it seems to her that her parents never do quite come around. Every transgression pushes them further away: the united front of Haley and Olive versus the united front of Mom and Dad. It's a vicious cycle, but at least it has brought the siblings close.

"Come on. I'll help you carry your things."

"I think we can manage it. Thanks," Olive says. Haley is already unloading boxes from the back of the truck. It wasn't like the last time they visited Echo Valley, back when Haley and Olive went anywhere for vacation rather than as punishment.

"Alrighty, if you're sure. You girls need anything else?"

"We're alright." Haley shoves a hand into her jacket pocket and pulls out a stack of rubber-banded bills. "Thanks, Mr. Westbrook."

Mr. Westbrook waves it away. "Naw, your parents already paid me for the gas."

Haley holds the bills out insistently. "They asked me to give you this as well."

"Eh..." Mr. Westbrook thumbs through the bills and takes a conservative half. "Tell you what: I'll take half, and you keep the rest. Go do something fun. Or, I guess I should say, go buy yourself some books or vegetables or whatever your parents would want me to tell you."

Haley stares at the money, surprise and discomfort quickly giving way to an appreciative, excited grin. "We'll buy all the broccoli we can carry. Thanks, Mr. Westbrook."

"Thanks for the ride!" Olive says. She folds the umbrella and hands it back. Already, the rain has cleared. A minor blessing on such a dour day.

"Alrighty, then." Mr. Westbrook takes the umbrella and pockets it. "Well, if that's all... I'll be heading off. Come visit me at the Pig whenever you and the boys need a bite."

Haley grumbles and rolls her eyes, as if she'd forgotten all about the boys. Olive just says, "Course we will."

Mr. Westbrook climbs back into the truck. It splutters to life, spraying water from the sides of its struggling tires. Haley and Olive look back up at the house, and Haley sighs. "They didn't even drive us themselves this time... Man... we really screwed up."

Olive's arms are wrapped around her suitcase. "I like Mr. Westbrook."

Haley looks at the money in her hand and grins. Over the years, she's learned to roll with the punches.

"Okay," she says. "Let's do this again."

➵ ➵ ➵