She looked up and saw the stars.

And the Milky Way.

And couldn’t remember the last time she had seen it.

And then she started walking.

She’d go to Ma Dudley’s. And see if there was a room available.

Maybe Ma would be up. Or Sunny. And Hope could talk to them. Ma and Sunny were good to people who felt like they had no place in the world.

As she walked, she hoped that Ma and Sunny would remember her.

And wished she hadn’t worn those shoes.

10

As Ginette passed the Hardings’, she wondered why that tall, slim woman was just staring at their house.

Maybe she was a prowler, and was about to burgle the place.

And then Ginette laughed at herself.

The woman was not a burglar.

She wasn’t dressed to burgle.

And her shoes were not made for burgling.

And, if she was a burglar, she was terrible at being stealthy, because she was just standing in plain sight, illuminated by the post lamp in the front walkway, staring at the Hardings’ house.

And, anyway, what kind of burglar would have taken a taxi to where they were going to burgle?

What was she actually doing there? wondered Ginette.

And where was she from?

She looked so elegant. Like maybe she was from Montreal. Or New York City. Or Los Angeles.

Ginette wondered if she’d ever get to visit any of those exotic places. And smiled as she thought about visiting them with Pete someday.

And then remembered that she probably wouldn’t be visiting them with Pete.

Because they weren’t Ginette and Pete anymore.

She didn’t know what they were.

They had crossed a line and had become more than friends. And she wondered if they would ever be able to cross back. And be just friends again.

Would they still hang out? Or would it just be too awkward for them to be around one another?

Ginette continued on her way, wondering where she and Pete were headed.

And then wondered where she was headed—literally—at that moment, since there wasn’t much left of the Road to Nowhere.

She had no reason to go to Rhonda Rideout’s—which was the only place left to go before the wilderness.

And she didn’t want to go into the wilderness.

And she almost stopped and turned around and headed home.

But she couldn’t.

Because that strange lightness she had been feeling seemed to be compelling her to keep walking toward the woods.

So she just kept walking.

For a while.

And then she heard the yowl of a snowmobile engine in the distance—off to her left and behind her.

She turned toward the yowling sound and looked out into the potato fields that stretched from Echo Lake to the wilderness of northwestern Maine. And she saw a snowmobile’s headlight speeding across the wide-open fields toward the woods.

It must have been Rhonda Rideout heading home, Ginette figured.

And she watched the speeding snowmobile slow down as it approached—and then disappeared into—the woods.