They drove by a local bank she’d never heard of, a hairdresser’s shop with a barber right next door (I’ll bet it’s the same owner, she thought), a thrift shop, a market simply and aptly called Food Mart, a six-booth diner, a deli, and several antique shops. Kate was not one for old stuff. She’d watched enough paranormal shows to worry that the wares in those places were haunted.

It sounded silly, but it was how she felt. Andrew made fun of her all the time. He believed in ghosts about as much as she believed in the fairy tale of alien abductions.

“You want ice cream?” Andrew said, pulling into the second ice cream shop on Main Street.

“They sure love their ice cream up here.”

“This one has a Grape-Nuts flavor,” he said, getting out and running around to get her door. Buttons scampered over her lap.

“Why would anyone want Grape-Nuts ice cream?” Kate said.

“Because it’s good. And it gives the illusion of health.”

They were the only ones at the shop. A disinterested teen girl wearing a Korn tour hat took their order. Kate had double chocolate chip.

They sat at a picnic bench, watching the town do its thing, which wasn’t much of a thing at all. Only a few cars idled by, with fewer people walking about.

“You wanna try?” he said, angling his cone toward her.

She took a small lick. “It’s like licking sandpaper. When did you ever have Grape-Nuts ice cream?”

“A couple of times when I came in for food and stuff. You don’t like?”

She crinkled her nose. “Yuck.”

“Well, no one will ever make you a food critic. If it’s not one of your five surviving taste buds, it’s yuck.”

She dabbed his face with her ice cream, leaving a stray chocolate chip in the corner of his nose. “And sometimes, it’s just plain old yuck.”

After they finished, he asked if she wanted to go back to the cottage.

“I’d rather stay in the car if you feel like driving around. At least I’ll be able to see the sights.”

“If you love trees, this will be a sightseeing orgy of delight.”

It didn’t take long to leave the town of Bridge Mills in the rearview mirror. Andrew was right: evergreen trees were everywhere. There were scores of others, but Kate was no tree expert. She knew about dogwoods because her grandparents had one in their yard. And pussy willows because they’d sung about them in first grade. That was the extent of her education as an arborist.

She kept the window down, her face turned toward the incoming breeze.

“I’m sleepy,” she said when they turned onto a logging road. A huge truck laden with freshly cut timber rumbled ahead of them. “If I take a nap, will you keep driving?”