A small woman, probably in her sixties, turned from the stove. Her hair was as dark and shiny as a wet otter’s. There was a dramatic gray streak in it, toward the back, and it peeked out as she moved. “More guests, Lisette! Look who it is! It’s my niece Kate! I told you she’d be back one day. And she brought her daughter, Devin.”

Lisette gave Eby a look Kate couldn’t decipher before she smiled and, without a word, walked over and kissed their cheeks.

Eby said, “Kate, I don’t know if you remember, but this is Lisette Durand. She’s been my best friend for fifty years and the inimitable cook at Lost Lake for almost that long.”

Kate didn’t remember Lisette, but maybe she would later, like a figure forming in the fog. Bits and pieces of that summer were coming back to her. For years, she’d only had vague impressions, but very real emotions, about Lost Lake. She remembered feeling happy here. She could remember that very clearly. “Thank you for the food you set out for us,” Kate said.

Lisette bowed her head modestly.

“Lisette’s father owned a famous restaurant in Paris. La Maison Durand. Hemingway ate there once,” Eby said. “She learned to cook from him. Her father, not Hemingway. I’ll be right back with the linens for your beds.”

As Eby disappeared down the hallway, Lisette lifted a small notepad tied around her neck and began to write: Do not believe a word she says. Hemingway never ate at my father’s restaurant. And my father taught me nothing. The turd. I learned everything I know from a handsome young chef named Robert. He was in love with me.

Eby walked back into the kitchen with some folded plaid sheets under her arm. “Lisette can’t speak,” Eby explained when she saw Kate’s expression. “She was born without a voice box.”

“What’s a voice box?” Devin asked excitedly, as if it might be something real, something tangible, a secret wooden box somewhere with Lisette’s voice hidden inside.

“I’ll explain later,” Kate said.

“Come on, girls. Let’s get you settled.”

As they walked out, Lisette tore the note she’d written out of the pad and turned on a burner on the stove. She burned the note, and it disappeared in a whoosh of sparks and ash, like a magician’s trick.

Devin walked out backward, to stare as long as she could.

“Grab your plate, and I’ll show you to your cabin,” Eby said as she took a key from behind the check-in desk.

They walked out together, and Kate led them to the Subaru. “Where is everyone?” she asked, opening the hatch with one hand, the plate in the other.