We were absolutely punchy. We cried. We swore. We laughed. We sweat into the fabric. We bled into the yarn, scratched it out with fingernails, left it because we thought it looked better that way. Was this a health-code violation? Most certainly. But this was metal. We were doing it. We were making the yeti costume.

And finally—finally—a week before the show went up, when the actors were deep in tech, we had something for Oliver to try on.

If you ever want a lesson in professionalism, look no further than one Oliver Teller. He came to the fitting all business—friendly but distant, speaking mainly to Phoebe but not ignoring me entirely. You’d never know that the last time I saw him, I was near tears outside the cabin, barefoot, trying to persuade him to stay at a dinner party he wanted desperately to escape. You’d never know there was history between us, except that seeing him felt like cleaning up glass in bare feet, tiptoeing around, waiting for something to slice your heel.

“How you doing in there?” Phoebe said. “Do you need help?”

“I think I’m okay,” called Oliver. “It’s just—heavy.”

“That’s the point,” said Phoebe. “It’ll make your walk more beastly.”

“I’ll take all the help I can get,” Oliver said.

He went quiet—on the other side of the door there was just fussing, heavy breathing. Phoebe crossed her arms and looked at me nervously. At this point, the backup plan was putting him in sunglasses and a fur coat and calling it avant-garde. That, or ordering a prefab yeti Halloween costume online for $12.99, which certainly wasn’t going to impress Benna.

“Okay,” Oliver said, “I’m coming out.”

The second he opened the door, I knew it was going to work. I’d always known Phoebe was going to make it work, but I didn’t know it was going to work this well. Now I understood why Phoebe had kept saying more—more yarn, more branches, more pom-poms—because he—the monster—was absolutely massive. He was like a walking mop. A gentle walking mop made of a million different kinds of yarn, yarn that had been threaded with treasures from the forest.

“How do you feel?” Phoebe asked.

“It’s a bit warm,” Oliver admitted.

“Don’t be such a snowflake,” Phoebe snapped. “The actor who played Godzilla had to literally pour the sweat out of his boots at the end of the day. Margaret Hamilton’s makeup caught on fire during The Wizard of Oz! The first Tin Man was poisoned by his own makeup!”

“You asked how it was! I’m just saying!”

“I’m not sure those are good comparisons, Phoebe,” I said. “Sorry—she’s, like, mostly coffee and LaCroix at this point.”

“I’m sure I’ll be okay,” said Oliver. “Maybe we can, like, tape an ice pack to my body or something.”