He followed Hank up to the second floor, down the hall and past two small bedrooms until they reached a large open space that looked out over the living room. It was about a fifteen-foot drop. A Christmas tree in that living room could be a full two stories tall. You could stand up here and put the star on the top. The master bedroom was a bit more private than the previous rooms. It was also done in deep brown wood, and through a generous skylight he could see the bright dots of the stars overhead.

“Pretty view at night,” Hank remarked with a grin. “Gets the little lady in a romantic mood. I had one put in down at my place; haven’t got any sleep since. There’s another room downstairs. Could be a guest bedroom, I guess. Kinda smallish. All the furniture’s sold as is, by the way. Figure you’ll need it.”

David followed Hank out of the bedroom and back downstairs. The kitchen was a nice size, divided in half with one side near the windows serving as the dining room.

“The wood for the fire is piled up next to the back door, and there’s a tool shed or some such thing out back.” Hank pointed out the kitchen window.

“I like the house, Hank, but I’m not sure about the location,” David said, peering at the dark shape of the shed on the edge of the woods, a guardian against whatever lurked in the deeper shadows. “It’s so…isolated.”

Hank frowned. “Yessir, I understand. But you’ve got to do some thinkin’. Any place out here is going to be the same, the way I figure it. If you want this job, you got to put up with these woods. I’m not trying to pressure you or nothing,” he added quickly. “Lord knows I wouldn’t do that. But you just got to do some thinkin’. I’d talk it over with the little lady, if I was you. I learned a long time back not to do much without checkin’ with your girl first. Makes ‘em less ornery.”

David smiled. “You’re right, and I will.” He was right; there was no way to avoid the dangers of living out in the woods, and that was one of the job requirements, like it or not. He had to be close to the plant. And how would it look to Hydro if he refused the first place offered to him, especially after this afternoon’s spat with Thompson? He might not be the one to make the ultimate decision of whether or not David kept his job, but he surely had a say in it.

Hank nodded. “All right then. I’d take you on out to the plant, but we need a snowcat for that, and it’s pretty dark now. It’s right through them woods out back.” He went out the front door. David stood for a long moment in the center of the living room. The house was still now, its ghosts asleep or in hiding, and he wondered again about the girl. Who was she, and what had happened to her? Was she Jessica’s age? He shuddered momentarily, imagining himself as the parent, sick and frantic with worry. I will never let that happen, he thought with conviction. Never.