It took him almost fifteen minutes to reach the homestead road, and five more minutes to get to the house he’d called home for the last few years. Two decades ago, when his mother’s family had homesteaded out here, the land had been remote; over the years, town had crept closer, spread out. Fairbanks might be in the middle of nowhere, fewer than 120 miles from the Arctic Circle, but it was the second largest city in the state and growing fast because of the pipeline.

He drove up the long, winding, tree-shrouded driveway and parked in the huge, plank-sided garage/workshop between Uncle Went’s ATV and his snow machine.

Inside the house, the walls were roughly hewn planks that looked messy in the combination of light and shadow. His aunt and uncle had always intended to drywall them but never had. The kitchen was delineated by L-shaped polished wood counters set atop green cabinets that had come from an abandoned house in Anchorage, one of those “dream” homes built by lowlanders who couldn’t last through their first winter. A bar with three barstools separated it from the dining area. Beyond that was the living room; a big plaid sectional (complete with movable footrests) and two well-worn La-Z-Boy chairs faced a window that overlooked the river. There were bookcases everywhere, overflowing with books; lanterns and flashlights decorated almost every surface for when the power went out, and it went out often, with so many big trees and bad weather. The house had electricity and running water and even a television, but no flush toilets. Truthfully, no Walker ever cared. They’d all been raised with outhouses and were happy to live that way. People down south had no idea how clean an outhouse could be if you took care of it.

“Hey, you,” Aly said, looking up from the sofa. She was doing homework, by the looks of it.

Matthew dropped his gear bag by the door and propped his hockey stick in the arctic entry—a corridor full of coats and boots that separated the outside from the inside. He hung up his coat on a hook and kicked off his boots. He was so tall now—six-foot-two—that he had to duck to enter the house.

“Hey.” He plopped down beside her.

“You smell like a goat,” she said, closing her textbook.

“A goat who scored two goals.” He leaned back, laid his head on the sofa back, stared up at the big wood crossbeams that traversed the ceiling. He didn’t know why, but he felt nervous, a little raw. He tapped his foot, played an arpeggio on the worn armrest with his fingers.