There’s another snap in the trees, and he turns his face to it, deliberate and serious. Something else out there in the shadows. But when he looks back to her, he’s more thoughtful than alarmed. Cool. Sure of himself.

Maeve knows she should be wary, but somehow she is rooted in place. Her hair freezing in little tendrils at her temples, the back of her neck. The elk cry comes again, farther away now, lonely and echoed.

He moves closer. A shy gesture, a small step, but his eyes are fixed on Maeve.

“It’s the female that makes that call.”

His gaze draws her, his eyes blue-black in the dim light. Maeve is mesmerized. In his hand, the bone flips again and turns, an extension of himself, a limb casting forward. She has an impulse to reach for it, take hold.

As though he might use it to reel her in.

Day 2

Day 2

In the morning, Maeve is surprised by the silence. There’s no one chattering in the front entrance or sitting around the open-pit fireplace, which is clean and cold, although there’s plenty of wood stacked nearby. On the other side of the vacant lobby, a massive set of oak doors stand firmly shut. There is no one at the desk. No one will leave or need welcoming for weeks.

Not weeks, she reminds herself. Days. Thirteen more days, at which point someone will need to call the shuttle for Maeve and send her on her merry way. Exit, tiny dancer.

In the dining hall, Maeve tries to imagine what the place must be like in full swing: musicians with their violin cases tucked beneath their chairs, tables full of actors drinking late into the night. She lingers over a small dessert display, looking down at the neat wedges of pecan pie set out on plates, her hands clasped behind her back. Then she drops her shoulders, a little heart-opening stretch.

Her stomach is empty; the stretch makes her feel taut and strong.

“Do you suppose they’ll keep the buffet going just for little old us?”

Maeve startles, surprised to find she’s not alone after all.

The woman hands her a cup of coffee. “We missed you at dinner last night,” she says. “You must be Maeve. I’m Anna.”

She’s tall and striking—broad shoulders, a deep, tawny complexion, with green eyes and the barest brush of freckles across her nose. Perhaps not quite forty, although she’s the sort of woman who probably always looks a little younger than she really is.

“Anna the activist,” Maeve says, remembering.

“Ha! Well. Anna Barthelmy.”

“I think they’ll keep feeding us. They must feel lucky to have us here at all.” Maeve wraps her hands around the mug, grateful for it. “When it’s off-season.”