Anna turns and pops the lever to check progress on a piece of toast, then, impatient, jams it down again. Her fingers are noticeably stained, the nailbeds sallow and the fingertips cracked and dark, almost inky. Maeve wonders if it’s actual ink or something else. Karolina said she was working on…what, film? So a reaction to developer or some other chemical.

She turns back to Maeve. “You met the others yet?”

“Just Karolina. Oh, and Sadie.” For some reason, she keeps Sim to herself.

Anna nods as though they’re agreeing on something and leans to grab a napkin. She seems at home in the space; Maeve remembers that this is Anna’s second time at High Water.

“Karo can be cool. And Sadie—you know. She’s a kid. She’ll be all right.”

She turns to the window, and Maeve follows her gaze. Outside, snow is falling in a concentrated way, straight down. In the back field, there’s a man navigating some kind of obstacle course. Exercising. In the snow.

“You met Dan?” Anna says without turning away from the view.

Maeve looks a little closer. She hadn’t recognized him without the camo gear. “No,” she says. “I mean—sort of, yesterday. We weren’t introduced.”

Outside, Dan is dragging a chain weighted with heavy tires down the field. A military-style workout.

“You’ll bump into him if you’re out on the grounds—” Anna pauses, lips pursed, as though she means to say something further, but then she changes her mind and just turns and checks the toaster again.

Maeve keeps watching as another man comes into view, a little younger, more compact in build. No coat, but he’s shrugged a blazer on over a hoodie, and he’s wearing a fine-looking red scarf. She can’t hear what he’s saying, but it’s easy to tell his tone just by the way he holds his body and by Dan’s reaction. The younger man is clowning, trying to crack Dan up, make him laugh, and it’s almost working.

But then the little guy shifts to one side, and she sees he has a camera. Filming, Maeve realizes, as Dan continues his feats of strength. She watches him close in on Dan and wonders if this is a thing they do, the way she sometimes films herself dancing to see her form later, to see what worked.

Anna looks over again.

“Justin Doyle. You heard of him? He used to do a lot of stuff for Interview, New York magazine. But…he was having too much fun. You know what I mean? Took a job in the mountains to clean up. Not sure it’s working for him, though.” Her nose wrinkles. “Fancies himself a hot little ticket.”

Justin glances over his shoulder as though he’s heard his name.

“Careful, now,” Maeve says. “His ears are burning.”