The short wall to Maggie’s right held drawers; the wall on the left, embedded shelves, crammed with novels. But the windows perfected the loft. The ones close to the staircase overlooked the trees, blackish green in the gray afternoon, except where early autumn streaked the canopy with ochre. The room was like a nest. No, grander: an aerie. She crossed to the windows over the bed, where the lake roiled. Now it was the lookout on the mast of a ship.

In her breast, she experienced a tightening—a flicker. Maybe she could do better than just hide here.

When she returned to where the women waited at the foot of the stairs, Maggie gripped the bannister and bit the inside of her lip to stop a tremble. “Thanks, Aunt Wren.” She cleared her throat. “I like it.”

The aunt cracked the studio door and stuck her head in the opening. “Sam? We’re coming in, okay?” She sidled forward and held the door to her side, like one blocking a view into a dressing room.

“Fine.” A wealth of not-being-fine crammed into the syllable.

The aunt hesitated. “Where’s Kate?”

“With Dad.”

Her fingers, curled around the edge of the door, fluttered a tap. “Linnie?”

Clank, clatter, thud. “Take a good guess.” A stomping crescendo. Then, closer to Aunt Wren: “Don’t tell Dad, okay?”

She shrugged, noncommittal and disapproving, then widened the door with her foot. “Meet Sam, my assistant.”

Mom cautiously greeted him.

He offered a dispirited “Hey.”

Maggie drew herself in with crossed arms. She scanned the miserable Sam in one glance. He was maybe two or three years older than her and dark in expression and features.

He headed for a rumbling room off the end, saying without turning, “Got the pug mill going.”

When Mom, smiling and wide-eyed, stood between the kiln and the potter’s wheel, she clasped her hands under her chin and did a slow spin, like a Broadway actress gearing up for a solo. “This is so neat!”

Her aunt grimaced. “Filthy. It could use a mopping.”

The studio, a stubby wing off the building, turned the cabin into a squat T. It was dusty but very bright, almost fantastically so, and not just because of the lighting overhead. If the kitchen was a penny, the studio was a silver dollar—kilns, wheels, giant roller, shelves, worktable, scale, tools, all in gleaming metal. Then stacked and crowded under and over a long counter were finished ceramic pieces, vibrantly glazed in combinations of dark blue, sea green, speckled cream, thick fog, ruby red. Maggie wanted to see the studio on a sunny day. It had to shimmer.

Mom crouched by a shelf of pots. “Oh, I like this one a lot.” She grazed a teapot with a fingertip and straightened. “Where are your sculptures?”

“Yes. Where are your sculptures?” The assistant was standing in the doorway of the noisy back room, swinging a kind of wire and eyeing his employer.