Near the coffee lids and napkins was a corkboard tacked with notices: apartments for rent, dog walker available, aural cleansing for seventy-five dollars (which I first read as anal cleansing, and it made me smile). One notice had pine boughs drawn as borders and was the only one printed in a font that wasn’t Papyrus or Comic Sans, so it looked especially professional.

INTERNSHIP

Salishwood Environmental Education Center

High school seniors * Earn college credit helping elementary school groups learn about wilderness ethics and explore 250 acres of untouched forest

* No experience necessary *

Contact Jane at Salishwood

What. The. Hell?

Toast and jam. Blackbird. Wilderness, forest, internship. What universe had I stumbled—ferried—into? For half a second my worn-out brain entertained the notion of Does Joellen have the power over time and space to create an entire town full of lures to keep me rooted all year?

Beneath the worry in my anxious, rapidly beating heart, there was a tiny flash of something else. Unfamiliar but working against the fear. Hope? Excitement?

Maybe the big bed in the lonely attic at Francine’s wouldn’t be so bad. For a while.

I tore off an email address flag and put it in my pocket, then glanced around before tearing all the flags and stashing them. People left a booth beside a window, and I sat and thought about what Salishwood could be, and the delicious words wilderness ethics. I messed with the paper flags in my pocket and watched the sidewalk. Dogs on leashes met and sniffed and moved along. Kids on bikes. People pushing strollers. Lots of tourists. Island Harbor Book Company looked good. Grocery store. Barbershop.

Then my toast came.

Thick, buttered slices of sweet wheat bread, crisp outside, warm and mealy inside, and a dish of homemade raspberry jam. Kira was not wrong.

Life-changing.

I walked back to Francine’s, past the harbor and through the trees, in kind of a daze. Twenty minutes early, as always. I thanked her for the map and excused myself to lie down.

“Think you’ll want dinner?” she asked from the bottom of the stairwell.

“Probably not, thanks,” I said from the top, watching bats flit around their little house beneath the window. “Might sleep through it, anyway.”

I nearly had the door closed, and she called, “Muiriel.”

I peered down at her, pushing hairpins from her mouth into her messy bun.

“How was the walk?”

“Good. Thank you.”

“See the town?”

“I did. It’s nice.”

“You okay?”

I nodded.

“Sure you’re not hungry?”

“I went to Blackbird.”

“Toast?”

“Yeah,” I said, then, “Oh, wait!” I’d forgotten the box in my hands that I’d carried the whole walk back. “These are for you.” I stepped down and gave her the cookies.

She lifted the lid and beamed. “Ferries. Beautiful.”

“Yeah.” They were too pretty to be thrown out. What a weird, stupid thing for that girl to do.