“Mikki,” I say. “So what’s new in town?” Yep, definitely feeling like a goon.

“Any lumberjacks in the area?” Noni asks, from beneath her baseball cap, hiking bag strapped to her back, like a creepier goon.

“Lumberjacks?” Mikki scratches her nose. “What? No. I mean, nothing new has happened. Nothing really happens here at all. I mean, there’s the dance club, the eel place, the outlet store … I guess the town became more popular after that superfamous actress who started the institute went missing? But that was a long time ago.” Her face squinches up at us. “Where are you from?”

My fingers tighten around the strap of my vintage Chanel fanny pack. Superfamous actress? Of course we found the one kid on all of Viloxin who has almost no clue who we are. Mark of luck strikes again. I hope Noni is elated.

Her face softens. “Yeah, suuuuuper famous, but I always forget her name, and my friends always make fun of me. I don’t know much about it because I was only three, you know, and my mama thinks the internet is the devil and stuff. She grows lavender? Anyway, I think her name is Fox something, like Fox Institute—”

“Yeah, it’s Mireille something or another,” Nons says, sour as ever.

“Yeah, it’s a weird name like that. I think you’re right,” she says, turning to wave at an older gentleman walking through the door toward the back office. She lowers her voice. “They don’t like me talking about it at the center, though. They’d rather people just come for the ice caves, you know? They don’t need more bad press with the bad types who come to, like, do drugs in the Delirium Forest and everything. But now that the ice caves are closed for restoration, it’s become really hard, you know?” Her voice rises as the man passes her. “But I know you’ll enjoy the rest of our town, until the ice caves reopen soon! The hike up to Mount Vilox is super cool and lots of fun, as long as you’re careful and pack a light jacket! Kids love it, too.” She grins at us, back on script.

“So the ice caves are … closed?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Mikki says. “It was such a warm spring that a lot of the ice already melted, on account of the heat and the forest canopy not being grown in. On the plus side, there will be new areas to explore once the tunnel restoration is complete in the next week or so.”

“Hmm.” So we can’t even go to the ice caves, attraction numero uno of this damn town. My eyes begin to drift around the room, looking for any other clue pointing to Mama or a lumberjack. Anything relevant, at all.