And me? I was just happy to be following along in the back, safe from any skin contact, from the temptation to bite one of my friends in the throat. The guys, excepting Roth, weren’t very happy, though. All we’d seen were trees, trees, and you guessed it, more trees.
Gil cracked his knuckles. “Okay, electrician – ”
“It’s Roth, actually. Nice to meet you. Again.”
Gil continued, this time more irritably. “Okay, Roth. We’ve been trekking for a while now. If this is some kind of joke, I stopped finding it funny half a mile back.”
“My tiny little legs are burning,” Asher said, panting.
“Told you to work out more,” I said, sniffing at the air. There was something familiar here. Burning, but nothing dangerous. Wood. A campfire?
“Neither the time nor the place,” Asher said. “Look, just over there. Lights. Is that a house?”
Close. It was another cabin, smaller than Uriah Everett’s, but in far better condition. The outside was clean and maintained, with logs for firewood stacked neatly not far from the front door, an axe waiting on a nearby stump. Smoke piped merrily out of a chimney stack, the distinct fragrance of burning wood the very thing that had led us there. I squinted as we drew closer, trying to make anything out through the windows, but even from afar I could tell that they were smudged, as if from smoke residue. Strange.
“Well, this is a puzzle,” Gil said, peering in through the closest window. “Everything inside is as neat as it is out here. I can see throw pillows. There’s a rocking chair. I don’t get why the windows are so blurry.”
“Smoked glass, maybe?” Asher said. “For privacy. You hold some glass up to a f
lame, and the smoke or carbon darkens it or something.”
“Nerd,” I said, peering through the windows myself, the four of us looking in like the world’s worst peeping Toms.
“Proud to be one,” Asher said, sticking his chest out. “Navigators and astronomers used it to keep the sun out of their eyes. It’s like dark sunglasses, basically, or a tinted car window.”
“Part of it is probably because of the fireplace,” Roth said, his voice lowering as he once again switched into campfire story mode. “Legend has it that there’s always a fire burning in there. The same fire, too, for hundreds of years. It never goes out, if the stories are to be believed.”
I drew away from the window, letting the three of them huddle. “And if the fire does go out?”
Roth shrugged. “Nobody knows. You know what’s funny, though? You can’t break in. I mean, folks are polite in Silveropolis. Maybe some dumb kids tried it, which is how we know, but you can’t just kick the door down. I mean, you can try, but it simply doesn’t work.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “If we can’t kick the door in, then we smash the windows instead. Stand clear.”
“Sterling, what the fuck are you – ”
Carpe noctem. Gil’s eyes went huge as my foot shot straight past his head, missing his nose by a couple of inches. The heel of my boot connected with the window, but there was no satisfying crash, no breaking, no tinkling of shards. Instead my sole just kind of squeaked against the glass, leaving a smudgy print on the window. I tipped over, losing my balance and falling into the grass.
“That’s what you get,” Gil said.
“Little help here?”
Gil rolled his eyes. Asher was too busy covering his mouth and laughing at me. Roth offered me his hand, pulling me up easily to my feet.
“We could have knocked,” Roth said.
I brushed blades of grass and damp leaves off my jacket. “Nice, except that there’s no one to answer the door. The place is empty.”
The door flew open. A woman popped out, her beaded braids falling about her face, brown eyes huge and hot with anger, her high cheekbones making her seem sharp and stern.
“Whatever happened to knocking? You bunch of punks. What the hell do you want? Do you know what time it is?”
The four of us were stunned into silence. Out of the open door came the smell of woodsmoke, patchouli, and for some reason, hot chocolate. Gil was right about the throw pillows and the rocking chair, but he hadn’t pointed out all the bundles of twigs. Dozens of them, covering the coffee table, the kitchen counter, the mantle. The woman wore a yellow hooded jacket and what appeared to be a pair of leggings, cropped just above the ankles. She looked about ready for bed. I blinked at her, too surprised to speak, but quickly remembered my manners.
“Sorry, we didn’t think anyone was home. Are you – you’re the witch of these woods, aren’t you?”
She cocked her hip, leaned against the doorframe, then rubbed her fingernails against her hoodie. “Maybe. Who wants to know?”
“Wow,” I said. “You’re not what we were expecting at all.”