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wishing.” She flicked the mortar chip into the roses and wrapped her arms around her knees.
    I looked over at the horseshoe of cottages, thinking about how welcoming we’d left them, how happy the families arriving next Saturday were going to be. And suddenly I found myself wishing we could stay, too. Not for the money, but because I wanted to see those families pile in. And because I wanted to spend a little more time where my mother had been.
    But then I remembered what was in the den. “No,” I said, “we couldn’t do it.”
    â€œNever,” Angel agreed. “Stupid idea.”
    We sat there for a minute, looking down the empty road. Angel was probably thinking, In a few minutes I’m on my way. I was thinking that I kind of liked this new Angel, the girl who talked to me. And that in a few minutes I would be left alone. With…
    â€œBecause it would be too hard,” Angel said.
    â€œImpossible.”
    â€œI mean, I didn’t even understand half of what he was saying, never mind be able to do it.”
    I turned to Angel. “Who? Do what?”
    Angel stared at me. “George! Run the cottages. Do all that changeover stuff he was talking about?”
    It was my turn to stare. “No, Angel, that part would be easy. It’s…” I waved my hands behind me.
    â€œLouise? Oh, Louise just needs to be buried. We hadto bury a goat once. It wasn’t even ours—it just wandered into our yard and died. Are you serious about us being able to do it, run things?”
    â€œShe’s not a goat, Angel! She’s my great-aunt!”
    â€œI know that. I’m just saying, you dig a big hole…”
    I jumped up and brushed the brick grit from the backs of my thighs. “You’re crazy. It’s time. I’m going to call the police, so you’d better get going.”
    Angel got up, too. “Right, okay. I’ll get my stuff.”
    Angel went in, but I didn’t follow her. I didn’t like watching people leave.
    I fingered the master key in my pocket, and then I walked back over to the cottages. One by one, I opened them up. In each, I took a knife from the silverware drawer, crawled under the kitchen and the bathroom sinks, and sprang the mousetraps.
    And then I closed up all the cottages, each lock snapping shut with a satisfying double clink: “There, yes .” “There, yes .” As I walked down the driveway, I noticed what a nice sound that was, too: the bleached white shells crunching under my sandals. I stopped. I had been here only eight weeks, but I suddenly knew that I would miss this place. Louise’s house, a little worn-down maybe, but always clean and orderly, like my grandmother’s had been. The four Lucky Charms cottages, nestled under the oaksand pines. Through the trees, in the distance, the Mill River winding like a silver ribbon through the marsh that had turned so green in the past month, it could hurt your eyes. Beyond that, the ocean, dark blue as rinsed jeans today. The air was salty and sweet—seaweed and honeysuckle. How had I never noticed all this before? I locked it all into place so I could visit it whenever I needed to, like my icebergs.
    I let myself in the kitchen door, but before I picked up the phone to call the police, I sat down at the table with a sheet of paper, a ruler, and a pencil. Another few minutes wouldn’t matter, I figured. I drew an eight-inch square. At a half inch to a foot, I copied the floor plan of those cottages: the two-inch-wide bathroom lying snugly against the three-inch-wide bedrooms, the kitchen area on the right, the living room on the left.
    Everything fitted.
    I brought the drawing up to my room and tucked it into my Hints folder. As I was about to go back downstairs to make the call, I heard a crash from Louise’s bedroom. The door was open. Angel was pulling things down from the closet shelf.
    â€œI thought you were