Ivy followed the deck around to the side, hopped off, and walked up the slope to the front of the upper box, which was bordered by a leveled-off lawn that bled back into the forest a little way from the building. At one end of the main box was a glass door crowned with a rusted metal awning. There was a dirt road off to the left, maybe a driveway, slicked over with wet leaves, a few spindly baby trees poking up here and there. Not much traffic, Ivy guessed. Not lately anyway.
She turned back to the house and tried the front door. Through the glass, she could see a raincoat hanging on a hook and a row of rubber boots and clogs. She shoved the door with her shoulder, knowing it was useless, just shoving out of frustration. The day was edging toward darkness. The awning kept the rain off, but not the gloom.
It didn’t have the look of a year-round house. No grill on the deck, no chairs in the grass, no beer can set down and forgotten for a day or two. A settled feeling. Ivy felt around the top of the doorframe, checked the crannies where the awning met the wall. She found a big rock a few yards away and lifted it, pressed her fingers into the crawling dirt underneath. She thought for a moment about just heaving the rock through the glass door, then told herself to be cool, to use her brain. If it was a vacation house, there was probably a key hidden somewhere, right? You wouldn’t want to drive all the way from the city and realize you’d forgotten your key.
Ivy focused on the stacked stone foundation, following it along the house to the far corner, where it widened as the ground dipped away. A canoe was tipped against the short side of the house, no paddles anywhere around. There was a gap in the foundation at the corner, where a downspout was pouring water like a faucet. She knelt down to look underneath, but it was too dark to see. She slowly stretched her hand into the darkness, biting her lip as she patted the ground behind the stones. Her hand met something smooth, plastic. A bottle. Vitamin B12. Something metallic rattled inside.
She took out the key and tucked the bottle back where she’d found it. She ran to the door, her hands fluttering, her whole body quaking with cold and hunger and a sudden surge of fear. More than the police, more than the dogs and the shouting mountain man, she felt chased by the darkness, which was bearing down fast.
Inside, she lunged for the light switch. Her breath filled the entryway with clouds of steam. She stripped off her jean jacket and put on the coat that was hanging by the door. Featherlight and plasticky, it didn’t do much against the cold. She found a thermostat on the wall and set it to eighty; air started whistling through metal vents in the floor with a smell of burning dust.
The house was wide open and glassy, like a fish tank in the treetops. Some of the floor-to-ceiling windows were on tracks, like sliding doors, with thin, silvery cables stretched across to keep people from falling out. At one end of the L was the kitchen, all red, as slick and shiny as the maraschino cherries Agnes liked to eat out of the jar. Ivy started slamming through cabinets. Pots, pans, plates, glasses, some dried pasta, and a couple of cans. A jar with a picture of a knife spreading chocolate on a piece of white bread. Ivy opened the jar and scooped out some soft chocolate on her finger, then added a finger, digging out huge dollops of the stuff, filling her mouth with thick, sticky gobs. It was like peanut butter, only richer; it was like fur-lined mittens, swimming pools, and twenty-four-carat gold all mixed together. Ivy felt dizzy. She put the jar down and wiped her fingers on a stiff towel. She opened another cabinet and found a box of organic rice crackers, which she ripped open.
Mouth full of crackers, she went through the rest of the drawers and cabinets. There were some mini bottles of tonic, something called wheat beer, and three big bottles of fancy water. There were gadgets—blending things, chopping things, mixing things—like the place was some kind of restaurant. Heavy, rough-looking plates and bowls that didn’t stack right, cups and glasses so light and thin you could crush them in one hand. The fridge stood open, dark and silent, a box of baking soda its only inhabitant.
A long, ash-gray wooden table divided the kitchen from the living room; low backless benches ran along the sides. The living room was just as bare, with matching leather couches, like the seats of an old car, facing each other over a plain glass coffee table.
It was weird: these people had money, but no clue how to spend it. If she had the cash, she’d buy the most deliciously fluffy couch she could find, maybe one of those sectionals with the long chair at the end. A couch you could disappear into for hours, wrapped in a thick blanket, watching movie after movie on your big flat-screen.
Ivy went downstairs and rummaged through a closet, where she found life jackets, paddles, and a pair of ugly sandals with nylon straps. No sleds, gloves, goggles, or shovels, though, and no coats either, besides the rain jacket she’d found by the front door. So it was a summer place. That was good. That gave her all kinds of time.
She
