3

Pat Martin wasn’t what I’d expected. For one thing, she looked older than Birchardville itself. Yet she’d posted a rental on StayAway—a rental with multiple five-star reviews. Still. She looked like the sort of person who wouldn’t know the Internet existed.

She must have been waiting to greet me, because as soon as I pulled in, she came tapping down the stone steps, leaning on a cane. At the sight of me, she cocked her head back and sucked her teeth. “You don’t look like a Morgan.”

She was right. My current name gave no hint of my Asian-American ethnicity. I’d been born Chen Meifeng—or Meifeng Chen as my American documents read, listing my family name second in the Western way. My birth parents must have loved me—why else would they have named me Beautiful Wind (美风)? But they’d died in a car crash before I was two, leaving fire fighters to extract me from a mangled twist of metal. As an only child of only children whose parents had died young, I was left alone. No relatives came from China to claim me.

Eventually, to save everyone trouble, I chose a Western name. After spending my grade school years bouncing from foster home to foster home and school to school, it just seemed easier than teaching everyone to pronounce my birth name. “My name’s Meifeng, but you can call me Morgan,” I used to say. A nice, plain American name. The name of a child you might want to adopt as a sister to your sons and daughters. Only that’s not what happened.

When I was seventeen, Mom and Dad Scott finally adopted me. They’d urged me to keep my given name, insisting that Meifeng was part of me and that keeping the name would honor the ones who had given me life.

I didn’t agree. At that point, it just seemed easier to leave Meifeng behind.

But all this seemed a bit much to explain to an elderly stranger on a cold December night. I met Pat Martin’s narrowed gaze and shrugged. “Sorry.” I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for, but I didn’t want her to think I was offended. Because I wasn’t. After what I’d put up with over the years, it would have taken a lot to offend me.

She sniffed. “I’ve seen worse.”

Which could mean anything. I definitely had questions.

“I’m eight-two,” she informed me, unsolicited, as we mounted the rough stone steps toward her porch. A cheery strip of white twinkle lights hung from the eaves, and another set outlined her front door. She half turned and regarded me over a bony shoulder through bug-eye glasses. “I keep spry.”

She must. Hiking these steps was a workout in itself.

“Over there’s the garage.” She jabbed her cane toward a dark hump off to the right. “But you’ll need to leave your rental in the drive. I’ve got mine parked in there.” She thrust the cane the other direction. “Over there’s the woodshed, down there’s the old mill, and that way’s the woods.” Cackling at this last remark, she swung her cane in a wide, 180-degree arc to encompass the dark mass of trees marching up the hill behind the house. Her heel slipped, and she jammed the cane into the ground, glaring as if the two had conspired against her. “Don’t just stand there,” she barked, shooting another look back at me. “It’s cold out here.”

No kidding. But it wasn’t my fault she’d come down to greet me without a coat. Following her up the steps, I had no choice but to carry my small rolling suitcase. My breath rose in white clouds as I panted. It was all very surreal.

“Shoes off!” she barked as I stepped over the threshold. “Always shoes off! I don’t want you tracking anything onto my carpet!”

I slipped off my boots. My toes curled against the cold floor. Since she didn’t seem to keep a set of slippers for guests, I leaned down, unzipped the outside flap of my suitcase, and tugged out my flip-flops. Too cold to remove my socks, I jammed the straps between my toes and let the thick fabric bunch up.

Pat Martin observed me through slit-like eyes.

“They’re house shoes,” I assured her. The Florida version, anyway.

“Oh.” Her eyebrows arched, her forehead crumpling into an accordion of creases. “They’re house shoes.” She harrumphed and poked her cane toward a darkened stairway headed down. “That way’s your room.” The cane swung the opposite direction toward a set of stairs leading up into the black. “That’s me.”

So it was a split level. I nodded, gripping the handle of my carry-on and heading down. The cane slid in front of me like the arm to a revolving gate.

Pat Martin inclined her head toward the ascending staircase. “Business first.”

I left my bag and followed her up the steps into a cozy kitchen. She set a kettle on the stove and plunked down at the tiny table, gesturing toward the chair opposite her. She slid a sheaf of papers toward me. Leah had warned me about this.

“Since you weren’t the one who made the reservations, I saved these ’til you got here.”

I skimmed the list. No loud music. No pets. No smoking or drinking alcohol indoors. No members of the opposite sex on the premises after nine o’clock.

Whom did this woman think I’d bring in? This was Birchardville, Pennsylvania. According to Leah, the entire town had only a few hundred residents, and some of those were probably cows.

I scrawled my name at the bottom and pushed the papers toward her.

Pat Martin leaned forward and studied my signature as if it contained some hidden code. Then she set the papers on the table, slapped them with the flat of her palm, and nodded once. “If you want a hot breakfast, you’ll have to be up here by seven.”

She didn’t seem to be joking. It was probably pointless to remind her that this was my Christmas vacation.

When I nodded, she cackled, her eyes disappearing into crow’s feet so deep you could have sounded them with a depth charge. “Don’t worry. If you oversleep, you can just get breakfast at The Olde Birchardville Store.” She eyed me appraisingly. “You’ll be headed down that way anyway.”

I would? This was news.

She cackled again. “That’s where the Wi-Fi is.”



Eight thirty the next morning found me picking my way down the lane toward The Olde Birchardville Store, which Pat had assured me was just across from the church and therefore “unmissable.” We would see about that.

I walked lightly, reveling in the delicate crunch of snow under my boots. The sound was almost like walking on fresh sand, only more palpable. I slowed, lowering my feet from heel to toe, savoring the slow, crisp scrunch. Why was this so enjoyable?

Following Pat’s instructions and heading straight down gravel drive toward Route 267, I passed Birchardville Church and its accompanying cemetery on my right. Beyond the church sat a large, tumble-down barn with a pickup truck parked out front. To my left, the woods stretched away into rolling hills. My breath rose in soft clouds. Although it was only a two- or three-minute walk, I already regretted not wearing the hat Pat had set out for me: a hand-knitted purple number with tie-down ear flaps and a giant red pom-pom on the top. I’d worried that it would make me look silly, but if it could keep my ears from turning to ice chips and dropping off my head, I’d resign myself to drawing laughs from the locals. After all, I’d only be here a few days. Who cared what sort of impression I made?

I crossed the street and approached The Olde Birchardville Store, passing a set of bright red, old-timey gas pumps. I mounted three shallow wooden steps and pulled open the door. Honestly, I’d half expected that my entrance would be greeted by the kind of silence evidenced in old Westerns when a stranger swings through the saloon doors and everyone stops talking and stares.

That’s not what happened.

Instead, a bell fell on my head.