Tom Winter disagreed.

Maybe it was his mood, but this property appealed at once. Perversely, he liked it for its bad points: its isolation, lost in this rainy pinewood—its blunt undesirability, like the frank ugliness of a bulldog. He wondered whether, if he lived here, he would come to resemble the house, the way pet owners were said to resemble their pets. He would be plain. Isolated. Maybe, a little wild.

Which was not, Tom supposed, how he looked to Doug Archer, the real estate agent. Archer was wearing his blue Bell Realty jacket, but the neat faded Levi’s and shaggy haircut betrayed his roots. Local family, working class, maybe some colorful relative still logging out in the bush. Raised to look with suspicion on creased trousers, which Tom happened to be wearing. But appearances were deceptive. Tom paused as they approached the blank pine-slab front door. “Didn’t this used to be the Simmons property?”

Archer shook his head. “Close, though. That’s a little ways up the hill. Peggy Simmons still lives up there—she’s nearly eighty.” He raised an eyebrow. “You know Peggy Simmons?”

“I used to deliver groceries up the Post Road . Came by here sometimes. But that was a long while ago.”

“No kidding! Didn’t you say—”

“I’ve been in Seattle for most of twelve years.”

“Any connection with Tony Winter—up at Arbutus Ford?”

“He’s my brother,” Tom said.

“Hey! Well, hell! This changes things.”

In the city, Tom thought, we learn not to smile so generously.

Archer slid the key into the door. “We had a man out here when the property went up for sale. He said it was in fairly nice shape on the inside, but I’d guess, after it’s been closed up for so long—well, you might take that with a grain of salt.”

Translated from realty-speak, Tom thought, that means it’s a hellacious mess.