The key sat on my kitchen counter for eleven days before I booked a flight to Sydney.
The drive from the Sydney airport to the Cabot Trail took nearly two hours. I had rented a small sedan, and the man at the counter had kindly printed me a paper map when I told him my phone’s GPS made me nervous on unfamiliar roads.
April on Cape Breton still carries winter in its bones. The trees along the highway were only beginning to think about budding, the sky low and the color of old pewter.
I drove through the Englishtown ferry crossing and up into the highlands, watching the Gulf appear and disappear between the hills like a rumor.
I had imagined the cottage as a small, weathered thing.
What I found at the end of a long gravel lane was something else entirely.
A converted two-story property with large north-facing windows, a generator shed around the side, and a satellite dish nearly hidden behind a stand of spruce trees.
No construction equipment. No tarps. No evidence of any remediation work—recent or otherwise.
The exterior was clean and maintained. Someone had even stacked new firewood against the south wall.
The front door opened with the key Patricia had given me.
