Two
Christmastown, USA—known for thousands (tens of thousands?) of Christmas lights strung from every imaginable German-inspired edifice—was in a blackout.
As she drove through downtown Leavenworth, there were no streetlights, no Christmas lights, no people.
A bizarre sight—she'd never seen downtown dark in her lifetime.
Never this empty, either. The town that raised her had gone to sleep.
When she parked in a puddle on Division Street, right in front of the inn, London noticed her shoes first. Leather ankle boots. Without a proper flashlight, she used her phone and headed to the shed in the backyard. Certainly, someone had left an old pair of Bogs or Sorels around.
“Well, that’s new,” she said, faced with a combination lock on the shed door. “Who locks anything in Leavenworth?”
She aimed her phone through a small window and saw what she wanted—a pair of rubber boots on a shelf.
London trudged through a mucky mess of what used to be her lawn to the back door, which was unlocked. Of course. Lock the shed but leave the house wide open. She opened the door, and its rusty hinges squealed a warning.
One step inside told her everything.
The air was metallic, sour—timber and river mud. A rhythmic drip from the kitchen ceiling onto the stove set a tempo. Drip, drip, dripppp.
She sloshed room to room, the thin beam of light from her phone exposing the house in disjointed fragments.
The built-in credenza Harper had restored in the dining room.
Wood-paneled wainscoting they’d almost gotten a divorce over in the sitting room.
The kitchen cabinet that jutted too far into the hallway and caused more than a few bruised hips.
Her grandfather’s house creaked around her, unfamiliar sounds announcing a building in crisis.
Wind whipped outside, and a loose gutter clanged against the roof with every whoosh of air.
London slumped into a leather couch in the sitting room and stared toward the fireplace. She flipped off the flashlight to conserve the battery. The house felt bigger. Colder.
Though she was sitting, it was like standing in the Icicle River. Her shoes were full of water and silt. Each shift of her foot dug a new piece of grit between her toes. The jeans she’d just bought last week were plastered to her skin from the calf down.
Memories rose and fell in quick succession. She’d push one down only to have another surface.
It was summer in the Enchantments. Before social media. Before permits were impossible to get. Before Instagram could make people and places famous.
They’d been back in Leavenworth a few months, trying to make a life that felt shared, not borrowed. This was harder than London expected. Bringing a city girl to a small town—and keeping her there—took more than she’d thought.
Harper had never pretended to love the uphill part. She hiked like she built—steady, deliberate—but the altitude was new and she’d underestimated it.
“You can go,” Harper said, during a stop on a switchback. “I’m not dying. Just re-evaluating my life choices.”
“I’m your best life choice,” London said, pressing a cold soda into her hand. “Drink this. It’ll help.”
“Okay, but if I don’t make it back from this, you’re the one who has to call my mother.”
When they reached the summit, Harper didn’t collapse. She stood there, quiet, staring at the impossible blue of the lake, the stately silver of the jagged mountains. “Okay. I get it.”
“Get what?” London had been mid-speech about glacial melt and granite.
“Why we’re here. Why you pushed to come back. If you’re going to love something, it might as well be this.” Harper turned in a full circle, taking it all in. She’d seen mountains before. But not like these.
London gestured enthusiastically in response and told a bigger story than necessary about scale and destiny, throwing in what she could remember from her father’s mountain talks.
Frederick.
The last time she saw her dad was in this house.
Her shoulders tensed, but she couldn’t sit there and wallow. There was no time and there was no point. And she couldn’t stop shivering. Wet feet in winter in a home with no heat were, as her British mother would say, properly miserable. She needed to get a plan together, and a second set of hands.
“Hey,” she started when Laurie picked up. “Is that offer to haul drywall still on the table?”
“It is,” Laurie said. “When do you want me?”
“Is tomorrow too soon? I can’t stay here tonight so I’ve got to go find a place in Wenatchee. The main level is trashed.” London pulled the back door shut and didn’t bother to lock it, either. “I totally ruined my boots and I’m fucking freezing.”
“Oh no! Which boots?”
“The grey Steve Madden ankle—oh it doesn’t matter. Can you come tomorrow? With rubber boots and crowbars and gloves? And lots of those big black contractor trash bags?”
“Of course, hon. What else?” Laurie must not have been at home—there was no barking.
“Some good luck? I’m sick of this year and its disasters!”
“Well, that I can’t help with. Your karma is your own. But let me work on this a bit for you, okay? Just go get safe and get some dry clothes on. And I’ll leave Duke with Jill—I don’t want him in the way.”
Thank God, London thought, but said, “What would I do without you?”
“You’d struggle.”
# # #
The morning sky was silver and moody, barely qualifying as daylight.
Another weaker storm had passed. Rain had switched to heavy snow overnight, pulled from the west. As she approached the outskirts of town, London took in what she couldn’t see the night before.
Massive pines and firs. Down. Everywhere.
Trees on roofs. Trees on cars. Trees blocking access to some streets.
All covered in a blanket of snow. She’d thought the story was flooding, but it was becoming clear it was bigger.
Turning the corner onto Division Street, London gasped.
The house next door to the inn had a 40-foot fir down on top of it.
She could see inside the home of her longtime neighbors. It had been sliced in half.
Now, a little water damage felt survivable. Simple, even. London kept driving, surveying damage. The Meyers’ new Volvo. Hit. Polly Sutherland’s cottage. Spared. The red Craftsman on the corner. Lost under two firs. The Colchuck got very lucky.
London spent much of the night before reading her insurance policy. She didn’t have flood insurance. Her father had warned her—it was nearly impossible to get in Leavenworth. Fire insurance too. She’d taken him at his word. Never even tried.
Now, parked in that same puddle, this time covered in snow, she observed the inn.
Its dark brown shingles and pale green gingerbread-style trim seemed intact.
The clanging gutter from the night before was indeed hanging on by a thread.
As she assessed the exterior, London tried to block out the hum of chainsaws, urgent and steady.
A reminder that everyone was cutting something down.
Frederick would have a plan. He was so calm and methodical.
He would have a crew there already and sandwiches on order.
Step one was to get those rubber boots out of the shed. Then, take a bunch of photos. Then. What? Just start ripping stuff out?
As her feet sank into fresh snow over saturated ground, London cursed.
She should have sold the place when Harper left.
She didn’t want to be here. She’d had enough hospitality management for a lifetime.
If one more person complained about the cost of lodging in a destination town with finite beds, she might just punch them.
How hard was it to understand supply and demand? Step. Curse. Step. Curse.
A tug on the padlock revealed it wasn’t locked.
Why hadn’t she tried that before?
The shed reeked of gasoline, as always—now muddled with riverbed.
But the boots were there. The shelves were just out of reach, the floor covered with yard tools, a firepit, and a few stacks of firewood.
She tipped into a one-legged yoga pose, back leg extended and reached forward. The boots fell into her hands.
Men’s boots.
Size 10.
Frederick’s.
She felt the burn in her eyes before she could stop it.
“Not now,” London said under her breath. She’d been strong. When Sebastian called with the news, she didn’t cry. When she drove through a blizzard alongside semis and spinouts, no tears.
Now, at the sight of rubber boots caked with years-old mud, this.
London hated crying. When she started, it was hard to stop. And when she started, it ruined the day. This day was young. This day was demanding. No crying.
London dabbed her eyes with a knuckle. “Thanks for the boots, Dad. I’ll do my best.”
They were at least two sizes too big, but she slipped them on anyway and trudged to the unlocked back door.
In daylight, paint bubbled along its base, alongside too many dark scuffs from being kicked closed.
And the bottom three rows of shingles on the house were darker than the others, with a wavy line of silt marking where water had been.
London pressed her palm against the door and water beaded against her skin. She drew in the cold air, held it—then let it go. And again. She turned the brass handle, pulled hard—and finally saw the damage. Daylight was brutal.
# # #
“You’re a saint,” London said as Laurie handed her a pair of gloves and a crowbar. They were standing in the front sitting room, surrounded by soaked wainscoting and wet furniture. “Did you happen to bring coffee? We’re gonna need it.”
“I didn’t, sorry. I can run and get some.” Laurie snapped a glove on her left hand like a surgeon. “Or I can get to work taking down your walls.”
“Don’t bother—there’s no power anywhere in town. Let’s get started and we can take a break later. I think we need to start by hauling out furniture.”
“Roger that. But where are we putting it?” Laurie looked around at the room full of couches and club chairs. She didn’t know. Couldn’t know.
This was where Frederick held court with guests, telling stories of hiking, fishing, and whatever else struck his fancy. Where London’s mom, Lorraine, served high tea. And where London told them both she was marrying Harper.
“Outside, I guess. It’s all ruined anyway.” London shrugged.
“It’s not! You can save some of this.”
“Maybe? But should I? Sometimes I think this place is just too much for me.” London again slumped into the leather couch that faced the fireplace. The water had retreated overnight, but she could still feel the silt in her shoes.
“I think you should try.” Laurie sat beside her friend, arm around London’s shoulders. “This seems hard now. But you’ve got me, and Cindy and Cheryl are on the way with a truck and trailer. Let us help you, huh? For once?”
London’s head found Laurie’s shoulder and she pushed back tears. “I was already thinking of selling, and now this. There’s nothing for me here anymore. Mum’s never coming home. And Harper took the magic of Leavenworth with her.”
“I know she did,” Laurie said, hugging London tighter. “And it was yours first. Remember when we met, you were anxious to get me to come float the river? God, what was that, twenty years ago? You wanted to show me this town in Washington that looked like it belonged in Germany or Austria.”
“I was just trying to sleep with you.”
“Doesn’t matter. You love Leavenworth. You’ve always loved this little town, with its kooky locals and nine million beers on tap and snow in the winter and heat in the summer and—”
“Okay, okay. Yes, I loved it here. But things are different now.” London stood to look closer at the wood paneling that ran the full perimeter of the room. Paneling Harper had designed and built.
“Because Harper left? Or?”
“Yeah, Harper. But also, my dad. Mum. I don’t have people here. I know people. I see them look at me at the brewery. I notice the whispers. I don’t know if they’re gossiping about me and Harper, or Dad’s heart attack, or Mum’s dementia. I don’t know who’s mine anymore.”
Laurie didn’t answer. She joined London beside a soaked wood panel and jabbed her crowbar into a seam. The wood gave with a soft, splintering sound.
London jumped back as the wood cracked.
Laurie smiled. “Maybe this is what you really need. Demolition therapy. Let’s make it yours.”
“I like it. But seriously, what do we do with the furniture?” London looked around a full room.
“I really think you can save it. Let me run to the hardware store and get a few tarps. We can cocoon it.”
Laurie wasn’t a bad problem solver. “I’ll go. Would you do me a favor and take a bunch of pictures of all the rooms before we destroy this place?”
“You got it,” Laurie said. “And—hey—you're not doing this alone. I have a crowbar and nowhere else to be. That's basically a gay friendship bracelet.”