Back inside, Lark excit­ed­ly revealed that they had a board­er arriv­ing that evening, prompt­ing them to pre­pare the attic room they occa­sion­al­ly rent­ed out. The space was mod­est, con­sist­ing of a bed and a half bath, and had remained large­ly emp­ty due to the quiet­ness of trav­el­ers on the now dan­ger­ous high­way. As Lark described their deci­sion to accept a board­er, she whim­si­cal­ly acknowl­edged their nature as “quixotes,” open to pos­si­bil­i­ties despite the cir­cum­stances.

Lark then unveiled her delight about the board­er, Kel­lan, and pre­sent­ed a bound gal­ley of a long-sought book, *I Cheer­ful­ly Refuse*, by Mol­ly Thorn—a unique author whose works had cap­ti­vat­ed Lark since child­hood. Kel­lan had brought the advance copy into the store along with oth­er titles, reviv­ing Lark’s long-stand­ing desire to read it. The book was sig­nif­i­cant for its rar­i­ty, and Lark shared her his­to­ry of search­ing for this elu­sive title since she was twelve.

As they pre­pared the room, Lark offered infor­ma­tion about Kel­lan, describ­ing his slen­der fig­ure and notable fea­tures, includ­ing a dam­aged hand. The con­ver­sa­tion turned to an infa­mous event from Michi­gan’s labor his­to­ry where work­ers dis­ap­peared, not­ed for their skele­tal appear­ances, prompt­ing Lark to refer to Kel­lan as per­haps a “squelette.”

When Kel­lan arrived, he was seen as frag­ile and shy, car­ry­ing a chil­dren’s suit­case and show­ing reluc­tance to engage in con­ver­sa­tion or even accept food. Lark guid­ed him upstairs to his room while they tend­ed to final prepa­ra­tions. Lat­er that night, Lark and Rainy exchanged whis­pers, con­tem­plat­ing Kel­lan’s mys­te­ri­ous ori­gins and the future they could fore­see for him, which was a pecu­liar­i­ty of Lark’s. He planned to head to his uncle’s in Thun­der Bay, and Lark asked Rainy to assist Kel­lan with his car, sens­ing he would need help.

As they set­tled back into com­fort­able silence, the nar­ra­tive reflect­ed on the pecu­liar­i­ties of human con­nec­tion, the rem­nants of a trou­bled jour­ney, and the lit­tle joys hid­den with­in the mun­dane. Lark’s intu­itive grasp of Kel­lan’s char­ac­ter hint­ed at a sto­ry yet to unfold, as both she and Rainy nav­i­gat­ed the blend of hos­pi­tal­i­ty and curios­i­ty that the new board­er embod­ied.