Quixotes, the sto­ry opens with the nar­ra­tor reflect­ing on the qui­et domes­tic scene at home as Lark enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly announces that they will be receiv­ing a new board­er. She informs the nar­ra­tor that prepa­ra­tions must be made for the attic room, which, although mod­est, had not seen much use in recent times due to the haz­ardous state of the near­by high­way, which dis­cour­aged trav­el­ers. Despite this, Lark embraces the unex­pect­ed arrival with a sense of opti­mism, label­ing them­selves as “quixotes”—idealistic and open to what­ev­er life may bring, regard­less of the cir­cum­stances. The room, sim­ple but func­tion­al, fea­tures just a bed and a half-bath, but its empti­ness had long made it an odd­i­ty in their home, now ready to house some­one who might become part of their qui­et, some­times tumul­tuous, lives.

Lark’s excite­ment grows as she reveals more about the guest they are host­ing, Kel­lan, who arrives with a spe­cial treasure—a bound gal­ley of I Cheer­ful­ly Refuse, a rare book by the elu­sive Mol­ly Thorn. This book, long sought after by Lark since child­hood, car­ries per­son­al sig­nif­i­cance as it had been dif­fi­cult to acquire, with its rar­i­ty adding to its allure. Kellan’s arrival with this cov­et­ed item feels almost fate­ful, spark­ing in Lark a renewed sense of nos­tal­gia and pas­sion for an author she had once cher­ished. The encounter seems serendip­i­tous, as it not only con­nects Lark and Kel­lan over shared lit­er­ary love but also serves as a cat­a­lyst for rekin­dling a long-held inter­est that had laid dor­mant for years. It marks an impor­tant emo­tion­al moment for Lark, one filled with a sense of excite­ment and con­nec­tion as she wel­comes both Kel­lan and the book into her life.

As they con­tin­ue prepar­ing for Kellan’s stay, Lark offers more insights into his appear­ance and back­ground, describ­ing him as a frag­ile, some­what dis­tant fig­ure, with a par­tic­u­lar­ly notable dam­aged hand. Her descrip­tion evokes a sense of mys­tery, mak­ing it clear that Kel­lan is not just anoth­er passer­by but some­one who car­ries with him a com­plex and pos­si­bly painful his­to­ry. This con­ver­sa­tion then shifts to a dark­er top­ic, with Lark recall­ing a dis­turb­ing episode from Michi­gan’s labor his­to­ry, where work­ers mys­te­ri­ous­ly van­ished and were lat­er found in skele­tal form. Lark, using her sig­na­ture wry humor, jok­ing­ly refers to Kel­lan as a “squelette” due to his gaunt appear­ance, evok­ing an unset­tling com­par­i­son to the long-for­got­ten work­ers. The con­nec­tion between Kel­lan and this eerie sto­ry only deep­ens his enig­mat­ic pres­ence in the nar­ra­tive, leav­ing a lin­ger­ing sense of unease and curios­i­ty about his true nature.

When Kel­lan final­ly arrives, he does not meet the nar­ra­tor’s expec­ta­tions of a live­ly or engag­ing guest. Instead, Kel­lan presents him­self as reserved and almost melan­cholic, with a child’s suit­case in hand, fur­ther­ing the sense of him being out of place, car­ry­ing a his­to­ry or bur­den that isn’t imme­di­ate­ly appar­ent. His reluc­tance to engage in con­ver­sa­tion or accept any food only adds to his mys­te­ri­ous per­sona, mak­ing it clear that he is not a man eas­i­ly under­stood. Lark, show­ing her typ­i­cal kind­ness, leads him to his room in the attic, offer­ing him a place of rest amidst the uncer­tain­ty of his arrival. As the evening pro­gress­es, the nar­ra­tor and Lark exchange their thoughts about Kel­lan, spec­u­lat­ing about his past, his rea­son for being there, and the role he might play in their lives. Lark’s under­stand­ing of Kellan’s silence and with­drawn nature hints at an under­ly­ing depth to his char­ac­ter, and both she and the nar­ra­tor begin to see the poten­tial for his arrival to alter the course of their qui­et exis­tence in ways they can­not yet pre­dict. The mys­tery sur­round­ing Kel­lan, his past, and his qui­et pres­ence cre­ates a sense of antic­i­pa­tion for the future.