Senseless Acts of Beauty Read Free

shoulder slipped out of the neckline of her sagging hoodie.
    “You can tell if you watch the birds, too.” Riley swiped at her wet coat, shaking her dripping hands dry. “They get real quiet. Still, I’ve lived here pretty much all my life and even I can’t always predict when a storm like this is going to come. But you’re not from around here, are you?”
    Riley would know if she were. Pine Lake wasn’t a big town, and it seemed like half of it consisted of her own relatives. The rest she’d gone to school with. And she knew this girl wasn’t with the growing number of tourists renting the little cape houses or camping in the Adirondack woods beyond the borders of Camp Kwenback. She’d glimpsed the girl several times, at a distance, walking alone in the woods, her curly, puffed, and coppery ponytail bobbing.
    The girl still didn’t answer. She tensed up, bracing her legs like a Carolina wren sensing the approach of a rival. The girl really could use a change of clothes, along with a solid meal. Maybe more than one. Riley remembered the sandwich that had gone missing from Mrs. Clancy’s lunch tray on the picnic table last week. And the chip wrappers she’d found discarded in the corner of one of the old cabins. It was probably a good thing that the girl was wary of strangers, but Riley wasn’t sure it was just wariness in that gaze.
    “Listen, I’ve got a fire going inside.” Riley gestured in the direction of the main lodge. “And I’m about to make myself some hot chocolate. Why don’t you come on into the lodge and join me? You can use my phone if you want to call someone.”
    The girl didn’t move. If anything, she shrank back deeper behind the generator. Wet as she was, Riley didn’t want her to press back too far and get tangled up in the wires. There was a good chance squirrels and chipmunks had made lunch out of the rubber insulation, exposing the live insides.
    “Ok, then, come on in whenever you’re ready.” Riley pushed open the shed door and then pulled her hood over her head. “The sliding back doors are always unlocked. I’ll have some hot chocolate waiting for you, just in case.”
    Riley walked out, letting the door bang shut behind her. She strode across the squishy lawn with the rain pouring over her bill-cap. This wasn’t Camp Kwenback’s first runaway. She’d figured the girl would be inside within five minutes, maybe ten.
    It took forty.
    Riley had all but given up when she heard the squeal of the sliding door. The girl slipped in and hesitated on the all-weather rug, shivering. When she was crouched back against the generator, Riley had estimated the kid to be about twelve years old, but the girl unfolded to a good five foot two, all stick-thin legs, awkward proportions, easily on the far side of a skinny thirteen.
    “Go ahead and kick off those sneakers.” Riley gestured to a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of hot chocolate sitting on the raised bricks of the hearth. “That’s been waiting for you. Glad you decided to join me.”
    Riley took the soaking hoodie out of the girl’s hands and saw goose bumps riddling her thin arms. All the girl wore underneath the jacket was a ribbed tank and a pair of jean shorts. Riley held out a hand for the backpack, but the girl just held the strap until her knuckles went white.
    Riley dropped her hand and hung the hoodie on a nearby hat tree. “I’m Riley. What should I call you?”
    “Sadie.”
    The girl spoke the name in a firm voice and then watched Riley’s face. Riley sensed that a great deal of thought had gone into the decision whether or not to tell her.
    “Pleasure to meet you, Sadie.” Riley wondered whether the name was real. “First time in Pine Lake?”
    “Yeah.”
    The girl followed her to the fireplace, looking all around her. Riley took it all in, too, trying to see it through Sadie’s eyes, the soaring pine rafters with their glossy sheen and dark pine knots, the rustic hearth made with local stone, the