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“Like what?”

“That,” he says, “is a story for another day.”

He spreads his wings and he’s gone before I can ask another thing. Seriously? Does everybody in this town have a secret? And why do I want to know every single one?

It takes eight days of sawdust and blisters and urn coffee to finish the job.

On day two, our heavy beam is still beside the truck. It needs to span the wet section under the boardwalk. Nothing with wheels can cross the gully. Not even a wheelbarrow.

The digger was supposed to excavate the Lookout and boardwalk footings, then lift that beam. We’ve dug the Lookout holes with shovels. My palms can confirm this. The remaining holes and that beam are today’s problem.

Brody sits on a stump after his dawn loads. His wings sag against the dirt. “Grounded,” he says. “Unless somebody’s brought me two new wings.”

The pale man checks the sunny stretch beyond his umbrella. “I can help under the trees. Shade only.”

Okay. Strong volunteers, not unlimited volunteers. I flatten my plans against a stack of lumber.

“Footings crew first,” I say. “Finish digging, then clear the path. Concrete stays here until the beam’s across. We need room for shoulders.”

Dale and the werewolf finish bracing our temporary plank bridge. Holt checks the supports and walks it with them. I mark our stopping places with scraps of bright tape.

Then we line up, humans and monsters together. Holt takes the heavy end. I stand where everyone can see me.

“Lift on three. One, two, three.”

My boots squelch as I walk alongside them, calling each step. The beam inches across the gully. Someone swears. Someone else asks whether this counts as leg day.

Under the trees, the pale man takes over from Dale. We stop at every tape mark. Nobody turns until I call it.

At the wet section, we lower the beam onto blocking beside its marked position. My shoulders finally drop. It’s across.

Holt wipes his muddy forehead with his muddy wrist. Not an improvement. He grins at me anyway, and I grin right back.

Every day at noon, Holt finds me, wherever I am, and puts a sandwich in my hand. Then he stands there like a seven-foot security guard until I eat it.

On the fourth day, I’m so busy arguing with the werewolf about rail spacing that I don’t see him coming. He picks me up, plops me on a stack of planks and hands me a juice box.

“Eat,” he growls.

“I’m in a meeting!”

“The meeting can wait.” He looks at the werewolf, and the werewolf decides the meeting can wait.

The sandwich is turkey and cheese, cut into triangles, with the crusts off.

The squirrel steals a whole sandwich out of Celeste’s cooler that same afternoon. Celeste says she’s opening a case file.

Two days before the festival, I stand on the finished deck of the Lookout at sunset.

The rails are smooth under my hands. The low one is just right for a five-year-old. The bench faces the valley, the way Holt drew it, and below us the creek is turning gold. The whole view looks like the front of a jigsaw puzzle box.

Holt comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, and he rests his chin on top of my head like I’m his armrest.

“You did it,” he says.

“We did it. You and Brody and sixty of your closest friends.”

“I don’t have sixty friends.”