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"Canada?" I should have been upset, but instead, all I could hear were Brett’s words: People are saying he left for Canada Was there a chance that they were right, and Dante was already waiting forback in his chair, his wrinkled knuckles turning white as he gripped the ar of Gottfried to only Undead students was not nore when the welfare of both students and professors is at stake"

Trying to compose myself, I looked up at hirasped on to the only hope I had: that fate was on my side and Dante was somewhere in Canada "When do I leave?"

Chapter 3

SIX LETTERS, ENDS WITH RY" Dustin tried to write it out for ain We were on an airplane, traveling to Quebec

I blinked While he dug through his bag, looking for a replacee of a bird flashed into raved on the underside ofwhy, I was overwhelmed with the desire to find this bird To have it forwith a pencil in hand He hovered over his crossword puzzle "Nohere was I? Oh yes, number seventeen across--"

The answer seemed so obvious that I didn’t even let Dustin finish his sentence "Canary"

He counted the letters, and thren his pen "No did you know that? I hadn’t even read you the clue yet"

"I don’t know I--I guess it was just on azed at the clouds below

"You ift from your mother She was a master of crossword puzzles Always used to sneak the breakfast"

"What was the clue?"

"Blank in a coal h "Yes, of course"

"A canary in a coalsounded fah I couldn’t remember where I had heard it "What does it mean?"

"You don’t know?" His face wrinkled with surprise "Miners used to bring canaries down into the coal pits to test for poisonous gas Canaries are very sensitive to that kind of thing, and if there was any gas, the birds would die i the miners to evacuate" Dustin tilted his seat forward and back "Isn’t it marvelous?" he said "At this verythrough the air!"

Despite how gloomy I felt, I couldn’t help but smile as I watched him fiddle with the buttons on his armrest Dustin loved airplanes The coht attendants in their prie?" an attendant asked, pushing a cart down the aisle

"I’ll have a club soda, please," Dustin said, and then changed his mind "No--make that a cranberry juice" As she filled a cup with ice, Dustin interjected, "Actually, could you change that to a to pleased "Lovely," he said, as if the flight attendant couldn’t hear hi is in h it, glancing at the ads until I stumbled across atable "Have you ever been to Lake Erie?" I asked, staring at its blue shape

The smile faded from Dustin’s face "Yes"

"What’s it like?"

"Cold Wet"

"Were they close?" I asked "My e?"

He loosened his seat belt "When they were your age they were inseparable Except when your father was around, of course"

Finding Montreal on the e The width of one index finger--that was how far away randfather’s house in Massachusetts was froers--that was how far away froers --that was how far away my parents hen they died I spread out e--that here Dante could be Anywhere And every day ere apart felt like a lifetime lost