The café disintegrates. I spring out of my bed in the real world so fast that my foot gets caught in the quilt and I bang my elbow on the nightstand. “What the hell!”

The obnoxious beeping noise is coming from right outside the cabin, stopping when I throw open the front door. A bunch of men have marred my view of the lovely Smoky Mountains with two monstrously large containers that are about forty yards long each, sides emblazoned with walland dumpster rental & waste services. It’s eight a.m. I’ve been lying in bed awake and daydreaming since a quarter past seven, so I’m still in my pajamas, barefoot in the rain-soaked yard.

Wesley Koehler, mirror image of the starry-eyed barista I’ve unfortunately been forced to abandon, trots out of the house with a busted cabinet on his shoulders. I watch him balance the cabinet with one arm so he can free the other, shake hands with the guys, and throw it into one of the trucks as easily as if it were a loaf of bread. Wood splinters apart on impact. A small mushroom cloud of dust billows into the atmosphere.

“Hey!”

The dumpster-rental guys wave at me and climb into their vehicles, which look like the front parts of semitrucks but without the trailers, and peel out.

Wesley doesn’t wave. He glances at me, then dismissively away, heading right back into the house. He emerges with one of the trash bags from the grand staircase, giving it a heartless toss. I hear glass breaking.

“Hey!” I roar again. “Now, wait just a minute!” I hurry into the cabin to forage for my shoes, discovering one in the living room and the other under my bed. No time for socks.

“Hold up!” I flag Wesley down, but he doesn’t stop to listen. Just keeps carrying stuff out of Violet’s house and throwing it in the dumpster. “Did you go through that first?” I inquire as he tosses another garbage bag.

He looks at me like I’ve unzipped my skin and shown him my skeleton. “Did I stick my hands in Violet’s garbage? No. Why would I?”

“You don’t know if that was trash!”

“Certainly smelled like it.”

“Violet’s dying wishes,” I press urgently, following him into the house. “Didn’t you read them? She wants us to inspect everything very, very carefully before throwing it out or donating or whatever. Extraordinarily carefully.”

“Violet,” he replies through gritted teeth, picking up a rust-eaten Weber grill, “liked to be difficult.” The grill becomes smithereens.

“Okay, but—”

He walks away. Nostrils flaring, I hurry to catch up again. “I think we should honor her wishes and make sure there isn’t anything valuable in these bags before we throw them out.”

He gestures to the dumpster. “Be my guest.”

When he comes and goes again, this time with an armful of clothes, I find my voice. The one I don’t usually use because no one ever listens to it, or if they do, they laugh at me.

“I want to look through that,” I declare firmly. “Can you stop for a minute? We need to discuss what we’re doing.” I can’t help tacking on a please. It’s why I’ll never get ahead in life: I undercut myself with too many pleases and submissive body language, my annoyingly timid Okay, I understand, forget I said anything, let me know how I can help that makes me mad at myself later.

“What I’m doing is clearing out this house,” he informs me. By this point I’ve seen more of Wesley’s back than his front, and in spite of the nice view I’m getting real tired of it.

He attempts to pitch a guitar case into the dumpster, but I tug it out of his grip. He capitalizes on my moment of distraction and disposes of the moth-eaten clothes I’ve just tried to save. “You’ve only been thinking about estate plans since, what, yesterday afternoon? I’ve been planning this for a year, since Violet first told me I was going to inherit everything after she died. I’m going to fix it up, raze five acres of land, and turn it all into a sanctuary for old farm animals.”

“Into a what?”

Wesley shoots me a hard glare. I’m not prepared for it, for the horrible way it feels to have someone who looks like someone I thought I knew, someone who was warm and kind, direct such coldness at me. “What’s wrong with an animal sanctuary?”

“What’s wrong is that you’ve decided this all by yourself.” Plus, I’m not living next to a literal pigsty.

“Why shouldn’t I? Violet was my friend. I cared for her every day.” He tugs the guitar case from me, opening it to reveal broken hinges and stained velvet lining. See? his expression tacks on smugly. “You, on the other hand? You’re a stranger. You appeared from out of nowhere. No offense, but I don’t believe DNA gives you seniority over me.”

He’s calling me an opportunist. Julie Parrish’s girl, through and through.

“I know what improvements are best for Falling Stars,” Wesley concludes pragmatically. “I’ve been suggesting them ever since I was hired.”

“If Violet liked your suggestions, she would’ve implemented them,” I retort. “I inherited half this place. And so help me, if you throw out one more piece of my rightful property without my approval, I’m going to take legal action.” Please don’t call my bluff. I can’t afford a lawyer.

This stops him in his tracks. “I’m clearing out trash. Just trash, not anything that’s salvageable. Is that not the obvious next step?”

He’s got a point. I hate that he’s got a point.

“What about Violet’s wishes? Every little item, she said. Extraordinary care, she said.”

He exhales through his nose, irritated. The irritation is contagious. “That wasn’t serious. Movie night? Making cupcakes? Those aren’t wishes, it’s meddling from the afterlife.”

“Donuts,” I say, correcting him. “There’s a thousand-year curse hanging in the balance. Sounds plenty serious to me.”