"What do you mean there were no other applicants?" Sigyn whispered to Kark after Jess strolled through the door on Monday morning.

  "It's a small town. Right now, she's all we have."

  Sigyn tugged on the roots of her hair as she thought things through. "I don't like this. Get rid of her."

  "This place has so many laws... I don't think I can fire her without reason."

  "Then we'll give her a reason to leave!"

  Jess flitted over like a happy little bird to greet them before offering a plate of fresh chocolate chip cookies. "I know we got off on the wrong foot, and I wanted to say how grateful I am for this opportunity."

  Sigyn and Kark eyed the plate as if it were a pile of painted rocks. Where they came from, rejecting a gift was equivalent to spitting in someone's face, so they each hesitantly took one.

  The overbearing sweet smell wafting from the cookies almost made Sigyn gag, but she forced a smile. "How thoughtful!"

  Before Sigyn could escape up the stairs, Jess insisted she tried a bite, swearing it tasted amazing. Backed into a corner by the laws of etiquette, Kark and Sigyn both took the smallest bite they could. As soon as Jess turned to set the plate down on a table, they spat their pieces into their hands.

  "That was delicious! I am going to save the rest for later." Sigyn handed the rest of her cookie off to Kark. "I have some business to attend to, so Kark will be the one to show you the ropes."

  The ropes included all the usual housekeeping tasks of running a hotel, with the added chores of maintaining ski equipment and an indoor pool. As the list went on, Jess started to feel overwhelmed. It was a miracle Kark and Sigyn alone could run this place smoothly. But she had a mission, and she wasn't about to let anything deter her - plus, the pay was unbeatable.

  At the end of the tour, Jess got to work turning over rooms. It was fairly relaxing, and the satisfaction of creating a neat bed and spotless countertops was a reward in itself.

  Jess had finished one wing of the second floor, and was moving onto the next when she passed Sigyn's office.

  She knew Sigyn was not around, and Kark was downstairs in the pool room. It was the perfect opportunity she couldn't pass up.

  On soft feet, she stepped into the room and shut the door. Aside from the grand view of the mountains, the office was a dull, frigid den devoid of personality. There were no bright colors, no family portraits on the desk, not even books on the shelves that might reveal a reader's secret interests. The only decor in the room was wood, stone, animal furs, and antlers.

  Sitting in the leather office chair, Jess opened Sigyn's laptop - surprisingly not password protected. Either Sigyn truly had nothing to hide, or she was an idiot. There were no files stored on the computer, only a search history full of journal articles and research papers about food preservatives and contaminants. Jess remembered the conservation she had overheard last week, but it still didn't make sense. Sigyn just didn't read as the ultra health-conscious type.

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  Along with the food-related things, Sigyn had been searching for information regarding climate change. There was a page saved from a university explaining the effects of greenhouse gasses, and another describing recent fluctuations in weather patterns. Jess couldn't make sense of it. She doubted Sigyn was a poacher and environmentalist.

  Next, she searched the desk drawers, where Jess found an array of fancy pens and a single leather-bound journal. She was about to open the cover when she hesitated. Was this going too far? She was already snooping around someone's office - might as well make the effort worth-while.

  She cracked open the journal to a random page. It was covered in blocks of runes that reminded her of the Elder Fukarth runes from mythology, only different. Thumbing through the book revealed pages and pages of alien writing, occasionally separated by a cute little sketch.

  Jess took a photo of a page. It served no purpose as evidence, but Jess wanted to find out on her own time what those symbols meant, or at least what language it was. She returned the journal to its drawer, careful to leave things exactly how she found them.

  A spiral staircase next to the desk led up to Sigyn's room. She leaned closer to see up through the hole in the floor, but there was only darkness. Going into her bedroom was definitely a line Jess wanted to avoid crossing if she could. That meant the last place to check was the closet.

  She opened the door and flipped on the switch. The metal of a hundred weapons gleamed in under the little light.

  It was a small arsenal. Something straight out of a spy movie. All four walls, floor to ceiling, displayed various pistols, rifles, and shotguns.

  And then there were the swords. From short hunting knives to medieval longswords, each one was different. Straight, traditional blades and ones curved with teeth. A few even twisted or had gaps designed to ensure enemies bled out.

  Jess didn't know weapons well. She couldn't name the parts of a gun or the different kinds of swords. She didn't even know that the kind of bow Sigyn preferred to use on her hunting trips was called a recurve bow, but she could recognize it. Long limbs that gently arched back before curling forward at the tips, hence the name recurve bow. Many people owned these kinds of bows, but not many kept a quiver of hand-made arrows beside them with real bird feathers for fletching.

  Jess took her time taking photos and videos of the closet. The evidence may not be absolute yet, but it was a good start.

  That night was a rare dinner for Jess, because both her father and her sister were home at the same time for all three of them to eat together at the table. Jess picked at the food on her plate while glancing at her phone. Everything was just a few clicks away.

  "How was work?" Jon asked her to fill the silence.

  "Busy." Despite the evidence within her grasp, Jess had little desire to talk to her family. She told herself it was just a matter of working up her nerve. "Have you found out anything about the case yet?"

  Jon took his time chewing his food before answering. "The lab got back to me. There's no match for the DNA."

  "So...that means it's not a wolf?"

  "All it means is we can't prove what it is," Jon corrected. "Anything could have happened that damaged the samples in the process."

  "She thinks there's something supernatural going on," Elizabeth added with a condescending laugh.

  Jess reached for her phone - the puzzle piece that would end the whole conversation.

  "You're not alone," Jon said. "Apparently there's a lot of stories about that mountain. Strange things happening for centuries."

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Like Bigfoot?"

  "Bigfoot is an American legend. Around here they have their own. Stories about gods, and the monsters they protected people from."

  "Jotuns."

  Jess' voice was almost too quiet to hear, but it caught the attention of her family.

  "I remember the stories mom read us. The jotuns were the antithesis of the gods, but they were never monsters."

  Elizabeth scoffed at her sister, and turned back to her dad. "This place might not be the best influence on her."

  No one noticed Jess clutching her phone closer to her chest, as if hiding all her secrets.