They say it almost every time, the ones who walk in cold. And I smile and say thank you, because the sentence is kinder than they know.

They think they are complimenting the rooms. The flowers turned toward the light. The coffee ready before anyone asks. The second cup already on the table for the conversation that hasn’t happened yet. They are not complimenting the inn. They are noticing what happens when someone quietly leaves pieces of himself behind.

I’m Avery. I run an inn in the mountains and I write books, and I’ve stopped pretending those are separate rooms.

For most of my life I’ve felt as though a quiet observer understood me before I could understand myself. When I finally wrote him down, I gave him a different name, because arm’s length was the only distance from which I could look back without looking away. He isn’t Avery. But he is not not Avery. You’ll meet him here, the man at the front desk who has clearly done this a hundred times and finds it easy.

Still, by Design. asked what happens when a caretaker builds a place that can heal other people. Good Little Innkeeper, this October, asks the harder question: what happens when the caretaker finally walks through the front door himself.