5. Caroline
CAROLINE
The problem with the silent treatment is that it gets boring very, very quickly.
By noon, I've counted the logs in the woodpile through the window twice.
I've cataloged every item on Afon's kitchen shelves: canned beans, canned beans, and more canned beans.
I've folded the blanket many times over, paced every available inch of this cabin, and even tried to go outside to frolic in the snow with Wolf. He loved it; I froze my booty off.
Afon, meanwhile, has spent the morning doing what Afon does best: pretending I don't exist.
He's at the table now, cleaning something. A fishing reel, it looks like. The small metal parts are spread across an old rag in neat rows. He's got fingers like overcooked bratwursts, but they're somehow managing watchmaker-level delicacy.
He hasn't spoken to me since breakfast. Not a word. Not a grunt.
I don't think I'm going to win this war.
"That's it then?" I blurt from the couch, where I'm propped up with Wolf's enormous head on my lap. "Are we just not going to talk for the entire day? Is that the plan?"
His eyes remain fixed on his work. A tiny screwdriver turns between his fingers.
"Because I should let you know," I continue, "that silence is actually physically painful for me.
I'm not exaggerating. I once paid a therapist three hundred dollars an hour to tell me I have an anxious attachment style, and one of the hallmarks of that is a pathological inability to tolerate conversational voids. "
Nothing.
"Dr. Levinson—that's my therapist—she says I use verbalization as a self-soothing mechanism. So really, when you think about it, by refusing to talk to me, you're actively harming my mental health."
Afon sets down the screwdriver and I perk up with hope.
Then he picks up a different one and continues.
"Which, like, sure, yeah, fine," I press on, undaunted. "You're within your rights. But I want it on the record that this is a hostile environment."
"Noted," he says without inflection.
"Oh! He speaks!" I throw my hands up and Wolf startles, lifting his head to give me a disgruntled look. "Sorry, buddy. False alarm. This was not actually a therapeutic breakthrough."
Afon glances up. Just his eyes, though. The rest of him remains perfectly still. "Are you always like this?"
"You're going to have to be more specific."
He waggles the screwdriver at me. "Relentless."
"Yes," I say. "I am. And it only gets worse when I'm trapped, injured, and being stonewalled by a surly coward who makes promises he has no intention of keeping."
I know I've hit a nerve because his jaw tightens under the beard and his hand pauses—just for a beat—before resuming its work.
Good. I hope he's uncomfortable! I've been uncomfortable since I set foot in these godforsaken mountains. Turnabout is fair play.
"I'm not a coward," he rumbles.
"Then talk to me."
"I didn't say I wouldn't. I said not today."
"And—for those of us with the memory of a goldfish—I said why not, and you gave me a garbage answer about snow putting you in a bad headspace. No offense, dude, but that's the lamest excuse I've ever heard, and I once had a boyfriend tell me he couldn't commit because Mercury was in retrograde."
He looks at me fully now, both eyebrows slightly raised. Is that amusement in his face? Pity? Boiling anger?
It's hard to tell with him. The whole lower half of his face is beard.
"Was it?" he asks.
"Obviously not!" I cry out. "Jaden was just a commitment-phobic mouth breather who listened to too many podcasts." I tuck my legs underneath me. "My point is, I know a deflection when I hear one. And you, sir, are Prince Deflection."
He sets down the screwdriver and starts reassembling the reel. "Compared to the other things you've said about me today, that's almost a compliment."
I huff and extract myself from under Wolf's head, which earns me a scathing look of canine betrayal. "Sorry, pal," I mutter to him. "Mama needs to stress-hydrate."
I limp to the kitchen and start ripping open cabinets. To no one's surprise, I find… beans. One cabinet over? Beans. Beneath that? Rice, then coffee, then beans.
"Do you have tea?" I ask, already knowing the answer.
"No."
"Of course you— aha!" When I open the next cabinet, I see a single box of Lipton on the shelf like a dusty relic from a civilization long since collapsed. I pull it out and hoist it up triumphantly. "You liar."
He grunts and looks away from me.
Grinning from ear to ear, I fill the kettle from the tap and set it on the stove, cranking the burner. "You know what your problem is?"
"I suspect you're about to tell me."
"Your problem is that you think if you're disagreeable enough, people will stop trying." I lean against the counter and fold my arms. "But I'm not that easy to obstruct."
"The root on the edge of my property would disagree."
My jaw drops. "That's a low blow!"
Afon laughs to himself. "The root hit you even lower."
He finishes the reel, sets it aside, and stands. The chair groans with relief as he vacates it.
"Apologize," I demand as he approaches me, folding my arms across my chest.
"For what? I'm not the one who tripped you. Your beef is with the tree, not me." He steps closer. "Now, move."
I blink. "Excuse me?"
He's crossed the cabin in a few huge strides and is now standing directly in front of me.
I accidentally inhale and it feels like my brain goes through a car wash, except the liquid is made out of Afon Scent?, patent pending.
Woodsmoke, cold air, soap, clean sweat, pine resin.
He's wearing the same black sweater he's worn since I got here, or one of its identical siblings, because I'm now fairly convinced he bought them in bulk from some grim Eastern European catalog that only sells things in black.
It stretches nicely across his chest and shoulders.
His forearms are bare where he's pushed the sleeves up, ropey with tendon and vein, the skin there darker than the rest of him and marked with old scars.
His throat is right at my eye level. The eight-pointed star tattoo, faded blue-black, shifts when he swallows.
"Move," he repeats, lower this time.
"Huh?"
"I need to get to that shelf," he explains gruffly. "And you're in my way."
"I was here first."
He stares down at me. I stare up at him. Wolf, sensing the tension, slithers off the couch and goes to lie by the fire, the coward.
And then he picks me up.
There's no warning or "may I." No polite hand on my elbow or gentlemanly offer of assistance. One second, I'm sitting on the couch being stubborn; the next, two hands are around my waist and I'm airborne.
Afon lifts me and plops me on the kitchen counter. My socked feet dangle above the floor like I'm a little kid in a high chair. He does it so fast that the gasp doesn't even leave my mouth until I'm already up there.
"Wh—" I sputter.
But he doesn't even acknowledge the insanity of what he just did.
He's already reaching past me for whatever he wanted on the shelf.
His arm extends right beside my head, his chest about four inches from my face, and I am suddenly, horrifyingly aware of every point of sensory contact: the lingering pressure of his hands on my waist, the worn flannel close enough that I can see the individual threads, the smell of him that I crave on first contact.
He grabs the can of WD-40 and steps back. "That didn't have to be so hard," he says.
"You—" I manage. "You can't just pick people up like that!"
"I can if they're in my way."
"That's— You can't— That's assault!"
"Then sue me." He hefts the can to check its weight, then starts to turn away. "You said you went to Columbia. Should be easy."
With that, he returns to his tinkering at the kitchen table. It's as if I've ceased to exist. There's only the broad expanse of his back again, huge and immovable.
It takes me a while to realize that I'm still up on the counter where he deposited me like a sack of flour. When I do, I gingerly slide down, careful of my hurt ankle, then limp back to the couch and sit down hard.
Wolf trots over and puts his chin on my knee, gazing up at me with sympathetic brown eyes as if to say, Yeah, he does that.
Son of a bitch.
I think I just got manhandled.
I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to recover my dignity and failing spectacularly.
The day wears on. We orbit each other, but make no eye contact. He fixes lunch, but I refuse to eat it. At some point, I try again—"Just tell me about"—but I don't get any farther than that before a particularly savage julienne of a carrot shuts me right up.
I try another approach at five, as the sunlight fades behind the mountain range. "What if I tell you what I already know, and you just fill in the gaps?"
"No."
"Okay, then how about if you write it down? You don't even have to say it out loud—"
"No."
"What if I we play 20 Questions, and I—"
"Caroline." He sets the knife down and glares at me. "I said I would tell you, and I will. But tonight is not the night, and pushing me will not change that."
The finality in his voice might as well be a vault door slamming shut. "Fine," I grumble. "Fine."
The sky outside has gone fully dark by six-thirty.
No blackness feels as absolute as winter in the mountains.
The snow falling makes everything seem surreal and dreamlike.
We're just a speck of warm light in the desolate isolation of these woods.
Afon has continued to radiate aloof grumpiness, and I've continued to put on my best Resting Bitch Face.
It's an irresistible force meeting an immovable object, and no one is happy about how little progress is being made.
Except for Wolf. He seems glad for the company. He's asleep on the rug, belly-up, twitching through some dream in which he is presumably chasing something he'll never catch. Relatable, honestly.
After dinner of stew which I reluctantly eat and will never admit to thoroughly enjoying, Afon washes the dishes. I dry them. We work in silence, side by side, but if he notices me throwing vicious scowls in his direction, he shows no sign of it.
When the last bowl is put away, Afon hangs the dish towel on its hook and turns to me.
"Take the bed," he orders.
"Huh?" I say for the second time today.
He jerks his chin toward the only door in the cabin I haven't been through—a heavy plank door at the far end, past the fireplace. "Bedroom's through there. Take it. I'll sleep out here."
"I'm not taking your bed."
"Your ankle needs elevation and the couch is too short," he overrules. "The bed has an extra pillow. Use it."
I'm genetically inclined toward argument, but this is one I'm not that upset about losing. Anyhow, he's right: my ankle does hurt and the couch is too short. Plus, the knot on my head has once again inflicted me with a crippling migraine.
"Fine," I mutter for the second time today. "But I want it noted that this is under protest."
"As with all your other complaints, this has been noted. Goodnight, Caroline."
He drops into the armchair, stretches his legs out, and closes his eyes. Conversation over. Audience concluded. The king has retired.
I hop over to the bedroom door, push it open, and step inside.
As I suspected, the decor in here is sparse.
A double bed with a plain quilt—dark blue, well-worn, tucked in with military corners.
A nightstand with a glass of water and a book facedown.
A wooden dresser. A narrow window showing nothing but snow and darkness.
No photographs, same as the rest of the cabin.
Or wait.
Maybe that last part isn't quite true.
Because over there, on the nightstand, underneath the facedown book, the corner of a photograph peeks out.
I glance over my shoulder toward the door. Through the gap I can see the back of Afon's head in the armchair, eyes still closed.
I shouldn't…
I absolutely should not…
That's probably why I do.
I pick up the book and slide the photograph out. It's old. Creased down the middle from being folded and unfolded too many times. The colors are faded and sun-bleached.
Two men and a woman stand in front of what looks like a restaurant. The man on the left is young and lean, with dark hair and a jaw that hasn't yet been broken. He's almost smiling—almost—which is how I recognize him despite the thirty-year gap.
Afon, barely older than I am now.
The man in the middle is a somewhat familiar-looking stranger. Same dark hair, same strong build, but looser in his posture, more at ease. There's an undeniable resemblance, though. Brothers, maybe. He has his arm slung around Afon's shoulder in the casual, possessive way of family.
And the woman on the right, in a blue sundress, one hand resting on the stranger's arm, laughing at something just off-camera—
My breath catches.
She's beautiful. Dark-eyed, dark-haired, her face lit up with joy.
I turn the photo over. On the back, in faded blue pen, someone has written three names.
Afon. Gervasii. Yelena.
Gervasii. That's Matvei's father—the one who died.
And Yelena...
Out of nowhere, my mind goes to the bronze band on Afon's finger. It's probably glinting in the firelight right now. One little source of illumination in the midst of this valley of darkness.
Carefully, I slide the photograph back under the book, exactly as it was. I sit on the edge of the bed. Wolf's claws click against the floorboards as he wanders in and collapses at my feet with a groan. Through the open door, I hear the creak of the armchair as Afon adjusts his bulk.
I lie back and stare at the ceiling and think about the woman in the blue sundress who laughed at something I'll never know.
It takes me a long time to fall asleep.