Chapter 1 #2
The view outside slowly changes. Hills and mountaintops peek out in the distance.
As I get further and further north, the fairly temperate climate I’ve known for the past five years living in the city gives way to the cold and the snow.
The highway is surrounded by dense, tall forests stretching for miles instead of just boring open plains.
Even the air changes. It’s familiar. Fresh and thick with the scent of pines, mud, wetness, and…home.
That is, if that word had any real meaning and wasn’t completely tainted.
I make one last stop at Ridgelake, the only proper town among the spread-out, isolated, hard-to-reach web of houses strewn across the mountainside that is Silverpine.
This is where the closest hospital, grocery store, gas station, and school are. It’s also where the office of the estate agent I’m meeting should be, somewhere near the old bus station.
I remember getting on a bus there all those years ago, feeling like I was starting something wonderful with the much older man I met online. He promised me safety, a new life, and freedom… And freedom I sure got.
Freedom to make my own stupid mistakes. So, so many of them.
As I park and open the door, a bitter wind whips through me.
I perhaps underestimated the cold a bit.
While the streets seem maintained fairly well with snowplows driving around and salt on the roads, the mountain air pricks at my cheeks and in my lungs.
My balls nearly ascend all the way to my stomach the moment I get out of the car.
Maybe skinny jeans weren’t the best choice.
I used to be much more accustomed to the climate when I was little. The chill had nothing on me. I could run outside in the snow in just a hoodie for hours, but I guess those days are long gone. I’m a spoiled city dweller now, and people around me see it, too.
Their looks follow me, as inconspicuous as they might be, but still…
Even here, the locals look at outsiders with skepticism and distrust. I hope I won’t come into contact with too many people up the mountain.
I’m already anxious enough, and having to talk to people—people who I don’t know and who are going to have questions—is the last thing I want.
No, it should be fine. There were only a handful of houses anywhere near ours. I can survive this as long as I’m quick about it.
After wandering for a while, I finally find the office of the man I spoke to on the phone.
It’s where a little candy store used to be.
That has obviously changed, like many things have.
Not that the town looks much better than it used to.
To the folks up the mountain, this is a bustling city—I used to see it the same way when I was a child, and each visit with my mother was like a day in an amusement park—but to someone used to the actual touch of civilization, it’s a backwater dump.
“Mr. Compton?”
I look up sharply, realizing the door I was reaching for has opened in front of me. An older, balding man stands there with a cautious smile.
“Y-Yes,” I blurt out and swiftly accept the hand he’s offering. “You must be Mr. McAllen.”
“I am, I am. Oscar McAllen, at your service. Please, do come in!” he urges me in that sweet, welcoming tone I don’t hear that often back in the city. I’m happy to not have to freeze my balls off anymore, so I quickly brush the falling snow off my shoulders and step inside.
We shed our coats and put them on the wooden stand by the door.
“I expected you a bit later, but this is good.” He claps his hands excitedly as he leads me to his desk. “It gets dark rather fast around here, so it’s better that we have the extra time. Are you staying over here in town or…?”
“No, I…” Pausing, I swallow and take a deep breath, feeling my throat close up. I try to get a grip on my anxiety, knowing I need to talk to this man. Please, don’t act up now. “I’ll be staying in the house,” I say stiffly, trying to distance myself from the meaning of those words.
The man turns to me briefly, raising his brows, before he smiles again.
“I see. Well, the house is yours to do with as you please. Or will be, officially, once we get through the paperwork.” Oscar gestures for me to sit in the chair on the other side of his table. He has a file ready there.
I warm my hands by rubbing them between my thighs.
“I shouldn’t be there for more than a few days. Like I said in the email, I’ll just…take whatever’s worth anything and leave the rest to you—sell it, burn it, whatever, I don’t care. Then you’re free to put the house on the market.”
While he tries to act professional, it’s hard to ignore the hint of unease in his eyes. I know damn well what he’s thinking—people around here care about family. They don’t leave them behind to move into the city, and they don’t sell their ancestral homes without a second thought.
He can judge me if he wants. He has no idea—no one has any idea—what’s been going on in that house.
My heart pounds against my chest at the rekindled thought of going there. At the realization of how close I already am. The paperwork is all that stands between me and the thing I’ve been dreading.
I clasp my hands together, swallowing hard, and try to pay attention to him as he uses his pen to point out the things he talks about on the forms, explaining to me all the necessary formalities.
The actual property size is bigger than I expected. We owned a decent piece of land around the house, too.
Selling won’t be easy, considering the people with that sort of money don’t exactly wait in line to move to the middle of nowhere on a secluded mountain, but someone will buy it eventually.
Maybe one of the locals, though the means for purchasing property aren’t easy to come by around here.
Traditional wealth isn’t very common in these parts.
Most people live off hunting, hard work, and the kindness of the community.
I realize I’ve zoned out and don’t really know what I’m signing. I refocus my eyes on the paper again.
All I care about is that the house gets sold after this. Without my further intervention. I want nothing else to do with it once I’m gone.
With the last signature, I should feel lighter, and yet…I feel the exact opposite.
The agent hands me a key. My entire body tenses at the sight of it.
It is the same one, with the same keychain, Mother used to have all those years ago.
A plastic white snowflake—now yellow—hangs off the chunky key.
For a moment, I see it in her hand. I see her face looking up from it when she opens the door, pointing for me to get in.
My insides cramp so much it makes me flinch.
I grab it from the table, hoping he doesn’t notice how shaky I am, or perhaps just chalks it up to me being cold.
“Alright, that’s it.” Oscar grabs the edge of his side of the desk, seemingly satisfied. “Do you need me to help guide you to the house? It might be a little difficult to—”
All I do is shake my head. No words will come out. Not when my mind pulses with anxiety, already dreading every inch of the path toward the house from my nightmares.
Unfortunately, I know very well how to get there.
The closer I draw near to the mountain, the more twisted and tricky the road becomes. With the snow still falling, I drive slowly enough not to careen off the poorly marked edges and plummet to my death in the ravine.
At least then I wouldn’t have to deal with all of this.
Eventually, after about thirty minutes, I reach one of the first houses scattered through the forest. Old cabins built decades and decades ago, with generations of families born, living, and dying in them.
Mother used to tell me that some of these people have lived here for over ten generations.
Some have never left, not even to Ridgelake.
I always found that crazy. To live stuck in the past, in the days when you might starve to death if a harvest or hunt wasn’t good enough, or die in childbirth with a fully equipped hospital just half an hour away.
But that is the way of the mountain, isn’t it?
She told me that in the beginning. “This is the way of the mountain, son. The way things are supposed to be. Who are we not to follow it?”
Staring blankly in front of me, I stop the car before nearly drifting off the dirt road. I rub my eyes and steady my breath.
You can do this. You…fuck, you have to do this.
As I look up the hill ahead, I notice a long, tall building.
The roof is different, but the shape sparks my memory.
The general store. An old couple used to run it.
It’s been the only place to buy some sort of civilized products around here, for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t head all the way down to Ridgelake.
It looks to have had a bit of a facelift.
At least to Silverpine standards. The building is still just a cabin made of thick stacks of wood from this very forest, but someone painted the doors a welcoming sage green, and a chalkboard in a window now lists the month’s specials.
If I’m in need of more food than the little I bought in town, this place should be good enough.
Mother always complained about the general store, griping that it was too expensive, and the produce wilted. She liked the stuff from Ridgelake better, and yet she stayed living up here till the end. Stubborn fool.
Rolling past the general store means the house is only about a thousand yards up.
I see it faintly through the trees, heavy with fallen snow, in the distance ahead.
A wave of foreboding washes through me, filling my lungs until I can barely breathe.
I wish I were high. I wish I had something to dull this crippling fear and anxiety slicing through my veins like a river of razor blades.
I should’ve bought alcohol, at least. Why the fuck didn’t I?
My car just about makes it over the last hill near the house. The wheels spin for a few seconds, nearly giving me a heart attack, before I, by some miracle, get over it.
I pull up in front of the house and turn the car off, gripping my keys in my clenched fist. The only sounds I can hear are the ticking of the engine as it cools down and the stuttering of my own breaths, coming out just a tad too fast. I stay in the car, parked right outside, under the window to the kitchen.
The curtains are closed. What’s most shocking is how little seems to have changed.
Like I could blink and my mother would be at the window, whipping the curtains open and shouting at me to come inside.
Like the years between then and now never happened.
With everything covered in snow, I can’t tell whether the roof needs any repairs or how bad the garden is, but the agent said there wasn’t any significant work to be done, only a few minor fixes to take care of before selling.
Besides, people might just want to buy it and do whatever they want with it, so he’s assured me it likely won’t be necessary.
I look down at the center console, where the house key and its dumb yellowed snowflake keychain are waiting, and I command myself to move. I feel stupid. So damn stupid for sitting here, hiding, frozen by the mere thought of taking that key and walking to that door.
It’s nothing but a house.
Only some pieces of wood, plaster, and who knows what else put together. There’s just a bunch of crap in there. Nothing else.
No one else.
I draw in a trembling breath and close my eyes, but all I see is what I expected to see. A part of me hoped there would be relief. There is none. Only vicious memories.
“Fuck,” I shout, hitting the dashboard.
Just a little while…
I’ll just sit here a little while longer before I go in.