Chapter 28
Carrie
The darkness rearranges itself. As my eyes adjust to the strangled light, I see a shamble of kitchen cupboards, a fireplace, an old chair. The wood floor has no rugs to cover it. No comfort to offer bare feet. I decide to keep my boots on and the door open wide to the outside. When I step farther in, I hear no movement from anyone inside. Matthieu doesn’t appear in a doorway. I suddenly long for his voice, to break the curse that seems to linger inside these walls.
“Hello?”
I call, louder this time, as though that would banish this feeling of being watched. But no one answers. Instead of retreating back outside, I throw off my fear, stride forward, and thrust the bedroom door open. It holds a bed, some covers in a heap, and half-drawn curtains that have peeled away from the pole. “Matthieu?”
He’s clearly not here. And from the smell of damp and loam, he might not have been here for some time. I step toward the window at the back, brushing my hand over the curtain. Dust motes dance through the thin shafts of sunlight, the only movement in this place. I turn with a sigh, wrapping my arms around my body. I know one thing for certain. I am not welcome here.
As I move back to the front door, to the outside world that I can make sense of, something nags at me. Calls to me. I look over to the far wall of the living room and see something huge and rectangular covering the wall. I frown, trying to make out the shape of it, tracing the drawn lines with my eyes. Finally, I see that it’s a map. Plastered the whole width of the wall, marked with gold pushpins connected with twine tied to each one. As I study the map, the cabin seems to grow colder, as though wanting to push me out. But I can’t move. I stare, transfixed by the map, by the seemingly haphazard trails and tracks marked across it with lengths of twine.
It’s the mountains. The entire range, all three peaks, every clearing, every marked trail. And all the trails that are unmarked. Trails that most visitors will never find, never stumble across. Visitors come back year after year to hike new sections of the range, and hikers participate in challenges to conquer all three peaks.
To try to cover it all, see it all, in just one winter . . . I don’t know how that would be possible. It would take days to reach the other side of the range, and it’s all too easy to step the wrong way. The trees are dense, navigation is tough, and the old trails are not clearly marked, like those for amateur hikers. Those old ways, the older trails . . . I shiver. What is he looking for?
“Matthieu, where are you?”
I murmur. I break away a few moments later and walk back out into daylight. I turn in a circle outside the cabin, searching the clearing, searching the looming trees crouched around like sentries. “You could be anywhere.”
I brush my hair back from my face, trying to think. If he’s stuck somewhere, will he be able to call someone? I bite my lip, my thoughts growing frantic, leaping from outcome to outcome. That map was old. Faded. What if it was an old map, something that was already there when he arrived for the winter? There is very little sign of anyone living there, though. The cabin holds an air of neglect, of hibernation. What if this isn’t the cabin Matthieu is staying in? I hug my arms around myself again, the chill of the place still permeating my bones.
I force my feet to follow the trail back down the mountain. I barely take it in, the views, the trees, the mud-slicked paths. I place one foot in front of the other until I reach my field and Ivy’s cottage. Then I feel it—a change. As though the world has shifted a quarter inch. A flurry of snow shivers down around me, falling in lazy, soft arcs. I put out my hand, collecting a couple of flakes as they fall, and then look up into the vast abyss of white. The snow falls faster, drifting as I stand there and smothering the field in a crisp sheet. My phone beeps in my pocket and I lunge for it.
It’s Matthieu.
My heart thumps, once, twice, thundering as I read the message. He’s been tied up for a few days. Back tomorrow. A breathless, fleeting laugh escapes from me, and I pocket my phone. Sniffing, I crunch across the crème br?lée of snow, making my way to the cottage to begin the work for the day.
I should feel only relief, should be able to shrug off my earlier fears. But that cabin, the map, the lingering quiet of that clearing—it all keeps breaking through, haunting me. And I wonder about that story, the one that Cora warned me about. At the very back of my mind, in the darkest, least-visited corner, I turn over a question as the snow flurries thicken. One that should have no place in this world. What if Matthieu is something out of one of the tales in the book? What if . . . what if he did appear with the frost? What if Cora is right?
What if Matthieu isn’t real?
“I reckon you’ll be in by Christmas,”
Matthieu says, running a hand over the countertop in the kitchen. I’m doing the same, marveling at the thick slab of wood. It’s a honey color, carved and fitted beautifully, blending with the character of the old cottage and the Shaker-style cupboards I chose. The kitchen is finished; even the flooring is down. It’s two weeks until Christmas, and we just have some work to do upstairs and the furniture to collect and build. I decided to stage the cottage for selling, reasoning that it would sell for more than an empty house. Who can imagine creating a life in a few well-painted boxes? But all the furniture is a reflection of my taste, my dream life, reminding me of what I still can’t fully admit to myself. That I could picture myself living in this cottage.
“I’ll set up an appointment with the estate agent,”
I say, looking up at Matthieu. “It’s time.”
He nods. “If you’re sure.”
“I—yes,”
I say, gazing across the kitchen, taking in the brushed-chrome door handles, the gray-green cupboards, the range cooker built into the old fireplace. The kitchen is perfect, reflecting that heritage quality of true craftmanship, traditional and solid with the sleek and built-in modern appliances hidden behind cupboard doors. “I’m sure.”
Matthieu straightens and moves a few feet away from me to run his hand over one of the cupboards. “It’ll fetch a bit. You can open an art studio and get back into painting. Travel the world—go even farther than Europe. Do whatever you want. You’ll never have to return to Woodsmoke again.”
“Yes,”
I say, my throat thickening. I smile up at him, not saying what I’m really thinking. That I can do all those things now, that Ivy has given me that gift. But the one thing, the only thing I keep turning over in my mind . . . is whether to stay.
“Carrie, we should celebrate. We should, I don’t know . . . go out for dinner. Would you like to go out for dinner . . . with me?”
Matthieu’s voice pulls me out of my brooding, and I turn to him.
“Are you asking me out?”
I smile, stepping closer. My stomach twists with a delicious fizz as I eye his smile, the angles of his face.
He ducks his head, not quite meeting my gaze. “Yes, Carrie. I think I am.”
“Huh.”
“You haven’t said yes.”
I reach for his hand, then think better of it, suddenly awkward. “I would love to.”
“I’ll book somewhere. There’s this place in the next town over, or we can get takeout and drive to the lake, make a picnic—”
“Wherever. Whatever you want to do,”
I say, still smiling. “Or we can go to a café, or . . .”
“I’ve found a trail near the cabin that leads to this clearing. It’s not marked on any of the newer hiker maps, but it’s beautiful.”
His eyes finally find mine, all smoldering edges that make my pulse quicken. “If you like.”
An unmarked trail. A clearing. Suddenly the image of that map and all that twine surfaces in my mind and I hesitate. Perhaps he’s just exploring the mountains, the trails he can remember from when he was younger. But I’m remembering the other reason for his explorations, the person he’s talked about who’s a part of his memories. His brother Henri. Who is no longer with him.
“Matthieu, can I ask you something?”
“Yes?”
I swallow, glancing up at him. I figure it’s time to ask, to put my niggling worries aside, especially if we’re stepping away from just working together. I have to know. “The cabin, where you’re staying . . . it’s the one just up the trail, right? The one straight up from Ivy’s field, the nearest one, past the lookout point?”
I know those cabins have a separate access for vehicles, but Matthieu always arrives on foot. He always takes the trail down to Ivy’s field . . . I have to be sure it’s the same one.
“Yeah, I rented it for the winter. Off a friend, I told you. The Vickers cabin.”
He’s walking around the kitchen now, checking the hinges on the cupboards, checking they’re hung just right.
It is the right cabin I went to. I swallow, picturing the damp, the cold of that place. The map on the wall, the pushpins, and the twine between them. “And it’s . . . okay for staying in?”
He frowns slightly, drawing his hand away. “It’s just right for me. For now, anyway.”
I nod, but somehow I can’t bring myself to mention Henri. Or to mention the map, or that I’ve been there, looking for him. Doing that now feels . . . intrusive. I swallow guiltily, thinking maybe I shouldn’t have gone looking for him. “Well, shall I finish off in here?”
“Sure,”
Matthieu says. His features have clouded over a little, as though he has drawn himself back in. And I did that. I did that with my prying about the cabin. I curse myself. I should never have listened to Cora.
“Matthieu . . .”
I pause, searching for the words to set us back in the moment when he asked me to dinner. When I felt like I could twine my hand through his, almost taste his kisses on my mouth . . . “I can’t wait to have dinner with you. Truly.”
He gives me a fleeting smile, then turns to go upstairs.
For the afternoon and into the evening, I choose to work downstairs while Matthieu finishes some painting in the main bedroom upstairs. I want to be honest with him, to tell him I went there. That I went to the cabin and it looked as though it hadn’t been lived in for months, perhaps even years. But maybe I got it wrong, maybe I imagined that air of neglect, the scent of damp and loam. I’ve let Woodsmoke get under my skin, let the old ways and the stories twine around reality until I’ve actually believed Matthieu might not be real. This isn’t down to him. It’s all me.
In these past few weeks, something has been planted between us, something new and green in this sea of winter, and I’m beginning to realize I want to nurture it. I don’t want it to fade before it’s even begun. I want to go for dinner with him and watch his mouth break into that happy smile. I want to see what it feels like to share more with him than old memories from our childhoods and mugs of tea.
“Carrie,”
he says, and I turn to find him in the lounge, a smile on his face as he runs a hand over the back of his neck. “If dinner feels too serious or something, just say . . .”
“No, no,”
I say quickly, shaking my head. He’s picked up on it, this cloud that’s formed between us. He thinks it’s because of him. I nearly tell him I went up to the cabin. Nearly ask outright, but then he steps toward me. Takes my hand in his and tiny sparks explode in my chest.
“I . . . I like you. But if it’s too much . . . I know coming back to Woodsmoke is a lot and you’re figuring things out—”
I squeeze his hand back and look up into his eyes. The sparks flitting through my chest spin out, filling me with warmth. With want. “It’s not too much. It really isn’t.”
“All right,”
he says. “See you tomorrow, then.”
When he releases my hand and turns to head for the front door, I know this is the moment to ask. I need to know about the map, whether it’s about Henri, why he keeps disappearing, why he always disappears when the frost thaws . . . but the words die in my throat. I just . . . can’t. Not when asking could break this fragile thing between us. Not when it feels like the start of something more.
The front door closes, and I release a breath, scrubbing a hand down my face. I walk back and forth across the lounge, telling myself I should follow him, I should just ask—
So when the door creaks open, when boots thump on the hallway floor, my breath hitches, catching on the hope that he’s returned, that he’s ready to share more with me, that he’s not full of secrets at all and he won’t cloud over when I ask him. That I won’t shatter what’s building between us.
“Look, I’m sorry, really—”
My words stutter out as I reach the hallway. It’s not Matthieu standing there but a woman, chin lifted, a proud glint to her features. Dread pools in my stomach, and I hang back, eyeing her quietly.
“Expecting someone else?”