Chapter Two
Declan
There was nothing. No dreams, no darkness, not even time. One moment I didn’t exist. The next, I sucked in a sharp breath and cold air burned my lungs.
The next thing I knew, I’d landed on my knees in snow, coughing around the scent of pine and woodsmoke. For several seconds I stayed there, breathing hard. The cold bit through my jeans. Wind raked over my skin. I tried to pull myself together.
When I looked up, the world assembled itself pixel by pixel in my vision.
Snow-covered pines. A frozen lake holding the last blue light of evening. A narrow path through the trees.
And Grandpa’s cabin glowing like a lantern in the dusk.
My heart lurched. “No.”
It wasn’t possible, but the cabin hadn’t changed at all.
The porch still sagged to the left because Grandpa insisted the foundation was only “settling with character.” The split-rail fence wandered toward the lake, its paint peeling, one board missing.
His patched canoe leaned against the shed, more duct tape than boat.
But Grandpa had been gone a long time. I knew that. I just couldn’t remember how long.
Had it been a year? Five? Ten?
The answer hovered beyond my reach. That wasn’t right. I blinked and shook my head, trying to make sense of it. I remembered names, faces, useless trivia, football plays from high school. I collected details the way other people collected souvenirs.
But everything after Grandpa came in flashes.
College. The military. Rain striking concrete. Soldiers at attention. A woman saying my name.
Pain.
Then nothing.
I checked my pockets. No phone, wallet, or keys. Only a folding knife with a worn walnut handle and two initials scratched into one side. R.S.
A laugh escaped me. “Well. Hello, Grandpa.”
He’d carried this knife every day. I remembered wanting it after he died but couldn’t remember receiving it. With a flick of my thumb, the blade opened with the same clean click I’d heard a hundred times. It was freshly sharpened.
The cabin waited with warm light spilling through the windows. Smoke curled from the chimney. For one impossible second, I could almost believe Grandpa was inside making chili and pretending not to notice the snow I’d tracked over his clean floor.
The thought pressed an old bruise, so I pushed it out of my head and walked toward the porch. The third step dipped when my bare foot hit it. The fourth squealed. The scratch near the keyhole remained from the day twelve-year-old me had decided the internet qualified him to replace a lock.
This wasn’t only familiar. It was exact. I traced the scratch with my thumb. “I miss you, old man.”
Nothing but silence answered me.
Pushing open the door, I stepped inside and the warmth wrapped around me like a familiar blanket. Coffee. Cedar. Cinnamon.
Home.
A fire crackled behind the iron screen. Grandpa’s ratty plaid blanket rested over the sofa. Fishing magazines created a tower beside his recliner, and our chessboard waited on the coffee table, half-finished.
The black knight sat where I’d left it. Grandpa had been about to beat me before we got distracted arguing about the Tigers. We never finished the game.
I picked up the carved piece and turned it over in my fingers. It was warm in my hand.
“This isn’t possible.”
As I watched, the ticking continued, but the hands didn’t move.
“Okay. That’s weird.”
Two mugs stood beside a fresh pot of coffee. One was Grandpa’s navy mug. The other was plain white. Someone had expected company. Or were they expecting me? I didn’t remember planning the trip here.
Shrugging to myself, I poured a cup anyway. “If this is a hallucination, at least it has decent priorities.”
The coffee tasted exactly like it always did—strong enough to put hair on your chest, according to Grandpa. When I pointed out that he was still bald after seventy years of drinking it, he claimed the hair had been redirected somewhere more useful.
I laughed softly at the memory. The sound startled me. It had been a while. How long?
The answer dissolved before I could grab hold of it.
Settling into his recliner, I studied the photographs on the mantel. Grandpa holding fish. Grandpa beside his truck. Grandpa wearing the wool hat my mother threatened to burn every Thanksgiving.
One showed us on the dock when I was ten, my arms wrapped around a fish nearly as long as I was tall. He’d let me believe I caught it alone.
Time was supposed to soften edges, wasn’t it? Sitting here, it felt like someone had opened the old wound and dug around inside.
“I could use your advice, old man.”
I let it go.
For now.
Grandpa’s flannel hung beside the back door. I pulled it on, and my shoulders dropped an inch for the first time since I’d woken in the snow. Something was off, but I let myself have this anyway. I had a feeling it wouldn’t last.
Then snow crunched outside.
Apparently my subconscious had good taste. I stepped onto the porch. “Hey, you okay?”
She studied me with luminous lilac eyes. “I don’t know.”
Confusion tightened her face, but beneath it was something I recognized. Relief.
She’d been alone, too.
“You’re real, aren’t you?” I asked.
Her brow drew together. “I believe so.”
Her answer surprised me, and I huffed a quick laugh. “I was hoping you’d sound more confident.”
“I was hoping the same thing about you.” The corner of her mouth twitched.
“It’s warmer inside,” I said, “if you’d like to come in.”
She stood still at the foot of the porch for a heartbeat or two. I thought she might be gathering her courage. I smiled, hoping to put her more at ease.
She climbed the steps slowly, her fingers skimming over the railing, the rough logs, and the brass doorknob. “They’re real.”
“I certainly hope so.”
She stepped into the room, her attention moving to the fire.
“You build homes from trees and then burn trees inside them.”
“When you put it that way, it sounds like a bad design choice.”
“Isn’t it?”
“We’re careful and we keep water around, just in case.”
She considered that. “Mmmm, optimistic of you.”
“Humans are surprisingly committed to optimism.”
The almost-smile returned.
In the middle of the small living room, she turned slowly, taking in the stone hearth, timber beams, braided rug, battered books, and fishing lures. She studied the floorboards as though they were art.
“They’re all different.”
“That’s the point.”
“They were grown outside?”
“Exactly.”
She looked around. “It all feels alive.”
I tried to see the cabin through her eyes: the beams Grandpa cut, the furniture he repaired rather than replaced, the walls marked by a life. I could see what she meant.
“It kind of does.”
She held her hands toward the fire. “Does it require constant attention?”
Nodding, I answered, “You have to feed it. Clean the hearth. Don’t leave it alone too long.”
“So, it is a responsibility.”
“Everything worth having usually is.”
Her gaze stayed on the flames. “I don’t think I’ve ever had to tend anything.”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
She frowned. “I…I’m not sure. I know there should be an answer.”
“It’ll come back.”
“You sound certain.”
“I’m not, but forcing memories seems to make them run farther away.”
The knowledge came from somewhere I couldn’t reach, but it felt like the complete truth.
I turned to the kitchen. “Want some coffee? It’s fresh. Or it tastes fresh anyway.”
“What is it?”
“What is what?”
“Coffee.”
I stared. “You’ve never had coffee?”
“No, or at least I don’t think so.”
“You’ve been missing out.”
“I don’t know if I have.”
“Trust me.”
“I don’t.”
I laughed. “Fair enough.”
She accepted the white mug and breathed in the steam. “It smells… comforting.”
“Don’t believe it, it lies to you.”
Her eyebrow rose in my direction before she took her first sip. Her face folded into offended disbelief.
“It is unpleasant.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you drink it?”
“Apparently I’m an optimist.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“You lit up.”
Her hand flew to the spot, and the glow vanished. “Oh.”
She looked embarrassed, so I added cream and sugar and gave the mug back. The second sip went better.
“Less unpleasant,” she decided.
“That’s high praise.”
We settled by the fire, an unspoken agreement between us. She examined the chessboard, listening while I explained how the pieces moved.
“The weakest piece can become the most powerful?” she asked, touching a pawn.
“If it survives long enough.”
Her finger stilled.
“And the king?”
“Slow. Limited. Everyone else has to keep him alive.”
“That seems inefficient.”
“Most hierarchies are.”
Her unusual eyes lifted to mine. For one second, I could have sworn she recognized me. Then she looked away, and it passed.
As she sipped the less unpleasant coffee, she wandered to the mantel and studied the photographs. I told her about Grandpa. Not everything. Just the lake, the bad coffee, the terrible wool hat, and the way he fixed broken things until they became more patch than original.
“He made this place?” she said.
“Most of it by himself,” I said. Grandpa had been my hero.
She ran her fingers over a notch in the mantel. “It feels loved.”
“It was.”
“Don’t you mean is?”
I looked at her.
“Is,” I agreed.
The quiet between us changed, becoming less wary. Almost relaxed.
“I’m Declan,” I said.
She repeated it carefully. “Declan.”
Hearing my name in her voice made it feel like mine again. Yes. That was right. I was Declan.
“And you are?” I prompted.
“Avena.”
“Avena,” I repeated, matching her warm tone.
6:12.
Still. I explained the clock situation to Avena.
“Perhaps time isn’t passing here,” Avena said.
“I wish you hadn’t said that.”
“Why?”
“Now I’m thinking about it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I was unsettling myself before you arrived.”
Her expression eased. “I’m glad I interrupted.”
“So am I.”
Avena looked again at the chessboard. “You said your grandfather was winning.”
“He usually was.”
“Will you finish the game?”
“Not without him.”
She straightened a crooked pawn. “You could leave it as it is.”
“Why?”
“So you always know where he left you.”
She caught me in her gaze, and I couldn’t look away. Those eyes held mine, and looking away wasn’t an option my brain seemed to be offering. Then a vibration rolled beneath our feet.
Avena stepped toward me. “I think—”
Her hand was fading at the edges.
Horror replaced confusion. “Declan.”
I crossed the room. “It’s okay.”
“I don’t think it is.”
Blue-white light raced across her wrists and up her throat, flickering too fast to track.
I reached for her hand.
Our fingers met.
Warm. Real.
For one heartbeat, the cabin vanished, and I was in a room with cold white walls, blinding lights. Antiseptic. Metal. Voices. Pressure crushing my chest.
“You saw something,” she said.
“So did you.”
She shook her head, unable to answer. The glow beneath her skin blazed, but I didn’t dare mention it.
Her voice trembled. “I don’t want to leave.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I think I do. I don’t know how to stop it.”
Books showed through the edges of her body, and panic climbed my throat. “When will I see you again?”
“I don’t know.”
Light blossomed around her. Then she was gone.
The silence crashed down for a long moment. A vacuum stole my breath. Then the fire returned. The clock kept ticking at 6:12. Rubbing my hands over my face, I wondered if I’d imagined the whole thing. Was I imagining it right now, too?
But no, her still-warm mug sat half full on the table. Hallucinations don’t drink coffee. I wrapped both hands around the smooth porcelain as if that could prove she hadn’t been a dream.
“I’ll see you again,” I said into the empty cabin.
I had no reason to believe it. A larger part of me still believed none of this was real.
But for the first time in what I was sure was a very long time…
I hoped.