Chapter Three
Mara-Present
Siren-Pearl Jam
I was cold.
But now I’m warm.
The snow bank was coming for me as if I were the stationary object and it was a monster about to consume me. I didn’t want to die, but death was just waiting to claim my life.
Is that where I am now? Is Heaven warm and comforting?
Or maybe I’m in the fires of Hell. I probably deserve it. I didn’t do enough good in my lifetime to deserve Heaven.
Restraint, that’s the next thing I feel.
Something is wrapped around me to keep me from moving.
A steel band locks my arms in front of me where my hands are laid on something hard yet soft.
Not squishy soft, more like soft to the touch, cozy fabric lining a structured form.
And there’s a smell to it as well, I can’t quite place it but something invites me in like a crackling campfire and evergreens.
I’ve never been camping but that’s how I imagine it would smell. Peaceful. Cool but warm.
Then the ache sets into my limbs and my cheeks. My pelvis throbs with a full pain spanning from hip bone to hip bone. My cheek is on fire. And my arms are a myriad of different sensations, mainly itchy.
I finally open my eyes but it takes a minute for them to adjust to the glow of the dark room to make out a thermal Henley on a hard chest, a bearded jawline, and pink lips. Finally, the realization that someone is holding me snaps into place.
Someone I don’t know.
I squirm out of their hold only to land on the floor wrapped in a wool blanket that I clutch to my chest as soon as I see I’m only in my bra and underwear. The drop to the floor electrified every injury I’ve sustained making me whimper in agony.
“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!” I don’t know what’s going on but I need to get away, call for help, and figure out where I am.
I try to rise to my feet but the pain across my pelvis makes me wince as I stand. I don’t fucking care. I have to push through the pain to save myself.
Did someone kidnap me?
I start for the door but a strong arm takes me by the waist and pulls me back until we are back to chest. I try to thrash and yell because it’s my only option. I won’t go down without a fight even if it’s a pathetic attempt. But I’m not exactly at my strongest.
I expect my kidnapper to say something, try to calm me down or taunt me. But he remains silent as if my pain and fear hold no sway over him.
“Let me go!” I try again, even though that’s never worked in the movies.
To my surprise, it does. He spins me so fast I can’t see before I’m seated on the couch and the man stands before me backlit by the enormous fireplace.
This must be Hell and the Devil has come to collect.
But the face of the devil becomes clearer and it’s somehow familiar.
I don’t recognize the beard or the broad shoulders, but the stormy eyes and dirty blond hair trigger a memory I can’t pinpoint.
The eyes especially, they strike a familiar chord I can’t place, like a song you recall but don’t know the words to.
They bind me in shocked silence, I have no control over my movements when they are locked on me.
I’m lost to the storm within those irises.
Then it dawns on me, and I’m one hundred percent sure I’m in Hell now.
“Jason?” I ask quietly, afraid to voice my suspicion. “Jason Alder?”
My suspicion is confirmed when Dylan Alder, who looks so much like his brother but with light brown hair and smaller set shoulders, bounds down the stairs in a pair of banana print pajama pants with his shoulder raised as though he’s preparing for a fight.
If I recall correctly, he’s a year younger than Jason and I.
But he got his GED the summer after we graduated so he didn’t have to complete his senior year.
I’d heard the two brothers moved to their family cabin in the woods after that, after the death of their parents.
Slowly, my surroundings filter into view.
Wood floors haphazardly covered in Persian rugs.
Log cabin walls of a darker stained wood bearing only a few pieces of art and two mounted deer skulls with antlers intact.
And a never-ending darkness beyond the iron-paned windows that swallow the light whole.
Then there is the extra-large fireplace made of uneven stones giving it a look somewhere between woodsy and cottage-core. The fire inside was small in comparison to the size of the hearth. You could fit an entire bonfire in there, no problem.
I’m in their cabin on the mountain about forty minutes outside of town. How the hell did I get here?
“What the fuck is going on?” I blurt in a furious tone that only feels like it’s skimming the surface of my rage. “Why am I here?”
“Jason found you in a car crash on the road,” Dylan spoke up. I take it his brother still doesn’t talk. “I wasn’t there so I don’t know all the details. He brought you back in the truck. The snow is too heavy to get down the mountain now. You’ve got some pretty bad wounds from the accident.”
That explains the pain over my pelvis, the seat belt must have done that.
And the airbag must be the cause of the pain in my face and arm.
It starts coming back to me, driving, music playing way too loud.
A deer in the road I couldn’t see because the snow was falling too heavily.
Losing control of the car. Bang. Crash. Darkness. I must have been knocked out on impact.
It’s then I realize I’ve been bandaged from my face to my arm. I start scanning my body, taking stock of my limbs and checking for other injuries. Did they do this?
“In case you’re wondering,” Dylan pulls my eyes back up, “your clothes were freezing cold and we had to check you for other injuries. Didn’t need you bleeding out on us.
You might have gotten hypothermia if we left you in those clothes much longer.
We needed to get you warm. But we left your underwear on, we haven’t seen the goods. ”
There’s a teasing lilt to Dylan’s voice so I respond with a snarky tone of my own, “Oh, well thank you for that courtesy. What a shame you didn’t get to ‘see the goods.’”
“Your parts don’t do much for me,” Dylan raises a single brow then winks.
“What a relief,” I roll my eyes then turn my fury on Jason who’s still standing in front of the fire glaring at me with harsh, bushy brows. “How about you? Is that why you were wrapped around me? Can’t get a woman any other way so you have to hold her while she’s unconscious?”
Dylan snorts by the stairs then buries his mouth in his hand. “That’s funny. Jason gets more tail than most of the guys in town. Have you seen him?” Dylan gestures to his brother like he’s proud of that fact.
I only allow myself a split second to look and take note of him, but I can’t deny that Jason looks very different from the last time I saw him in high school.
His shoulders are broader, he certainly packed on the muscles, if what I felt in the brief moments before I came back to consciousness is any indication.
His hair is styled in a shaggy cut, significantly longer than his short beard that’s slightly past five o’clock shadow.
If I remember correctly, he had a buzz cut and no facial hair in high school.
Then again, I looked pretty different back then, too.
I can see why women would be attracted to him at first glance, but he’s still the Mute. I find it hard to believe he can pick up women without speaking to them.
“Still mute, I see,” I cross my arms over my chest with the blanket wrapped in each fist to keep “the goods” covered. Jason doesn’t even dignify my insult with a blink or a twitch. I would have expected that name to ruffle some feathers, even years after high school.
“When can I go home?” I turn back to Dylan since he’s the only other sane person in the room…I think.
“Ummm, I don’t know, probably early March.”
“March?” I burst. “No, that can’t happen. I have a life I have to get back to. I can’t stay here all winter. There has to be some way down.”
“Sorry, cupcake, no way up, no way down. We stocked up for the winter. Jason was out hunting, that’s how he passed your car in the snow. And even then, it was probably getting too dicey for the snowmobile. Can’t even use that anymore.”
“What are you supposed to do if one of you gets severely injured?” I’m grasping at straws, anything to find a way out of this.
“Jason knows first aid, he’s the one that tended to your wounds.”
“And if he gets hurt and you don’t know what to do?” Another desperate straw.
“Then he dies, I guess.” I’m caught off guard by how bluntly and emotionlessly Dylan speaks about his brother’s hypothetical death.
“I know you don’t want to stay here any more than we want you here, but there’s no way out of this.
Whatever brought you to the mountain tonight sealed your fate, cupcake. ”
I’m too depressed and in denial to chastise Dylan about that degrading nickname.
Before I can say anything else, Jason storms past me toward his brother on the stairs without saying a word or even looking at me. Clearly, he’s still pissed with me about how he was treated in high school.
Get over it, dude, high school sucks for everyone.
“Where’s he going?”
“Probably to his room,” Dylan answers. “Why don’t you come on up, we have a spare room you can use while you’re here.”
Do I really want to accept that my fate is sealed? I hesitate a moment, staring into the orange-yellow flames in the hearth before I decide I need a decent night’s sleep to clear my head and find a solution. There has to be some way off the mountain before the snow melts.
I rise and follow the men, still wrapped in the wool blanket to conceal my body, though it seems they’ve already seen what lies beneath so the only thing I’m really holding on to is my pride.
I follow Jason and Dylan up a set of stairs to a landing where I’m met with four identical oak doors, two on the wall opposite the stairs and the others at both ends of the landing.
With a raised hand to point at each door, Dylan directs me.
“That’ll be your room,” pointing at one of the two doors that share a wall.
“It’s next to the bathroom. Mine is over here,” he points to the left, “and that one is Jason’s room,” he points to the right.
“If you need anything let us know, I’m going back to bed. I need my beauty sleep.”
“Wait,” I call before either of them can disappear behind their doors. “What am I supposed to wear?” I shuffle beneath the blanket drawing attention to the fact that I’m still without clothing.
Dylan exchanges a look with his brother before he answers.
“I think some girls that have visited Jason have left items here over the years. Maybe he has something for you. Otherwise, your clothes will be dry and warm in the morning.” He smirks in my direction, then at Jason, and I don’t hide the insult in my expression.
I’m not sure if he’s trying to tease me, Jason, or both of us.
But I’m deeply offended that he wants me to wear some skank’s clothes.
My jaw drops but that’s all I can get out before he walks into his room and shuts the door. I turn to Jason but he follows his brother’s lead and shuts the door without giving me another glance.
I stand there wrapped in the blanket a moment longer, dumbfounded, before refusing to stand in my humiliation any longer and step into the guest room he pointed out.
It’s small but nice. The room is rather cozy, actually.
A full size bed with Pendleton blankets over a white quilt.
No filigree such as endless throw pillows and trinkets.
The solid wood dresser and matching hopechest are bare.
The only sign of life in the room are the two paintings on either side of the window depicting two black and white faceless bodies leaning toward each other with foreheads bowed and hands outstretched.
If the window were out of the picture, the two images would look like the people are reaching for one another.
But upon closer inspection, I see they are charcoal drawings, a mixture of harsh lines and precise blending on the paper.
Simple black frames enclose the images beneath a layer of glass.
Something about the pictures makes me feel sad.
I can’t put my finger on it but it feels like the two people are forever separated.
Maybe it’s the presence of the window and it would seem happier if the images were connected.
But I have to imagine whoever put them there did so intentionally.
I don’t know if these are the softest sheets I’ve ever slept in, or if I’m just exhausted and broken.
I feel like I’ve taken a beating. Climbing the stairs was more work than I would ever let on, but it was worth it to lay down in a cloud of a bed and rest my head.
I must have whiplash too considering how damaged my neck feels.
The only time I’ve ever felt anything like that was on the fastest rollercoaster at an amusement park in Washington.
As soon as we made the first big drop, the rollercoaster took off at break-neck speed around a bunch of twists and loopty-loops.
My neck was sore for a week after that. I haven’t been on a rollercoaster since.
I think about what led me to the mountain tonight, to that bridge that has been the cause of so much death in our town.
Part of me wonders if I should have died in that car crash, maybe my body was meant to freeze in the snow and find an early grave beneath the winter until spring revealed my final resting place.
Maybe Jason finding me was never supposed to happen.
I have to believe that him finding me was a mistake God didn’t account for because the alternative is that I was meant to be here. And I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to face him. I don’t want to confront my past. And I don’t want to see those disappointed eyes again.
So I close my eyes and let my body drift to sleep because I know I have to face it all in the morning.
There must be a way out of this.