Chapter 2
“It’s giving Stephen King,” Emily said, stepping out of the van and eyeing the cabin with skepticism. “Wait, was that a cabin? Or a hotel? Am I mixing up The Shining with Psycho?”
I didn’t respond mainly because I was already second-guessing every decision that had led me here and because I realized the mailbox was only being held together by bright orange duct tape.
“This is the address,” I said, double-checking my phone. “Mason said the key’s in a flower pot somewhere.”
“Okay, but like, how long has this thing been here?” Emily asked. “It looks a thousand years old.”
From a distance, it had been sort of charming. But up close? It looked like something a group of teenagers would dare each other to spend the night in right before one of them mysteriously disappeared.
There were multiple cracked windows. The porch sagged, and the railing was caving in. The bushes and plants in front of the cabin were climbing into every single crevice imaginable. It was all just a big mess.
My stomach twisted with dread, and my eyes started to sting with tears.
“Hey,” Emily said gently, pulling me into a hug. “Don’t freak out. It’s sorta… cute.”
I let out a sad laugh and a pathetic little sniffle. “It’s a dump, Em.”
“With a little pruning and some bleach,” Emily continued, “it could totally have cozy Airbnb vibes.”
“This was a mistake,” I sighed.
“It’s not a mistake,” Emily insisted, turning me back toward the van so I’d stop spiraling while looking at the cabin.
She flung open the double doors of her Mercedes Sprinter and pulled out my three suitcases like they were filled with feathers instead of a thousand pounds of books. Okay, it wasn’t all books: more like 20% essentials, 80% books.
I bit my lip. “You could just… stay with me.”
Emily smoothed back a tangle of red curls that had fallen into her face, grinning. “Or, you could come stay with me.”
I pointed at myself and gave her an incredulous look. “Do I look like someone who would survive a ten-mile hike?”
Emily laughed because she knew I couldn’t. “And you know I can’t stay in one place too long.”
Our differences were indeed laughable. Emily climbed literal mountains.
I got winded when browsing through IKEA.
But when we both got dumped on homecoming night our junior year of high school and bonded over a gas station pizza and Coke, we discovered a unique kinship.
And now we were lifelong friends, though we were long-distance most of the time.
“Okay,” Emily said, pulling me in for a final hug. “If you really need me, I’ll always come back to rescue you.”
I breathed in the familiar Bath & Body Works Vanilla Sugar perfume Emily had worn since the eleventh grade, and a pang of homesickness washed through me already. She wasn’t even gone yet, and I missed her.
“Thanks, Em. I love you.”
“Love you more. Now go be brave. And call me if anything tries to eat you.”
She climbed into the van, her carabiner keychain rattling on her belt loop, and revved the engine.
“Call me when you get to Utah,” I yelled.
Emily gave a two-finger salute and disappeared down the road in her sticker-covered van.
And then… silence. Without Emily’s bright, tinkling laugh to fill the void, the quiet felt less peaceful and more like a bad omen.
“Okay, Elmswood,” I muttered to myself. “You are a strong, independent woman who can handle staying in a rundown cabin.” I blew out a breath. “It’s not going to kill you.” Or so I hoped.
I pulled my suitcases across the gravel and up the sagging porch. Then I found the tacky orange flower pot Mason had mentioned briefly on the phone. Digging through the dry soil, I found the rusty door key a few inches down.
“Please don’t give me tetanus,” I whispered, slotting it into the lock.
The door groaned as I gave it a shove with my shoulder. It made a noise like it was mad at me, and then finally swung open.
I coughed, choking for a minute or so while blindly waving my arms around as I tried desperately to find a clean breath of air.
The dust cloud eventually cleared, and I was greeted by a very old red couch sitting in front of an ancient TV, with a flannel blanket casually draped over its back.
The dining room had a rickety table with two lone chairs that looked like they had barely escaped Goodwill and an old stove covered in brownish-yellow grime nestled between the fridge and sink.
And then there was an assortment of cookware hanging from a pot rack that would need to be drowned in an ocean of dish soap.
I resisted the urge to gag.
I couldn’t believe I had begged my brother to stay in this dump.
But I didn’t have much of a choice. I’d only just graduated in the spring, and I’d only worked at my father’s clinic for a few months.
And let’s just say I hadn’t been the most financially responsible with my first few paychecks.
I’d furnished my apartment in the city as a present to myself after graduating, and then I’d taken a few spontaneous trips with Emily that had left me with only a few hundred dollars to my name.
And when I’d decided to leave so abruptly, I hadn’t had time to search for a place to rent.
I really needed to save every dime I had until I could find another job.
After I got settled, I could find another place to stay.
As my inspection continued, the list of things that needed fixing became nearly endless.
I found more cracked windows and a pile of firewood that was most definitely infested with spiders.
Then there was the bedroom, which had a frumpy old mattress that sent shivers up my spine.
I would need a freaking blacklight before I slept on that thing.
And my hands and fingers—which only ever really turned the delicate cream-colored pages of my novels or utilized a sickle scaler to gently chip off some calculus from someone’s central incisor—ached just thinking about all the physical labor that would need to be performed to whip this place into shape.
Too stressed to continue and still feeling like maybe I’d made a massive mistake, I decided to take a break and stepped outside again to examine the surrounding forest.
I pulled out my phone, opened Maps, and followed a trail through the woods.
Taking a small path through the pine trees, I wandered to see how far the lake was from the cabin.
My screen showed a section where the lake narrowed, creating a small lagoon walled off by the mountains, only a few hundred yards from the cabin.
My shoes crunched sticks and pine cones as I walked along the winding path. Birds chirped in the tree branches above, and little bugs buzzed blissfully in the bushes. I had to admit, it was peaceful compared to the city I’d left behind.
Then the trail curved, and the lake came into view.
And so did… it.
“Oh. Wow.”
Across the water, only a few hundred yards from my dumpy, haunted cabin, was a cabin-castle.
Massive floor-to-ceiling windows gleamed in the sunlight.
Wraparound balconies peeked through the pine trees that surrounded it on all sides.
It was painted a blend of dark brown and black hues that made it blend beautifully into the forest. And to top it all off, a private dock jutted out into the water with boats, jet skis, and an assortment of other water toys.
It was ridiculously luxurious.
I closed my gaping mouth and let out yet another exaggerated sigh. Because at this point, what was another?
“Okay,” I said to the trees, hands on my hips. “I’m going to have to have a talk with Mason about his real estate choices.”
I spent the rest of my night trying to clean the cabin.
I’d found a stash of cleaning supplies in the hall closet that Mason had left behind and started with the kitchen.
After a few hours of cleaning and muttering curse words under my breath, I somehow managed to make the space somewhat habitable.
At the end of the day, my clothes ended up with so many bleach splatters that I looked like I’d gone to summer camp and tie-dyed T-shirts with bleach.
The AC, of course, was completely useless too. So I opened the windows and let the pine-scented breeze rush in, helping the place smell a little bit less like musty old socks.
Then, by some miracle, the washer and dryer still worked.
I tossed in the questionable sheets from the bedroom and replaced them with the set I’d brought.
Then I moved on to hanging up my clothes and had to shove aside my brother’s survivalist wardrobe to make room for my own.
Mason’s survivalist collection included camo pants, tactical vests, and enough wool socks to climb Mount Everest.
I loved him. But this was crazy.
I found weapons in almost every nook and cranny of the cabin. There was a knife in the pantry, a machete under the couch, and a literal bow and arrow strapped beneath the kitchen table. Then there was the dresser drawer filled with canned sardines, and I actually gagged a little. Absolutely not.
Mason was the only member of the family who hadn’t gone into dentistry, and it showed.
I boxed up the weapons and other unusual survival items and set them in the hallway closet until I could figure out what to do with them.
Finally finished with the bulk of the interior cleanup, I turned to the corner of the house I had saved for last: the bookshelf.
There were only two books on it, both written by men who probably had beards and strong opinions about firewood. One was titled Survival Plants of the Pacific West, and the other was simply Fire.
I tossed my brother’s survival books into a box to donate with a surprising lack of empathy for a book lover. Then, after meticulously removing every speck of dust, I began placing my own books on the shelves.
Once all of my favorite volumes were placed like royalty on their thrones, I flopped onto the saggy red couch and pulled The Wildflower Apartment by Lindy Parker off the shelf.
It was one of my favorite books of all time.
It was a women’s fiction novel with a romantic subplot.
My love for reading spread across a variety of genres, but that one was always my favorite.
The story was about a girl named Ana who received a cryptic letter from her late grandmother and a train ticket to Spain. On impulse, she uses the ticket and travels to a little city called Cudillero and ends up meeting a carpenter who helps her find a version of herself she’d long forgotten.
I hadn’t taken a train to Spain to find myself, but I’d taken a Sprinter van to Big Bear, and that was the best I could do.
It was my comfort read, my reset button. I told myself I’d read one chapter, just one.
Naturally, I passed out by page three.