Chapter 2 - Griffin
She doesn't leave.
I watch from the window as the sun comes up, coffee in hand, and there's still smoke rising from her chimney. Thin and inconsistent. She clearly doesn't know what she's doing with the fire, but it's there.
I lied about the bear.
There's no bear that comes through here. There used to be, years ago, but it moved on to better territory. I said it to scare her. To make her think twice about staying in a cabin with no power and a cracked window and god knows what else wrong with it.
I wanted her to leave.
She didn't.
Bear, my dog, huffs from his spot by the stove and looks at me like he knows exactly what I'm thinking.
"Don't start," I tell him.
He puts his head back down on his paws, but his eyes stay on me. Judging.
I drain the coffee and set the mug in the sink. The cabin is warm, the fire from last night still giving off heat. I built this place with my own hands eight years ago when I first came up here. Every log, every nail, every inch of it designed to keep the world out and me in.
For eight years, it worked.
Then someone rented the cabin half a mile down the road, and now there's a woman with docile eyes and a sharp mouth who looked at me yesterday like she was deciding whether I was a threat or just an asshole.
Probably landed on both.
I pull on my boots and my jacket. Bear gets up immediately, tail wagging, ready for the morning routine. We step outside into air so cold it stings, the kind of October morning that reminds you winter's coming whether you're ready or not.
The woods are still. Quiet. The way they're supposed to be.
I take the path that leads east, away from her cabin, deeper into the trees. Bear trots ahead, nose to the ground, doing his own form of patrol. This is what we do every morning: check the traps, survey the land, make sure nothing's changed that shouldn't have.
It's simple. Predictable.
I can handle predictable.
By the time we loop back an hour later, I've checked three traps: two empty, one with a rabbit I'll clean later, and confirmed that the woods are exactly as I left them yesterday.
Except they're not.
Because when I come up over the ridge that gives me a clear view of the access road, there's her car bumping its way down the mountain toward Wildwood.
She's going to town.
I watch until the car disappears around the bend, then I turn and head back to the cabin.
It's none of my business what she does.
None of my business if she stays or goes.
I've got work to do.
The rabbit takes twenty minutes to clean and another ten to hang. I've got a smoker out back that I built the second year I was here, and I prep it now, getting it ready for tomorrow. Waste nothing. Use everything. That's how you survive up here.
Bear watches me work, then wanders over to his water bowl and drinks noisily.
"You need something to do," I tell him.
He ignores me.
I wash my hands at the pump outside, the water ice-cold, then head inside to deal with the other thing I've been avoiding.
The generator.
I've got a backup generator in the shed for emergencies, for when the solar panels can't keep up in the dead of winter or when something breaks that I can't fix immediately. I don't use it often. It's loud, and loud means attention, and I don't do attention.
But I'm also not an idiot.
If she's staying in that cabin with no power, she's going to need light once the sun goes down. She's going to need heat beyond what that wood stove can manage if the temperature keeps dropping the way it has been.
I tell myself I'm doing it because I don't want to deal with a dead tourist on my conscience.
I tell myself it has nothing to do with the way she looked yesterday, so pissed off, stubborn and refusing to back down even when I gave her every reason to.
I tell myself a lot of things.
Then I load the generator into the truck bed and drive down the road to her cabin.
The place looks worse in daylight.
The porch sags on one side. The cracked window is more obvious now, a jagged line splitting the glass right down the middle. There's a bag of trash sitting by the door. She's been cleaning, then, and the whole structure has the look of something that's been forgotten for too long.
I kill the engine and sit there for a moment, hands on the wheel, asking myself what the hell I'm doing.
She's not my responsibility.
I didn't ask for a neighbor. I sure as hell didn't ask for her.
Bear whines from the passenger seat.
"Yeah," I mutter. "I know."
I get out, drop the tailgate, and haul the generator onto the porch. It's not light, but I've carried heavier. I set it down near the door, check the fuel level, three-quarters full, enough to get her through a few nights, and leave it there.
I'm back in the truck and halfway down the road before I let myself admit that I didn't knock. Didn't leave a note. Didn't do anything except drop it and leave like some kind of coward.
The rest of the day passes the way it always does.
I chop wood. I check the solar panels, clean off the dust and debris that's collected.
I run through the list of things that need fixing before winter really sets in: a section of the roof that's starting to wear, the shed door that doesn't close right, the traps that need resetting farther up the mountain.
I’m still thinking about her.
I think about the way she stood in my clearing yesterday, arms crossed, chin up, like she was ready to fight me if that's what it took. I think about the sharpness in her voice when she said *I'm staying*, like she was saying it to herself as much as to me.
I think about the shadows under her eyes, the kind of shadows that don't come from a bad night's sleep. I know those shadows. I see them in the mirror every morning.
It's late afternoon when I hear the car coming back up the mountain.
I'm inside, working on repairing a leather strap for one of my packs, when the sound of the engine cuts through the quiet. Bear's ears perk up. He goes to the window, tail wagging slowly.
"She's back," I say.
He looks at me.
"I know. I don't care either."
The car passes my turnoff and continues up to her cabin. I hear it stop. Hear the door slam and hear nothing after that.
I go back to the strap.
Ten minutes later, there's a knock on my door.
Bear loses his mind.
He doesn't bark. He's not a barker, but he scrambles to his feet and rushes the door like we're under siege, tail going so hard his whole back end is wagging.
"Bear. Down."
He sits, but he's vibrating with excitement.
I cross to the door and open it. She's standing on my porch again, and this time she looks even more pissed than yesterday.
"Did you leave a generator on my porch?" she asks.
No *hello*. No *thank you*. Just straight to the accusation.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
I lean against the doorframe, same as yesterday. "Because you don't have power."
"I didn't ask you for help."
"Didn't say you did."
Her jaw tightens. She's wearing the same jacket as yesterday, but her hair is down now, long and dark and tangled like she's been running her hands through it. There's a smudge of dust on her cheek. She looks exhausted and furious and beau-
I cut the thought off before it finishes.
"I don't need your charity," she says.
"It's not charity. It's a loan."
"I don't need a loan either."
"Then leave it on the porch. Freeze when the temperature drops tonight. Not my problem."
She stares at me, and I stare back, and for a second, I think she's going to throw the generator at my head.
Instead, she says, "What do you want for it?"
"Want?"
"The loan. What's it cost me?"
I blink. "It doesn't cost you anything."
"Everything costs something."
There's something in the way she says it: flat, certain, like it's a fact she learned young.
"Not this," I say.
She doesn't believe me. I can see it in her eyes, the way they narrow just slightly, the way she shifts her weight like she's bracing for a fight.
"I don't know you," she says. "I don't know why you'd help me. So, either tell me what you want, or take it back."
For a long moment, I don't say anything.
I could tell her the truth: that I don't want anything, that I just didn't want to spend the next two weeks listening to her freeze to death half a mile away.
I could tell her to leave, to take her suspicion and her sharp edges and get the hell off my mountain.
Instead, I say, "You know how to use it?"
She hesitates. "I'll figure it out."
"That's not an answer."
"I'll. Figure it out."
I sigh, push off the doorframe, and step past her onto the porch. "Come on."
"What?"
"I'll show you. Otherwise, you're going to blow yourself up, and I'll have to deal with the noise."
She follows me down the steps, and I can feel her confusion as she glances at me. Bear trots after us, delighted by this turn of events.
The walk back to her cabin is silent.
She doesn't try to make conversation, and neither do I. Bear zigzags between us, sniffing everything, living his best life. When we get there, I haul the generator off the porch and set it on the ground near the side of the cabin where the electrical hookup should be.
"You've got a hookup here," I say, pointing. "It's old, but it'll work. Generator connects here. You'll need to check the fuel every day. It'll burn through it fast if you're running it all the time."
She's watching me, arms crossed again. "Okay."
"Fuel goes here." I point to the cap. "Don't overfill it. Don't run it indoors. Don't—"
"I'm not an idiot."
I glance at her. "Didn't say you were."
"You're talking to me like I am."
"I'm talking to you like someone who doesn't know how to use a generator."
"Because I don't."
"Right. So, listen."
Her mouth twitches, not quite a smile, but close, and she nods. "Fine. Keep going."
I walk her through the rest: how to start it, how to shut it down, how to tell if something's wrong. She listens without interrupting, and I can see her filing it all away, her eyes tracking every movement.
When I'm done, I straighten up. "Got it?"
"Got it."
"You sure?"
"Do you want me to take notes?"
"Would you?"
"No."
I almost smile. Almost.
"Thanks," she says, and the word sounds like it costs her something.
"It's a loan," I remind her.
"Right. A loan."
We stand there for a moment, and I realize I still don't know her name.
I'm not going to ask.
"Anything else?" I say instead.
She shakes her head. "No. I'm good."
"Then I'm going."
I turn to leave, and Bear, traitor that he is, sits down at her feet and looks up at her like she's the most interesting thing he's seen all week.
"Bear," I say.
He doesn't move.
"Bear."
The woman crouches down, and before I can stop her, she's scratching behind his ears. His tail thumps against the ground, and he leans into her hand like they've known each other for years.
"He's sweet," she says.
"He's supposed to be a guard dog."
"He's terrible at it."
"Yeah. I noticed."
She looks up at me, still crouched, and for just a second, her expression softens.
"What's your name?" she asks.
I hesitate. I don't want to tell her.
Telling her makes this real. Makes her real. But she's looking at me, waiting, and Bear is still leaning into her hand, and I hear myself say, "Griffin."
"Hannah," she says.
We don't shake hands.
I call Bear, and this time he comes.
We walk back up the road, and I don't look back.
But I know she's watching.
I can feel it.