Chapter 4 - Griffin #2
"It's not. I shouldn't have—"
"Hannah." I stop walking and turn to look at her. "It's fine. Yeah, it's been eight years. Yeah, I'm alone. That's how I want it."
She meets my eyes, and there's something knowing in her expression that makes me uncomfortable. Like she can see past the words to the things I'm not saying.
"Okay," she finally says.
When we reach her cabin, I wheel the barrow right up to the porch and start unloading. Hannah moves to help, but I shake my head.
"I've got it."
"I can carry wood."
"I know you can. But I'm already doing it, so just let me."
She huffs out a breath but doesn't argue, just leans against the porch railing and watches. Bear flops down at her feet, and she reaches down to scratch his head. He groans in contentment, tail thumping against the worn boards.
I stack the wood neatly against the side of the cabin, under the overhang where it'll stay dry. Enough for several days, maybe a week if she's careful. When I'm done, I straighten up and wipe my hands on my jeans.
"You know how to build a proper fire?" I ask.
She hesitates. "I've been managing."
"That's not an answer."
"I put wood in the stove and light it. It burns."
"Does it burn hot? Does it last?"
"It... burns."
I sigh and head for the door. "Come on."
"What?"
"I'm going to show you how to do it right. Otherwise, you're just wasting wood."
She follows me inside, and I'm slammed immediately by how cold it is in here. The fire in the wood stove is barely more than embers, giving off almost no heat. The cabin smells like dust, smoke and that same wild, musty smell from yesterday, though it's better than it was. She's been cleaning.
I crouch down in front of the stove and open the door. The fire bed is a mess—half-burned logs piled haphazardly, no real structure to it, smothering itself.
"This is why you're freezing," I say.
"I followed the instructions."
"What instructions?"
"I Googled it."
I glance back at her. "You Googled how to build a fire."
"Yes."
"And this is what Google told you to do?"
"I may have improvised a little."
Despite myself, I feel the corner of my mouth twitch. "Yeah. I can tell."
I clear out the old ash and half-burned wood, then reach for the kindling I can see piled in a box beside the stove.
"You need three things for a good fire. Tinder, kindling, and fuel.
Tinder gets it started. Dry leaves, paper, whatever catches easily.
Kindling keeps it going. Small sticks, dry twigs.
Fuel is your actual firewood, the stuff that burns long and hot. "
She crouches down beside me, watching closely. I can smell her shampoo, strawberry and completely out of place up here, and I try not to notice how close she is.
"You build it in layers," I continue, arranging the tinder in the center of the stove. "Tinder first, then kindling over it in a teepee shape. Leave room for air to flow. Fire needs oxygen. Then your fuel wood on top, not too much at first. You want it to catch before you add the big pieces."
I strike a match, and it catches immediately, small flames licking up through the kindling. I wait until it's going strong, then add two medium-sized pieces of the wood I brought.
"See? Give it a few minutes and it'll be putting out real heat."
She's silent for a moment, just watching the fire build. Then she says, "You're good at this."
"I've had practice."
"Teaching people, I mean. You're patient."
I glance at her, surprised. Patient isn't a word anyone's used to describe me in a long time. "I don't want you to freeze to death half a mile from my cabin. Bad for property values."
"There it is." But she's smiling a little.
I stand up, brushing ash off my hands. "Keep feeding it every couple hours. Don't let it die completely or you'll have to start over. And don't smother it. If you pile too much wood on at once, you'll choke it out."
"Got it."
We stand there for a moment, the fire crackling between us, and I realize I've run out of reasons to stay. The wood's stacked. The fire's built. The generator's running. She's set.
I should go.
"You want some coffee?" she asks suddenly. "I just made a pot."
I should say no. Should head back to my cabin and let her have her space. That's what I came up here for—space. Distance. The chance to not have to be around people who ask questions or look at me like I'm something broken they want to fix.
"Yeah," I hear myself say. "Coffee sounds good."
She pours two mugs. Mismatched, one with a chipped handle, and hands me one. It's strong, bitter, the way I like it. We sit at the small table, Bear settling at my feet with a contented sigh.
"So," Hannah says after a moment. "Eight years up here. You ever get lonely?"
"No."
"Ever?"
"I've got Bear."
"Bear doesn't count."
"Why not?"
"Because he's a dog."
"He's better company than most people."
She laughs, and the sound is unexpected. Genuine. It fills the small cabin in a way that makes the space feel less empty.
"Fair enough," she says. "But still. Eight years. No people. That's... a long time."
"That's the point."
She wraps her hands around her mug, looking down into the dark liquid. "I get that."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." She's quiet for a moment, and I can see her deciding how much to say. "I came up here because I needed to get away. From people. From noise. From... everything."
I wait. I'm not going to push, but I can tell there's more.
"There was a robbery," she finally confesses, her voice trembling. "At the bank where I work. Three weeks ago. A guy came in with a gun, pointed it at me and told me to empty my drawer."
"You got hurt?"
"No. Nobody did. He got the money and left.
The whole thing was over in five minutes.
" She looks up at me, and her eyes are hard, like she's daring me to say something sympathetic.
"But I can't stop replaying it. Can't stop seeing the gun.
Can't stop feeling like I'm going to turn around and it'll be there again. "
I know that feeling. The loop your brain gets stuck in, the way trauma doesn't care that you're safe now, doesn't care that it's over. It just plays the same scene again and again until you can't tell what's real anymore.
"So, you came up here," I say.
"So, I came up here. Two weeks of forced vacation, doctor's orders. Supposed to rest, recover, get my head straight." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Instead, I'm in a cabin with no power, learning to split wood from a hermit who clearly wants nothing to do with me."