Broken Things

ONE:

Cabin in the Woods

It’s dark-as-fuck o’clock as the world around me jolts, crashes, shakes. The distant sound of breaking glass cuts into my sleep, snapping my consciousness into focus. My hand grasps the locket hanging around my neck and I brace myself, half expecting to smell gasoline from the wreck, to feel the sticky warmth of blood on my face and arm. But I don’t. And I’m not in the hospital, either, with that sad chaplain lingering in the doorway. As my eyes adjust to the dark around me, waking reality seeps back. No, the accident was years ago—so why did I just hear glass shattering? Or did I dream it?

Don’t worry, Maggie, Logical Me instructs. It’s just the Blind Spot spitting stuff up again. All those dark and drearies are knocking on your brain in the middle of the night. It’ll pass. Looking around, I realize I’ve fallen asleep on the overstuffed sofa by the warm glow of the wood stove. I’m at Dan’s cabin. I mean, my cabin. My new home-for-now. Moving out here seemed like such an awesome idea when I first thought of it. Yes, I’ve been a city dweller most of my life and haven’t been to the Sierras since my eighth-grade trip to Yosemite. But in my heart, I want this to be the great idea it seemed a month ago. I really do.

The high crossbeams above make me feel like I’m sleeping under a bridge about to collapse. Doors rattle and windows shudder against the late spring storm raging outside. It sounds like an angry giant troll is trying to knock the cabin in. A half-empty wine bottle—last night’s dinner—sits on the coffee table beside a plastic cup and a bottle of Ambien. They’re the only things I bothered to unpack when I arrived at this dusty old cabin some hours ago.

I know I should investigate the noise upstairs that woke me, but I really don’t want to. If I get up, whatever made it might hear me. It’s not a fucking troll, I try to reason. It’s probably a tree. We are in the woods. In the middle of a storm. And what if it is a tree? Then what? It’s not like I can do anything about a fallen tree.

I hear something upstairs rattling around in the wind. Defying my usual fallback position of denial, I reach out for my phone and check the time: 1:03 a.m. I sit up and try the lamp on the end table—nothing. Power’s out. I try to check my email from my phone and see that I have no bars and therefore, no service. I guess this is why everyone still has landlines here, including this cabin. God, what’s next? Dial-up?

I curl back up under the blankets and doze off and on until the rain eases up. The faint light of dawn breaks through passing clouds. I’m still alive. I did not die alone at the hands of a cruel, cabin-smashing troll. Sunrise frees me, and even though I’m dehydrated and still a bit drunk, I let sleep take me.

* * *

In the dream, I’m walking in the woods with Dan and Sammy. I keep trying to pick Sammy up, but he squirms and insists he’s too big. He runs ahead of us up the path. I look at Dan, and he seems oddly content. He points at Sammy, who’s picked up a wooden box with tiny blue and yellow flowers painted on it. When he sets it down and opens it, it grows huge, expanding into a cabin. Sammy laughs at this great trick and bounds up the porch steps as if he’s been there a thousand times.

Dan follows him up, but I don’t dare go. This place is too dark, and I don’t know what’s inside. I look at an upstairs window and see a wide-eyed young woman with long golden brown hair. She taps on the windowpane. Tap-tap-tap. Dan doesn’t see her. She taps again, harder this time, but he still looks over the porch railing at me. Tap! Tap! Tap! The dread grows inside me. Dan tells me, “Hi. Sorry I didn’t share-”

Momma. Wake up, Momma. I feel a tug on my sleeve and the cool touch of a child’s hand on mine, and my eyes fly open.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

I sit up, yanked from sleep once more by the idea that everything’s about to crash down around me. As I catch my breath and blink sleep from my eyes, I realize that the pounding I hear is not only in my dream. Someone’s knocking on the kitchen side door.

I stumble off the sofa, pulling a hoodie on over my flannel PJs and a pair of sheepskin boots. I hurry into the kitchen, smoothing my crazy morning hair and wondering who the fuck is knocking on my side door. Or any of my doors, for that matter. I don’t know anyone here. I just fucking got here.

I squint out the kitchen window, trying to see who it is. My head protests the bright morning sunlight, so I slip on my sunglasses and look again. There’s an old Jeep Wagoneer in the driveway, but I can’t see who’s at the door. And I’m not just swinging it open for a stranger.

“Yeah?” I yell through the door.

A man’s voice calls back through the door. “It’s your neighbor, from a few cabins down.” There’s a pause, and if he thinks that’s good enough for me to open the door, my silence tells him otherwise. He tries again. “I was driving by with my daughter, and we saw the downed trees. We wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

The mention of fallen trees (plural?) grabs my curiosity, so I unlock the door and open it a crack. Once I see that there is indeed a little girl with the man, I open the door a bit wider, ready to slam it shut as needed. You can’t fool me, potential murderer.

The guy looks to be in his mid-forties—a little older than me—with longish, wavy light brown hair tucked behind his ears. His clear blue eyes have some heavy baggage under them, and he has a grunge-meets-woodsman look to him. He holds a thermos in one hand and a cane—interesting!—in the other. At least he’s not carrying copies of The Watchtower.

The little girl is in rain gear, but it seems half-hearted, with her slicker open and askew on her shoulders. She’s inspecting a slug at the base of a tree near the side porch steps. She looks older than Sammy, but no more than ten. She catches my glance, and I look away. I reach absently for the locket again, moving it back and forth on its chain to keep my hand occupied.

“Hello,” I say, shifting my gaze to the man once more. State Your Business Please, says my expression. Then go away so I can have a smoke and some coffee.

He sees I’m not rushing to invite him in and starts talking again. “Uh…I saw the trees that fell over there.” He points toward the front of the cabin, which explains why he’s at the side door and not the front. “I’m your neighbor. Zachary Bell.” He motions to the kid, adding, “This is my daughter, Mina.”

The girl ignores us.

“Maggie Oliver,” I say. “Um, so trees…fell?”

He appears surprised that I don’t already know this. “Yeah.”

“Onto my cabin.” I say this more in a matter-of-fact way and not like a question. I should know, after all. “I mean, I heard it, but I haven’t checked it out yet. I just got here yesterday. I’m not exactly…” I pause, trying to phrase this in a way that makes me seem normal. “I’m not familiar with the place yet. Like, at all.”

This seems to explain a lot for him. He nods. “Oh! Okay. Well, heads up—the storm knocked out the power, but that happens a lot out here. It’ll come back on soon enough.”

“Yuh-huh.” I nod, as if I already knew this and hadn’t spent the night huddled on the sofa, resigned to death by troll. I slip my sunglasses up onto my head like the hair accessory they are, and instantly regret it. Sure is bright out here in goddamn nature. I rub at the bridge of my nose. “Do you, by any chance, know of a workman around here? Like, a contractor or something? This place may need some…help.” Yeah, this place. Not me at all.

He seems to give this serious thought for a moment, fidgeting with his cane. “As a matter of fact, I do. He’s not bad.”

Thank fucking God! “That’s great! What’s his name?”

The kid pipes up, like she’s in on a secret joke and wants to spill the punchline first. “Zachary Bell!”

“Oh!” Damn, I guess I should smile and be nice. “No kidding?”

“He doesn’t kid,” his child-secretary assures me.

Zach’s face is devoid of any hint of joviality. “She’s right.”

I take a second look at the kid. She’s got wild chestnut hair like her dad, and his big blue eyes. She speaks up, a true promoter of the family business. “He’s got time this week. His other big job postponed till next week, ’cause of the storm.”

Zach shoots her a be cool look and tells me, “Here, let me give you my card. You can call if you want me to take a look. You’re the owner, I take it?”

“Yeah,” I reply as he tucks the thermos under his arm and takes a business card from his back pocket. It reads: ZACHARY BELL – General Contractor, Tuolumne County Area. “Thanks.”

“Okay, then.” He starts to turn away, and a sudden panic tugs at the back of my throat. Oh, shit. They’re leaving.

“When can you come back?” I blurt out.

He pauses, looking back at me. “Hmm?” The kid pauses as well.

The words spill out. “I’d like to hire you. If you have time. When can you come back? To estimate damages, I mean.”

He shrugs. “We can come back after breakfast. Maybe in an hour?” He looks at the kid, who copies his noncommittal shrug in response.

“That would be great.” I make myself smile. I need to act like an actual human if this guy is going to help me. “I appreciate it. I…well, like I said, I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

He looks at me like he thinks he may have misheard me. “I’m sorry?”

Uh-oh. I’m doing the talking thing again. Whenever the anxiety sets in, I start talking, and sometimes it doesn’t make a lot of sense. “I mean, I just got here yesterday and I got lost three times on the way and it was already dark and raining and this place is falling apart but I’m stuck with it because it’s like, my very last possession and I don’t know anyone here and…” I pause, reminding myself to breathe. I hadn’t intended to reveal my insanity so soon. “Sorry. I’m just a little…” Manic? Depressed? Exhausted? About to cry? “Overwhelmed.”

Oddly enough, Zachary Bell, General Contractor doesn’t run away. In fact, it’s as if he totally expected this. Maybe people break down in front of him all the time? Is that a contractor thing—stoicism in the face of chaos? He says one word, and it’s all that’s needed. “Okay.” He exchanges a look with his kid, who is no longer urging him to go. Instead, she’s looking straight at me with renewed interest. I look away, like I got caught with my emotional fly open. It occurs to me that Sammy would be about her age now.

Without missing a beat, Zach hands me his thermos. “Coffee,” he says. “You need it more than I do.”

“Thanks, Mr. Bell,” I say, accepting the thermos like the peace offering it is.

“Just Zach,” he says, taking the kid’s hand in his. As they start to walk away, he says over his shoulder, “We’ll be back in an hour or so. Go for a walk or something. Relax. Storm’s passed.”

Dammit! Why is he being so calm when I’m clearly chock full of nuts? “Thanks.” I watch them drive off before going back inside and having my first morning cry at the new place.

* * *

This morning’s refrain: What in the actual hell am I even doing here?

I’m lying on the sofa again, staring at the wood stove, contemplating all the ways in which I may have made a terrible decision. The original idea was simple: lay low and live cheap. Staying here would be way less expensive than paying rent in San Francisco. Besides, I’m trying to rekindle my writing career. Aren’t lakeside cabins typically where writers go to get their creative groove back?

Before the accident, barely a day passed without writing. Even on the busiest, most child-stained days I would carve out a half-hour late at night, when Dan and Sammy were fast asleep. I’d post in my blog at least three times a week and constantly add ideas for fiction pieces into an unimaginatively titled document called Ideas. After the accident, though, all of that seemed like some luxurious dream that no longer belonged to me. I couldn’t write. Hell, some days my biggest accomplishment was just getting dressed. Writing? Get outta here!

But a few months ago, I was having coffee with one of my oldest friends, who finally got up the nerve to ask if I was writing. I was tempted to respond with, “Writing? You mean, the thing I used to live for? Hell, no!” But instead, I just shook my head and she didn’t press me. She did, however, suggest that I go back and read over my old Casual Chaos blog posts. Just for kicks, she said. “Maybe it seems frivolous now. But you know, a lot of people found it inspirational, in its own way.”

I just couldn’t. Casual Chaos was a part of my old life—the one I couldn’t get back. Revisiting the blog would mean revisiting times that were dead and gone, no matter how hard I try to wish them alive again. But I did look over the Ideas document. And that got me to thinking…what if I could write again, only in a different way? Voices change, just as lives do. Maybe there was more to explore than the past. Maybe there was a future full of writing that I’ve never even dreamt of.

Doubt nags at me again—maybe I should have sold this place when Dan and Sammy died. Hell, I don’t know why we didn’t sell it after his grandmother left it to us seven years ago. We never came here together. Not once! Who has a cabin on a lake that they never go to? It’s ridiculous. But that was us, in a nutshell. Dan was good at making the absurd sound logical. He argued that it wasn’t safe for Sammy. He made it sound like a giant safety hazard with a lake practically waiting to drown him. I let it slide like always, and we never came. Some property management guy rented it out summers. So, this move? It’s also my first visit.

I get dressed and decide to explore a little. It’s big for a cabin. The few times Dan talked about it, I'd pictured two tiny bedrooms with disintegrating chintz curtains and a barely functional olde tyme bathroom. Considering he’d made it sound like a death trap for toddlers, I wasn’t expecting it to be so nice. I mean, it's a California Craftsman! Dan must have really not wanted to come here because he knew I love a good Craftsman. The older and darker the hand-carved wood, the better. If I’d known we owned one, I would have insisted.

If I had to pick one thing about this cabin that makes it unique, though, it’s the staircase. You just know there’s a story behind it. The steps themselves aren’t that amazing; they're standard cabin-issue halved logs. But the detailed wooden railing carved in the shape of a huge oak tree is this home’s centerpiece. The trunk starts at the base of the stairs and sprouts up, curving with the stairway itself. Gnarled branches twist and bend and curve around one another all the way to the end of the upstairs landing. The leaves appear to be blowing this way and that, and when you look at it, you can almost feel the wind.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I haven’t gone for a walk outside yet, or even checked out the lake that's in my backyard. So, I take a page from the Book of Zach and stroll down the back steps with thermos in hand. The lake path runs right past my back porch, so I start walking along its edge, toward the other cabins and the woods beyond.

That’s when I look up and around and realize where I am. It’s goddamn beautiful here. Big Pine Lake certainly doesn’t look dangerous. Quite the opposite, in fact. Sammy would have loved it here. Canada geese fly overhead on their migration route. I can smell the pine trees mixing with that post-storm ozone smell, and the lake is calm and still. I can even smell the lake itself. There’s an odor of silty mud tinged with old algae and moss and a metallic tang that I hadn’t noticed before. Is that rocks I’m smelling? Do rocks have a smell?

Well, shit. I was so busy being scared of a goddamn storm that I’d completely missed all this. I take another sip of coffee, and it’s exactly as strong as it should be. The calm of the lake extends to me somehow, and for a minute, I don’t obsess over all the things I’m doing wrong. For this one moment, it doesn’t matter that I might have made a huge mistake. It doesn’t even matter if I find I can’t write anymore. All that matters is this sense of calm, and the crispness of the air.

Taking another sip, I continue along the lake path, pausing once to light a cigarette. I look up the sloping hillside and notice several cabins dotting the upper landscape. They’re perched along the rocky slope and propped up by aging wooden posts. No, thanks. Most of the cabins I walk past have folksy wooden signs with family names carved on them instead of an address. Like “Laughlins’ Loft” or “McCaffrey’s Majestic.” The signs tend to feature cavorting gnomes, trees, and canoes, like some confused Coat of Arms. There’s no sign for my cabin, though. Maybe I’ll get one so I can feel like a real cabin owner.

Most of the cabins haven't been opened for summer yet. They advertise their vacancy with shuttered windows and unfurnished porches littered with pine needles. It’s so jarring to live in a summer place during the off-season—like catching a fairy princess at an amusement park texting friends on her smoke break. I wonder if I’ll meet all these families over summer. Will we all end up best buddies, hanging out around the fire pit after a potluck BBQ dinner? Or do the McCaffreys and the Laughlins rent their places to random tourists all summer, like Dan and I used to?

I spot what must be Zach’s cabin. It’s the only other place that looks regularly lived in. It’s older and smallish and set back from the lake with a stone-lined dirt path leading down to a little dock. An upside-down kayak sits on it, suggesting a potential wooden sign theme. A faint trail of smoke rises from the stone chimney, and the grounds seem tidy and well-cared for. At least I know where to run if the troll comes back.

I’m tempted to approach the cabin and peer in its front windows, but it’s so damn quiet out here I’m half-convinced I’m being secretly watched. New girl! What are you up to? Invisible wood folk silently demand. Don’t look in windows. That’s creepy. I heed their warning and walk on.

The farther from my cabin I walk, the more surrounded by nature I become. Greater distances stretch between cabins out here, and I realize that the roads don’t reach this far back. Zach’s is one of the last cabins that you can drive to. The rest beyond it are hike-in or boat-in only.

I’m about to turn around and head back when I catch movement in my peripheral vision, back among the thick pines. As I turn my head, I get the sense that it’s something large and fast and…gone. At least, I can’t see it anymore.

Whatever it was seemed tall, and I could swear it had antlers, but I’m not a hundred percent certain I saw anything. Maybe it was branches swaying in the breeze, not an animal at all. My messed-up brain strikes again! One of the side effects of massive head trauma: occasional crossed brain-wires. The worst of it is what I call my Blind Spot, where so many memories are currently hiding from me. It’s where the shadow outlines live—things I know must have happened but can’t remember. Meeting Dan. Sammy’s birth. It’s all just a hazy glob tucked away deep in the Blind Spot somewhere.

I walk back to my cabin. There’s a guy and his kid coming over soon, and they’ve already seen me lose my shit once today. I’d rather not keep them waiting on top of that.