Hannah: I just sent a text to Auntie Em.
Me: You mean your older, slightly erratic aunt that hits on men ten years younger than her?
Another quick reply.
Hannah: Yep! That’s the one!
Uh oh…
Me: And why did you do that?
Hannah: Cause were going to go visit her. You, me, and some much needed space from the city for two weeks!
I started to worry about why on earth she wanted to go visit her aunt. I loved Emery for sure, but that woman was a bit eccentric. She was in her late fifties, yet she acted not much older than us. She was a bit of a black sheep of the family, never having gotten along with her sister, Hannah’s mom Susan. She used to move around a lot, but as far as I knew, she’d been living in Canada for the last ten years. No idea where in Canada, though.
Me: Should I be worried?
Her response pretty much summed up what I was afraid of.
Hannah: Yeah. Probably.
This was going to be interesting…
Two
I was shocked when I came home later that day to find Hannah already there and packing.
“You were being serious? We’re going to visit your aunt? Now?” I asked her, my hands on my hips as I watched her pull out every type of winter apparel she could fit into her massive suitcase.
“Absolutely! She called me not long after I texted her and said she’d be happy to have us. She’s helping us pay for the trip and said we could stay for as long as we’d like. I got two weeks off work for this, so we’re good.” She grabbed one of her extra suitcases and dropped it on her bed. “You’re going to need a bigger suitcase than what you have. It gets cold a lot sooner where we’re going, and a lot colder than what it does here.”
I stared at her dumbfounded. “Why exactly are we going there? What’s the rush?” I asked, grabbing the massive, black suitcase.
“For one, you told me before that you’ve always wanted to see the northern lights. Where she lives, you can see them almost every night. Auntie Em has raved about this place over the years, saying how relaxing and beautiful it is. So, I figured if you need somewhere to relax and gain a new perspective, this is where to go.”
“Where exactly does she live?” I asked in awe. I’d dreamed of those lights since I was a girl. I loved nature, which was why living in a bustling city like Chicago threw me off. At least Pennsylvania had some nature in it.
It turned out, her Aunt Emery lived in a small town called White Hemlock. It was located on the edge of Teslin Lake in British Columbia, Canada. It was so far off the beaten path, I was surprised the roads were even mapped out.
After forcing me to pack every article of winter clothing I had, Hannah booked the flight for us.
We left two days later.
The first plane we were on, made a stop at the Canadian Rockies International airport, where we had to switch to a much smaller plane that would fly us to a smaller airport called Fort Nelson Airport. I asked Hannah during the flight how she was able to get out of work to make this trip; to which she replied, “My sketches for the spring line are done, so I have some down time. My boss practically begged me to go take a vacation.”
I was a bit impressed at how quickly she’d put this all together.
When we landed at the second airport, Hannah informed me we had to drive at least ten hours before we reached White Hemlock. After so many hours smashed into two separate planes, I was on the edge of combusting. Sleeping on the planes was the only reason I didn’t lose my shit.
I could sleep on a plane just fine, but sleeping in a car was another matter entirely. I got motion sick very easily, so this was going to be a very long trip for me.
“Did your flights over go okay?” Dad asked me over the phone as we drove.
He was surprised by the impromptu trip, but agreed it was a great idea. I just had to bring him some sort of souvenir back or he threatened to shun me. Dad loved his souvenirs.
“It was long, but we made it in one piece, I guess.” I replied.
“That’s all that matters. Just get that relaxation you need kiddo, and send me pictures when you see the lights.”
I chuckled. He wanted to see them almost as badly as me. “Will do, Daddy. I love you and will call you soon.”
“Love you too, sweetheart. Keep that Hannah in line and tell Emery hello for me.”
“I’ll do my best. Talk to you later,” I responded, hanging up after he said bye.
When we were about four hours into the drive, I turned and asked Hannah the question that’d been plaguing me.
“Why in the world did your aunt decide to move so far away from society?”
I could understand some of her reasoning, considering the land was beautiful. It was mostly trees and mountains for miles. A light layer of snow was already touching the ground. It gave the earth a glow that you just didn’t see in places like Chicago. The air was crisper and made you feel like you could breathe easier. The only sounds for miles were the birds in the sky and the wind through the trees.
Then again, I liked where my hometown in Pennsylvania was set. I had a happy mixture of city and country. I could catch a movie and walk down city streets gazing into shops, or I could go camping in the woods by one of the lakes. It had sucked moving from there to an extreme like Chicago. Here, I was going to the opposite side of the spectrum. It was a bit of a shock to my system.
“I asked her that same question. She said at first, it was just an accidental pit stop on her way to Alaska. But, she fell in love with the town and decided to stay for a while. The extended stay turned into a permanent living situation. I don’t know what kinda magic this place holds to get my aunt to settle down, but I hope it rubs off on you. You need a little magic in your life.”
I couldn’t help leaning my head on her shoulder. Hannah was a wild card, but she had one of the biggest hearts I’d ever known.
“I love you, Hannah Banana.”
She laughed and leaned her head on mine as she drove. “Love you most, cupcake.”
The supposed last fifteen minutes of the drive was probably the worst of the entire trip.
Hannah and I had switched off driving, and unfortunately the one who wasn’t driving had to figure out the map. With us being so far out in the middle of nowhere, phone service wasn’t the most reliable. Since neither of us had any directional skills in the least, it was quite the feat figuring out where we were going the old-fashioned way. This trip made me realize how awesome GPS really was.
We were both cramping from being seated for so long. The exhaustion from the trip itself was killer, and we were beyond hungry after eating only bland protein bars the whole drive. It was Hannah’s god-awful idea to eat those instead of junk food, saying they’d fill us up better without having to worry about being the size of whales by the time we got there. She was definitely regretting that decision right about now. However, now I regretted not beating the idea out of her when she came up with it.
That may have been the hunger talking, though.
“I think you missed a turn. I have no clue where we’re at,” she said, turning the map this way and that.
The sun was beginning to set and the last sign we passed was just one for a great ice fishing spot. That did little to no good for us.
“If I missed a turn, it’s because you told me the wrong way,” I groused back; my mood slipped just a little more with each passing minute. I just wanted to be there already!
“I did not!” Hannah huffed. “You probably just didn’t turn the right way when I told you to.”
I clenched the steering wheel. “Hannah, I’ve turned at every single spot you told me to. Maybe you should call your aunt and ask her if we’re close.”
She slapped the map down on her lap. “And how exactly do I tell her where we are, do you suppose? Oh hi, Auntie. We’re next to a bunch of trees. And some snow. I think we passed a few rocks, too. That’s super helpful.”
I took a few deep breaths, trying m
y best not to take out my exhaustion on her. We probably were on the right road, we were just too tired to see it.
I started to believe things couldn’t get any worse than being lost in the middle of this endless winter wonderland. I really should’ve watched that trail of thought, though.
A loud pop like an explosion sounded, before the car suddenly bumped hard on the right side, making me lose control. The iced over road sent us into a spin. Hannah and I screamed like banshees as we spun several times then crashed sideways into the ditch.
We both sat in stunned silence as we tried to catch our bearings.
“You okay?” I asked her, rubbing the spot on my temple that knocked into window during the spin.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Smashed my shoulder into the door, but otherwise good. You?”
I looked over at her and nodded; my head hurt just a bit. Thankfully, there was barely a knot there. I grabbed my jacket from the back seat and a flashlight from the glove compartment, then stepped out of the car into the frozen twilight.
Hannah got out also and met me at the front passenger tire. We discovered the source of the bump when I shined my flashlight on it. It was completely blown.
“Shit. Must’ve been a bad tire. Aren’t they supposed to check for that before renting them out?” I questioned in aggravation, looking over the tire.
“You’d think,” Hannah agreed. She pulled out her cell and shouted in excitement. “Yes! I haven’t had signal the last hour. I have one bar.”
“You mean to tell me that’s the real reason you didn’t call Aunt Em when I asked? You could’ve just said that,” I guffawed.
She shrugged nonchalantly. “I didn’t think it mattered. It does now and I’m going to try calling her.” She pushed some buttons and held the phone to her ear. I heard her aunt’s voice come over the line.
“Hey, Auntie. We’ve got a situation. We have a blown tire and no idea where we are.” She paused, listening to what she was saying. “Yeah we passed an ice fishing sign.” She paused again. “Really? Yes! Please come get us. Okay. Love you too. Bye.”
She hung up and smiled up at me.
“Guessing we were going the right way the whole time and she’s coming to get us?”
She nodded sheepishly. “Yeah. Sorry I snapped at you. You know how I get when I’m hangry.”
“Yeah. I definitely do,” I laughed. “How far away is she?”
“Ten minutes. The ice fishing sign is about eight miles back along this road. She says it’s a good thing we passed it because now she can gauge where we’re at. Mentioned something about a mechanic in town that can pick up the car in the morning.”
I sighed in relief. Thank goodness, this town wasn’t so small that they didn’t have a mechanic. Luck was on our side.
We quickly jumped back in the car and turned up the heater to warm our hands, waiting as patiently as possible for Aunt Emery to come get us. I hated leaving this car just hanging out on the side of the road when it was a rental, but it looked like our only option. I was just glad I got that stupid rental insurance. Hopefully, we’d be reimbursed for whatever it cost to fix it.
As I sat there contemplating if I’d get anything out of this random trip into the middle of nowhere, something of a sign flashed across the sky. I peered through the windshield and gasped.
Streaking across the sky in greens, purples and pinks, was the one thing I had actually looked forward to, but totally forgotten about with the blown tire.
The Northern Lights.
“It’s incredible,” I said in complete awe.
Hannah chuckled next to me. “Bet it makes this whole fiasco worth it, huh?”
I grinned widely, not able to take my eyes off the wonder above us. “Yeah. It does, actually.”
As we sat there in silence soaking in something so beautiful, I suddenly felt a sense that I needed to be here. That there was a reason other than Hannah dragging me here. And I couldn’t wait to figure out what exactly it was.
Three
Hannah’s Aunt Emery found us not long after that.
Hannah and I quickly jumped out of the car to greet her. She rolled down the window of her dark Jeep Patriot as she pulled alongside us.
“You two better get your stuff and jump in. You’ll catch your death out here in those flimsy clothes then get picked off by the local wildlife after you’ve dropped.”
Emery Hudson was one of the nicest people, but as mentioned before, this woman was also a little eccentric. And unfiltered. While she was in her late fifties, she looked more like she was in her early forties. Her long blonde hair had small streaks of grey throughout it and her blue eyes were only just beginning to show the signs of aging.
We grabbed our suitcases and piled them into the back, locking up the rental just in case before hopping into the Jeep.
Aunt Emery turned the heat up for us as she made a U-turn and headed back the direction she came.
“I’m so happy you’re here, girls! Unfortunately, I can’t fit any more bodies in my house, so you’ll be staying at a rental cabin a short walk from mine.” She patted Hannah’s hand sitting on the middle console loving.
I leaned forward between them. “You do mean company, right? Not like you have bodies actually hidden in your house?” I picked at her. You just never knew with Emery.
She laughed loudly at my question, slapping the steering wheel. “Only on Thursdays, honey.” She said with a grin over her shoulder.
I smiled at her before sitting back in my seat and watching the trees go by as she drove. I began to wonder if this trip would do what Hannah was hoping it would for me. How could just changing up my scenery help convince my writer’s block to take a vacation? It wasn’t that simple. At least, for me it wasn’t. I understood her method, but I couldn’t help worrying this trip would be for nothing.
“So, how long you two staying for? And what brought on wanting to come visit little ole me?”
“Daisy needed a break from the city to start writing her next book,” Hannah replied. “I figured with how much you talked up this town of yours, it was the perfect spot for her to recharge. Plus, I missed you. Mom and Dad said to say hi by the way.”
Aunt Em perked up. “A new book? That’s great, Daisy! I bet Matthew is just ecstatic for you.”
I paled a little, forgetting that Aunt Em had no idea about the break up. “We aren’t together anymore, Aunt Em,” I responded grimly.
“I’m sorry, honey. What’d he do? I always felt like that boy was troubled when I met him.”
I gave a low bemused laugh and watched the terrain change through my window as we wound up into the mountains. The view was sensational. The mountains stretched over for miles. Light snow touched the ground giving the earth a beautiful glow as the aurora borealis reflected off its surface. I answered her without taking my eyes off the wonder outside, hoping it’d make it easier to talk about something so awful while looking at something magical.
“I found him screwing another woman in his office. We were only a week from walking down the aisle. It’s been almost a year since, though.”
“And he texted her that he missed her the other day,” Hannah added with a grunt.
“Did you knee him in the balls? I would’ve!” She said as she turned the Jeep down a dark road.
“No, but I should’ve,” I chuckled, not at all mad at the image in my head of doing just that.
“I said it a million times, but I’ll say it again. You’re better off without him,” Hannah said, turning her seat to look at me. “You were too good for him from the start.”
I gave her a sad smile. I agreed with her, but it still stung that so many years were wasted with him and that it took seeing him balls deep in another woman to see that.
I couldn’t believe I would be Mrs. Eubanks in only a week! I was marrying my best friend, my rock, and the only man I ever loved. I was on top of the world! It especially helped that I finished finalizing all the last-minute things before the ceremony. The flowers
were my last stop. They were daisies, of course. But I was most thrilled about the fact that I got one of Matthew’s favorite local bands to play music for the reception. I couldn’t wait to tell him!
I hoped in my car and drove to our favorite coffee shop, grabbing us two coffees and some blueberry scones. I planned to pop in on him at work and tell him the exciting news. He would be so thrilled! I never could surprise Matt with anything. He was sneaky, and always managed to figure out my plans before I enacted them. This would be the first time I got the drop on him.
I sipped my coffee excitedly as I walked into his office building. I waved to the receptionist and climbed into the elevator. I hummed along to the crappy tune playing over the intercom, not letting even this annoying song bring down my day. Nothing would take away my excitement.
I walked through the cubicles towards his office at the back and didn’t bother knocking as I strode in. He never minded that I didn’t knock.
My world shattered when I saw him.
There he was. The man I was only seven days away from giving my whole world to, pile driving his fucking secretary on his desk. Her red, stilettoes were draped over his shoulders, and her claw-like fingers dug into his ass while she gave muffled gasps of pleasure.
I dropped everything in my hands, alerting them to my presence.
Matthew quickly turned his head in my direction, and his eyes widened in shock. “Daisy…”
I shook my head at the memory. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t need to think about it. This trip was to help me relax and forget.
When Aunt Em turned down a narrow street lined with trees, we could see lights from what looked like homes built into the sides of the surrounding mountains; the road went up as we went forward. As she drove, the trees lining the road opened until we made it to the top of the roads crest and got our first sighting of the town below.
It looked like something out of a Christmas movie. All the homes were either log cabins or fancy cottages, ranging from small, to at least three stories high. The mountains surrounded the town like a protective barrier, making it only possible to get here by plane or this one road. A large lake was iced over behind the town, expanding at least three miles around. We could see most of the homes were all situated around on the outskirts of the area, forming a circle around the towns center that looked to have an array of businesses.
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