by Georgina Lee
Or was it the distrust she'd learned along the way?
She could see his frosty breath swirl between them, his chest rising with each strong inhalation. His eyes had brightened with the sunshine.
He crossed the short distance between them and with one mittened hand, gently closed her jaw.
Waneeta flushed. When she finally found her voice, she asked, "Are you proposing to me?"
He gave her a slightly crooked smile. "I believe so."
"Why?"
It was his turn to look incredulous. "Waneeta, we just spent two nights together! People will talk."
Scowling, she scoffed, "Let them talk. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before."
Thomas caught her arm. "Your reputation will be ruined."
Fear skittered down her spine. She'd wanted to know him better, but this? She scanned his face for a hint of a joke, but there was none, leaving her to laugh shakily. "Maybe, but no worse than what I've endured running a sports store. The owner can be a jerk, sometimes, really rude to his female workers. But, really, Thomas, marriage? We hardly know each other!"
She shook her head. This man was incredible! He'd offer to marry her solely on the premise that her reputation could be ruined? Without warning, Thomas pulled her in his arms, and she found her breath coming in light, frosty puffs. She could feel his body heat, and desire swept over her. For one moment she toyed with the idea of returning to the cabin and getting to know him better. His breath caressed her cheeks, and his lips hovered over hers temptingly.
"Then let me see you again," he whispered. "Let's get to know each other."
Finally, a sensible option! She smiled. "I was hoping you would say that."
"We could meet in the village."
"Up here? I have to go to work today in Pembroke. I’m late as it is. Then I'm not free until after Easter. I'd like to spend time with you, you know, come back up here, but I'm afraid it'll have to wait until Victoria Day."
His arms tightened. "When's that?" he asked, his eyebrows pressed into a frown.
"This year? Really, Thomas, you'll have to get a calendar! It's the twenty-second of May." Her hands clutched the sides of his coat as she inhaled his clean scent. He'd been up earlier than her, and bathed before she’d even opened her eyes.
She didn’t want to let time, or the length of it before they'd meet again, ruin what they’d started. "Let's meet here at your cabin on the long weekend. We'll talk for a while and maybe go out for lunch. There's an inn in the village that will be open by then."
Thomas' gaze lingered on her. A slow smile came over his handsome features. Waneeta held her breath.
"Very well, then," he said. Just when she thought he might kiss her, he broke their embrace. "We'll find that inn you're talking about, and have lunch. In the meantime, show me this 'Skidoo' of yours."
Chapter 7
"Good Lord," he blurted out a few minutes later, standing over the beaten up machine as Waneeta swept the snow off.
"I know! Ugly, eh? Kevin and Uncle Rob bought it years ago at a Crown Assets Auction. It belonged to the military. Kevin drives the newer one he’d just bought."
"Looks like a locomotive!" Thomas eyed it suspiciously, unsure if she should touch it at all. Made of white painted iron, sitting on a tread of black rubber, with two skis in front, this was a 'Skidoo'? Waneeta seemed confident she could handle it, but it listed badly to one side, and she would need help righting it. He quickly shed his snowshoes for the task. Dubiously, Thomas grasped it and finding it heavier than it looked, heaved it to set it right.
He scanned the area. "Is this where you saw the meteorite?"
Waneeta looked around and pointed to a tree. "It was up there. It flew over that way." She turned and indicated east to west.
"How far away did it land?"
"Not too far. Less than quarter of a mile. I think a chunk fell not far from here and the rest a ways further on. Though I couldn't find it when I dropped it, so we may not find it now."
Thomas stared over the horizon line. It was hard to believe it came so close to her when none of the trees showed any scorching. But her 'Skidoo' must have, if her strange suit did. They'd need to brush off the snow first.
Meanwhile, Waneeta scooped up a shiny black helmet half hidden in the snow, and then walked toward Thomas. "What's the matter? I know it's old, but it runs well. It'll need some cranking, I imagine. I just hope the gas hasn't all drained out, but I don't smell anything."
He couldn't imagine such a small locomotive, but there it was. Did it run on a boiler? Or was it one of those internal combustion engines he'd heard of? He wasn't an engineer, so he refused to speculate. But still, he cringed inwardly. No doubt it would sound like the devil himself when it finally started to work.
He watched Waneeta don the helmet, a hard metal bowl like nothing he'd seen before. Out of her pocket, she then drew a set of tiny keys and dangled them in front of him.
"Help me turn it around, first, please. I know the ski is bent, but I should be able to drive it into the village."
He helped her, and then backed off to stand near the uprooted tree that had hindered her progress two nights ago.
"It'll be fine. Don't worry." She smiled encouragingly at him, but he continued to stare oddly at the machine. Waneeta shoved the key into the ignition. "It always takes a bit of cranking to get the thing going, but it does run well."
Thomas stepped back. This he had to watch.
As she cranked the engine, Waneeta wiped off the seat. Under most of the snow was a fine layer of dust. Meteorite dust, which soon smeared with the snow and she briefly wondered if she should be saving the stuff for posterity.
Then she felt it, a peculiar sensation as it flooded over her. That same indescribable nausea she'd felt watching the meteorite crash and burn. It was so intense that she closed her eyes, hoping it would pass quickly.
Finally the engine caught, and Waneeta found the vibrations easing her queasiness. Finally, as the Skidoo settled into a quiet idle, the nausea faded away.
Taking a deep breath, she turned to face Thomas.
He was gone.
Waneeta glanced around. "Thomas?"
Leaving the idling Skidoo a moment, she walked over to the uprooted tree close to where he'd been standing. Something was wrong. Reaching out her hand, she touched it. It was the twisted wreck of rotten roots, shrunken and decayed nearly beyond recognition. Just a moment ago, it had seemed freshly uprooted and covered thickly with new snow. Thomas was just standing here, having backed off when she was about to start the engine.
Waneeta turned around and spied another tree. One of the original old growth trees, it stretched up high above her, forked right in the middle. The top of it was charred and broken. The meteorite had grazed it on its descent.
"There, Thomas, look!" She pointed and twisted about, but she was still alone.
Alone. In fact, Waneeta had never felt so alone.
She shivered in the quiet. Suddenly, it was as if she was the only creature left on earth. Fear crawled through her, and she automatically stepped back, looking down the path that led to the cabin. Skidoo tracks veered to the right through the trees, but the trail she and Thomas took only minutes before was yet untouched this winter. All that threatened the pristine snow today was a good melting from the warm day.
Warm? It hadn’t been this warm out a moment ago.
And that tree! With determined steps, she plowed through the soft snow until she smacked the tree trunk and looked up. She squinted against the bright sky as she scanned the century-old timber.
This tree was far too old...
Her skin crawled. One wicked storm had hit yesterday, but the tracks around her were still well-trampled by snowmobiles. Two nights ago, she couldn't find this trail because the snow was so pristine. Now it was packed hard and crystallized from late winter thaws and freezes.
What was going on?
A shivering fear scraped the length of her body like claws on a chalkboard. Her gaz
e flashed around, but the trees were unfriendly, laughing at her as they bent in the breeze that had suddenly whipped up. For one absurd moment, she thought they'd stolen Thomas, like evil Wendigos stealing lonely hunters. Above her, tree tips pirouetted rhythmically, their rustlings like heavy, hypnotic wheezing.
Nausea roiled again, this time borne of panic. Her heart pounding, she leapt on her snowmobile and without looking back, she raced down the trail that would take her to the village.
Chapter 8
"Need a place to stay?"
At the mechanic’s words, Waneeta jumped. She was standing near the small door beside the big bay door. She spun. "I’ll need a place?"
The guy shrugged. "Yeah, unless you can find someone to come get you, but that storm that’s been forecast is still on its way. I’ll have to get a ski delivered here, and my parts all come from Ottawa. They'll deliver it in the morning if the weather holds." He eyed her coolly before adding, "My sister runs the inn. It's closed till spring, but she may put you up for the night. Want me to call her?"
She hadn’t been able to get through to anyone in Pembroke except her work to say that she couldn’t make it in. No one was able to come out to pick her up.
Her parents were out, so she left a message, and Kevin was at work according to his roommate. At least he was safe, though he hadn't appeared to show any concern for her, from what she gathered from his roommate. Waneeta lived alone, without even her own roommate from whom she could beg a ride. No one was up to the hour and a half long drive. Those at work were now short-handed, thanks to her.
Vaguely, she found herself nodding at the mechanic’s offer. "Um, what day is it today?"
"The 17th, all day. Saint Patrick's Day, isn't it?"
The day after she'd wrecked her Skidoo? How could that be possible? She'd spent two nights with Thomas.
Her head aching, Waneeta wandered to the window. Stafford Village was a tiny hamlet nestled in the hills southeast of Algonquin Park. It was solely supported in the winter by snowmobilers like herself. In the summer, people fished the stream that crossed under the village's only street. This place boasted the garage and gas station now holding her snowmobile, a restaurant, general store, and an inn. A few old houses and cottages filled the rest of the village.
Stafford Village. Thomas Stafford.
"She'll be here in a minute," the mechanic cut into her muse after he’d hung up the big black phone she’d just used.
"Thanks, Mr.—"
"Derkson." He returned to his parts manual and continued to write down out some numbers.
Waneeta swung back to the window. All around the village the trees threatened to swallow up man's presence. She half prayed Thomas would appear, right in this garage, to take her back. But a deeper part of her knew he wouldn't come. How she knew it, she couldn’t explain. It had settled in her like a lead ball.
Thomas felt like a dream now.
Waneeta gave herself a mental shake. What nonsense! She could still feel his warm touch, his smooth lips on hers, and her body's reaction to him when he stood close.
Yet when she and Thomas had been looking at the tree scorched by the meteorite, it looked undamaged.
The meteorite? Waneeta spun. "Did you hear about the meteorite?"
"The one last night?"
"So, it was only last night?" She caught the mechanic’s frown and hurried on. "Sorry, it felt like longer than that. Like two nights ago."
If her odd remark bothered the guy, he didn't show it. "I expect meteorite hunters will be all over the area soon enough, looking for the darn thing. Then we'll wish it was long ago. I don't care as long as they take it far away. It could be radioactive. Bad enough we have that nuclear lab over at Chalk River." The man returned to his work. Then he looked up again. "At least Doris won't mind. I bet she'll open her inn for them. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, I suppose."
Pensive, Waneeta just stared out the window. From the other end of the street, a heavy woman hurried toward the garage. Spotting Waneeta, she broke into a warm smile and waved. Waneeta lifted her hand and return the wave, not feeling the joviality she saw in the woman's face.
"Hello, I'm Doris Derkson," she said as she opened the small bay door.
Waneeta tried a smile back, but it felt watery, even to her. "I'm Waneeta Meadows. Thanks for opening up your inn for me."
The older woman squeezed her arm. "It's nothing, really. Stafford Village gets fewer visitors each year whether they're here on purpose or by accident. I’m glad for the company. Sorry to hear about your snowmobile. You must be in shock even, running into whatever it was that bent that ski." She shook her head. "Sorry, listen to me chatter! Come on. We’ll get you settled. Do you think you need to see a doctor?"
"No, I'm fine." She wasn't really. Not with a headache coming on, and the bruise on her side still aching. She wondered if she still bore the stain of Thomas' iodine. Not that she would check it here.
On the way to the inn, Waneeta couldn't help but glance back at the woods from where she’d come. Again, she hoped Thomas would rescue her.
From what? A dear old lady desperate for company? A broken ski, and unreachable parents? A lonely life because you don't trust?
"Are you sure you're not hurt, dear?" Doris asked as she fell into step beside Waneeta. "You look pale."
Waneeta shook off her thoughts. "I'm okay. I had a bad spill in the woods. It spooked me, I guess."
"Then it's best you don't drive home today. I know I could use the company. Besides, the Weather Network on TV says we’re still going to get that storm. It’s moving slower than they expected, that's all."
The inn was the biggest house in the village with a wide, welcoming front porch. An ornate feminine sign hanging from the verandah roof told visitors this was the 'STAFFORD VILLAGE INN'. Together they entered, and Doris hurried behind a small desk and pulled out a key.
"I'll give you the blue room." She handed her a room key hanging off a bright blue tag.
As she shrugged off her snowsuit, Waneeta asked how much it cost. Mrs. Derkson frowned at the sight of the credit card Waneeta then produced. "I only take cash this time of year."
Waneeta's face fell. "I'm afraid I haven't got any cash on me, Mrs. Derkson."
"Call me Doris, dear. I'll tell you what. In exchange for a room, you can help me out this afternoon at the museum, if you're up to it."
"Museum?"
Doris beamed, "Yes. For years I've petitioned the County Historical Society for some money to start it. I've been collecting memorabilia and things about the lumber industry all my life and I just got the break I was looking for."
"What was that?"
"I want to base the museum on the village as it was when it started. A man from the States donated some personal items that concern the village just a few days ago, in fact. I want to get those things sorted and the museum up and running before the summer. The reeve says if I can do that, the village will cover the building’s rent and upkeep."
"What kind of memorabilia?" Waneeta asked politely, not really feeling up to digging through dusty boxes, but for a night's lodging, she'd do it.
"Old letters and pictures. I hope to catalogue it all."
The work sounded boring, but she needed to keep busy. "What would you like me to do?"
"Mostly to clean."
"Can I could borrow a change of clothes, then? Just something to clean in?"
"Oh, yes. You'll need something warm. It's freezing in that building, but I don’t want to waste the hydro in case the reeve rescinds his offer."
An hour later, after a cup of tea and some muffins to restore them, she and Doris walked down to the river's edge. Waneeta stumbled to a stop halfway down the steep driveway behind the general store.
Beside the river stood an exact replica of Thomas' cabin!
"Amazing, isn’t it? It was the first building in the village," Doris informed her as she strode past. "In 1897, the lumberjacks built it to serve as schoolhouse for the local children. It's
similar to a camboose shanty."
Doris busied herself unlocking the door. A draught of cold, stale air rolled out to greet them.
Not ready yet to see inside, Waneeta spun away from the threshold. In the nearby river stood the skeletal remains of the village's original bridge. The early spring melt had begun, with rushing waters spewing past it.
The noise was suddenly deafening, forcing Waneeta to turn and plow inside. Compared to the bright sunshine, the cabin was dark and chilly.
"Sorry for the cold," Doris quipped. "Like I said, I don’t want to waste the hydro."
The room was so different from Thomas’ cabin. There were boxes everywhere, some delivered up from the States, judging from the labels, some obviously been there for some time, and several old desks had been stacked against the far wall.
Under Doris’ supervision, and accepting the offer of a dust mask and latex gloves, Waneeta was soon pushing heavy boxes back against the fireplace. Soon her own body heat generated enough warmth for her, and before long, decades of dirt were cleaned away and a basic inventory was completed.
Doris commented on her diligence.
"I guess I have a lot of nervous energy to burn off," Waneeta answered. "And there couldn't have been better therapy than this."
By four o'clock, the whole cabin was spotless. They'd swept, scrubbed, and polished their way through decades of grime and countless generations of rodent droppings, with Doris constantly reminding her they’d scrub themselves clean later. "Anything to come back with us?" Waneeta asked when they were done.
"Only this box. I picked out a few of the more interesting items for it." Doris pointed to the one closest to the door. "We can root through it over supper."
"You don't have to feed me, too, Doris, I’ll just go down to the diner-"
"Nonsense! I'd love the company. And you can try calling home again to tell them you're safe."