by Ev Bishop
Mia could tell from her inner dialogue that she was going a bit stir crazy and it made her laugh. After all, who did it hurt if she went crazy—or crazier? She was all by herself in the woods, not a witness or a person to be affected in sight.
“I’m afraid you’ll disappear into yourself again, and your sister and I won’t be there to check on you and pull you back.” Her mom’s well-meant (and seriously irritating) concern replayed in Mia’s memory. Her mom hadn’t wanted her to take this trip, hadn’t understood why Mia couldn’t embark on some system of baby steps back into the land of the living (Mia’s phrase, not her mom’s. In fact, her mom hated it when she said it), while staying put with her “support system” close by. Mia had been adamant about going to the verge of rudeness. Her mom and sister, much as she appreciated and loved them, had become part of the problem. She relied on them too much.
Mia deserted the journal once more and stalked over to the living room window, spread two of the bamboo shade’s slats, and scrutinized the forest beyond her cabin. What if her mother was right? Maybe she wasn’t strong enough to cope on her own yet. But if not, when? It had been five years since—
She deliberately fuzzed out the details. She didn’t like thinking about it directly—and didn’t think it helped either. If anything, reliving the specifics time and time again felt like giving Ryland power over her—the power to keep her afraid, the power to make her constantly second guess herself.
Suffice it to say (and think!): she figured if she didn’t overcome her . . . issues . . . soon, she most likely never would. People were creatures of habit, weren’t they? And her habits were entrenched. In the same way pianists played scales until the movements were finger memory, requiring no thought, and practiced guitarists changed chords unconsciously with the music, staying in, being alone, had become Mia’s natural state. It was how her mind and body felt most secure, felt right. It was only when contemplating a need to grow, to get past this, to go out in the world that she got all angst-ridden and nutty.
Mia pulled the blind’s cord, opening it fully, so though she was still separated from the outdoor world by hard, cold glass, all that she was missing was clearly displayed. The huge cedars standing guard around Sockeye’s small clearing gleamed emerald in the late fall sun. The cloudless sky was a deep denim blue, like it had ripened with the season too. The path she’d explored the other day beckoned anew—but her skin itched with apprehension.
“Come on,” she prodded aloud, “or day five will turn into day six, into day seven . . .”
Still unsure if she’d go through with it, she crept to the entrance way and pulled on her boots.
Once outside, Mia moved as far as the unused fire pit, then paused and evaluated her surroundings, giving her eyes a moment to adjust. Manmade light—and she’d had days of only it—was a very different animal than natural outdoor light.
She shivered. Something in the weather had changed while she’d been hiding out. It was still sunny, as she’d noted from inside the cabin, but there was a dampness beneath the heat and a chilly breeze that whispered hints of inevitable changes. The air smelled different too. It had been dry and piney when she first arrived. Now there was an earthy quality and maybe the slightest whiff of smoke, like someone was having a bonfire.
Resolutely, Mia put one foot down in front of the other and started along the trail she’d followed the other day.
It wasn’t quiet. At all. Overhead, a disorganized V of Canadian geese flapped and honked, as if frustrated that they weren’t getting their act together. Amber leaves crackled under her boots—yet another change in the mere days since she’d last been out. So many fallen leaves! Small animals, or she hoped they were small anyway, rustled in the dry brush on either side of her. The total absence of vehicle noise, of human noise, boomed.
“I thought that was the point,” Mia huffed at herself. “You wanted to get used to being alone, doing things by yourself, unaccompanied.”
It was no good, though. The bravery she’d felt her first day at River’s Sigh had deserted her. She darted a glance over her shoulder, saw nothing, and forced herself to continue on.
“You don’t have to go as far as you did the other day. Just down to the first creek. That’ll be fine. That’ll be great.”
The eerie feeling of being watched was back, however—and raging out of control.
She couldn’t quell the nattering stream of thought feeding her panic: not seeing someone is not the same as no one being there. Not seeing someone is not the same as no one being there. Not seeing someone is not the same as—
She wheeled around. Nothing. Nobody. Even the birds overhead had gone away.
She tried to laugh at herself, but couldn’t. She could still see Sockeye cabin from where she stood. She’d gone all of what? A hundred feet?
She forced herself to walk calmly and keep her pace steady until there were only five strides to the stairs, and then, biting back a sob, she let herself run. Three steps to cross the deck. One click. One turn—
And she was safely indoors. She locked the doorknob and slid the deadbolt into place. Pressing her back against the door, she stretched her neck side to side, then forced herself to breathe in, then out, in, then out. . . .
Yes, her anxiety was definitely getting worse again. Ah well, that was the nature of the beast, right? It had seasons.
Also, as she had learned the hard way, only a fool completely ignored her gut. It was better to run when no running was needed than to tough out bad feelings and be direly mistaken.
Retrieving the landline’s cordless handset just in case, Mia sidled over to the window. Standing well out of view, she opened two slats of the closed blind wide enough for her to scan the front walk and nearest edges of green space. “See? Nothing—” Her attempt at self-reassurance died on her lips.
The outside air was still. Even the small breeze had quit. Not a branch on any bush, shrub or tree moved even a leaf—except for one hedge. It trembled with movement. What the hell? There was someone hiding out there. Someone was watching her.
She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. This was ridiculous. It had some logical explanation. It was an animal or something. She knew it was. That didn’t calm her palpitating heart, however, or dry her sweating palms.
She walked to the washroom, used it, took a long time washing her hands, then pulled her hair into a tight ponytail and washed her face too. Finally she retrieved her laptop from her bedroom and headed for the living room. Placing it on the coffee table, she hovered by the couch—then suddenly turned and sprinted for the front door. Unlocking the door in a wild, agitated frenzy, she threw it open.
“Get away from here!” she screamed in the direction of the hedge on her far left. “Leave me alone. Go home. Go!”
Nothing moved beyond the hedge and its branches were quiver-free now—but then something shifted in her peripheral vision. She swung her gaze forward and saw him. Utterly horrified, her voice died.
Chapter 7
Stunned and confused by the fury in Mia’s fear-tightened features and electric blue eyes, not to mention by her shocking volume, Gray froze, one hand on the railing at the bottom of porch. Someone was obviously harassing her, but who? He surveyed the bushes and forest east of himself, the direction she had screamed in before noticing him and falling silent. He saw no one. Mia didn’t seem relieved by the absence of whoever the intruder was or by his presence either. He took the stairs and crossed the porch in two bounds. “Are you all right? What’s going on?”
Mia opened her mouth, but no words came out. She sagged back into the cabin, leaving the door wide open.
Gray looked around again, still saw nothing but trees and undisturbed ground, then self-consciously followed her in and lowered his backpack to the floor. If she gave even the slightest sign that she didn’t want him there, he’d leave immediately—but she seemed fine with his company. Distracted, but fine. He fought to keep his voice even and calm, despite his thudding heart. “Is som
eone bothering you? Is someone here?”
“I . . . no.” Mia shook her head, looking fragile. For a horrifying moment, Gray thought she might burst into tears. He hated tears, not because of the emotion behind them so much as because he always felt powerless to do anything to remedy them or to help.
For the first time in a long time—too long a time, he’d missed hearing her badly—Celine’s voice, amused and frustrated, filled his head: Get a life, Gray. Stop trying to fix everything and everyone. It’s not your job.
He recognized, as usual, the wisdom in Celine’s comment, yet it was a difference between them that they’d never quite reconciled and a truth she’d always been uncomfortable with. Solving things, fixing people’s problems, literally was his job, how he made his living—or it had been—and it was still his nature, like it or not. It wasn’t as easy as she made it sound to just stop.
He heard Celine snort in response, as real as if she were standing beside him.
Then Mia, the living, breathing woman who really was nearby, shrugged exaggeratedly and pulled him from his chat with his dead wife. She jutted her jaw and adopted a flippant tone that grated on every one of Gray’s raw nerves. “It’s nothing. I got a little Blair Witch Project, that’s all.”
Gray didn’t buy her act for a second. She’d been genuinely terror stricken, but was backpedaling now, faking she was fine. Why? He reached out to steady her, caught himself before he did, and jammed his hands, now clenched into fists, into his pockets. What was he thinking? He had no business touching her. He was already standing so close that he could smell her. Her scent, some hippy mixture of spice with a touch of oranges or something, put his senses on overdrive.
“Feeling watched?” he asked, suddenly knowing without a doubt that she was.
Mia hesitated and her eyes narrowed, like responding to him was the last thing she wanted to do. “Yeah,” she finally muttered, almost angrily. “Maybe. Sort of.”
Her face, which had been chalk pale beneath her tightly scraped back hair when she threw the door open in rage, turned a violent red. “I mean, whatever. It’s stupid. I’m stupid. I know it was just some animal lurking around or something.”
Gray did touch her now, very lightly above her elbow, wanting to comfort her. She was about to yank away when she saw, really saw, his hand. Her eyes widened. He tried not to flinch as she took in his unnaturally smooth, shiny skin and studied the mottled white-pink ridge of scar tissue that snaked from beneath his plaid shirt’s cuff all the way to his knuckles.
Her perusal had taken a split second at most, but it felt weighty and momentous somehow. When she lifted her gaze back to his, Gray took a large step back. “I don’t know. My wife was a big proponent of intuition. She thought people, especially women, should listen to their gut . . .” He trailed off, feeling rattled. He never talked about Celine, not to anyone, and especially not to strangers. It was probably just a result of feeling her presence so strongly a minute ago. Still, it was strange. And uncomfortable. He turned away from Mia and headed back to the porch. He examined the property again, then stomped down the stairs. None of the fallen leaves gathered at the base of trees or in various hollows and crevices were disturbed or kicked around. Nothing looked amiss or out of place.
Mia remained stationary, framed by the doorway, watching him. As he started to poke around a nearby hedge, she moved slightly. He turned to look at her. She had crossed her arms over her chest and her fingers rubbed the spot his scarred hand had so briefly rested.
He trekked around the side of the house. Twigs cracked loudly under his feet, convincing him further that there was nobody else around. He would’ve heard them—or noted anything awry, out of habit—when he’d approached the cabin earlier.
When he returned to Mia a few minutes later and climbed the stairs to rejoin her, he shrugged silently.
She nodded, her mouth a tight white line. “There’s nothing there. Like I said, I get it.”
“Just because I didn’t see anything doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything there, but I don’t want you to worry either. I’m ninety-nine percent sure whatever it is, it isn’t human. In fact . . . ” Gray shuffled uncomfortably. “It could have been Wolf. He came across the river with me, but he’s always gallivanting into the undergrowth. I thought he’d headed home alone, but maybe he was sniffing around here.”
Mia looked at him, so earnest and serious-eyed that his heart throbbed a little. “That monster of yours is named Wolf? How fitting.”
Gray’s brow furrowed in humorous disbelief. Was she really intimidated by that big goof of a dog? Like she heard his thoughts, Mia shook her head. “No, after seeing you call him off at the lake and witnessing him lounging on the deck outside the dining hall the other day, I’m not really afraid of him—but if you don’t know him, he is super intimidating.” Her voice fell away, like something else had suddenly occurred to her. Gray would’ve paid a lot of money to know what it was.
“Anyway,” she continued, after a pause where they both stood looking at each other a little awkwardly. “Thanks for checking out the bushes. And for not tearing a strip off me or making fun of me.”
Gray’s face warmed and he was grateful for his heavy beard. What kind of heel was he? This virtual stranger thought he’d yell at her or ridicule her when she was scared? “No thanks necessary, but why would I make fun of you?”
“Because I’m scared out here, nervous being by myself. I’m foolhardy. An idiot.”
“Uh . . .” Gray’s shoulders fell and his face burned hotter. “That’s why I’m here actually. I hiked in to visit Jo and to come by your place here. To apologize. I was out of line. You very well may be an idiot, but I haven’t known you long enough to make that judgement.”
“No?”
“No.” Gray wished the intensity of his desire for her to believe him would force her to do just that. “But all that aside, I would never make fun of anyone for being afraid. Bad things happen, a truth I accidentally revealed I’m obsessed with—and one I suspect you know too well. No wonder we get scared sometimes.”
Mia flinched as if struck, and her face drained of color. Gray stopped speaking abruptly, hit by a surge of angst. What had he said or done now?
Chapter 8
Nothing could’ve surprised Mia more than Gray, the ferocious bushman, being kind. Kind and understanding. As he stood there before her on the porch, totally mute, a few things happened inside Mia’s body all at once.
In her belly: a nervous twitching. What did Gray know about what she knew about bad things?
In her heart: a tight squeeze. The bad things in Gray’s life—what were they? The things that left the scars she’d seen, the limp she’d witnessed?
In her mind and down her spine: an itching, crawling anger. She didn’t want sympathy and she didn’t want to stupidly trust a stranger, especially one who showed up on her doorstep out of nowhere, suddenly acting sympathetic and trustworthy. She’d already fallen into that trap once, thank you very much.
“What about the skinny dipping?” she blurted.
Gray turned red. Even with his heavy beard and wild hair, there was no disguising his flaming cheeks. “What about it?”
“I thought that proved I was reckless and foolish and deserved whatever horror might befall me.”
“I never said anything like that, not even close.” Gray descended the stairs from the porch, gaining that much more distance from her. “And statistically, swimming in some lake in the middle of the woods is safer than a lot of other things people do without a second thought. Besides, if you have the misfortune of meeting someone whose heart is bent on doing harm, to hell with what you’re wearing—or not wearing. Full body armor won’t prevent them. There are no magic steps or surefire ways to stave off evil and protect ourselves.”
Gray hefted the backpack he never seemed to be without and strode off. Mia stared after him. His limp was much less noticeable today, but because she’d seen it at its worse, she could still make out a slight
stiffness in his gait. Someone whose heart is bent on doing harm. The words were old-fashioned somehow, maybe even understated in terms of talking about evil, but they struck a chord.
Gray had no way to know it, of course, but that’s what had happened to her. She’d met someone whose heart was bent on harming her. And who can ever really see what lies in someone else’s heart?
Gray was wrong about one thing, though. There was a way to protect yourself: never let anyone get close enough to hurt you. And really, wasn’t that what he was doing living alone in the wilderness—maintaining a safe distance from whatever had hurt him? She bet it was, whether he admitted it or not. Perhaps she’d follow his lead. Not here—but somewhere else. If she could figure out a way to conquer her fear, once and for all, that is.
Chapter 9
It had been two days since Gray showed up unannounced at Sockeye cabin and two days where, yet again, the only thing Mia could write in her journal was “Stayed in.” To be fair, she could’ve also mentioned that she’d talked to her mom and sister, but though chatting with them was a pleasure as always, it felt like one more small defeat: she, as usual, sticking to her safety zone.
It wasn’t all wasted time, however. She had experienced a small epiphany—an “aha moment” as her mom would call it. It was not enough for her to dwell alone in the safety of a cozy B & B cabin, only talking to her mom and sister. Yes, River’s Sigh was foreign to her, but other than that, her current day-to-day was hardly any different than when she was ensconced in her townhouse, only inviting her mom, sister, and niece and nephew over as company and having anything she needed delivered.
No, if she was ever going to be able to live fully independently again, regardless of where that was, she needed to dramatically extend the boundaries of her comfort zone. She had to practice running into people where she didn’t expect them. She had to redevelop the ability to cope in situations where she hadn’t arranged and organized every detail. She had to learn how to be comfortable with men again. And she had an idea how—the aha! If Gray could show up unannounced at her cabin door, she could bloody well return the favor.