The police, as it turned out, were all too relieved to hear he had a ride coming and that they wouldn’t have to go searching for him. Eli didn’t find this to be a promising sign for his car’s recovery. He waited for her on the steps out front, his phone turned off to preserve the last 6% of the battery. The wind brushed past a thousand green leaves in an invisible ebb and flow that must have marked this place for longer than he cared to fathom. A peaceful place? Not exactly. There was a stagnation underneath the sound. Or so he imagined. A kind of rot without a smell. The moving air only accentuated it. The trees writhed in it. The cabin was all but submerged in it. 

His imagination, he decided ruefully, was becoming untethered. Margret would have asked him, if she were here, what floating island he was visiting. After almost two years of living with her, that’s all he was left with: what she would have said, and the reality of her not saying it. She might also have said something about how he’d spent last night. Watching videos. Not writing. That’s part of why he’d chosen to get away. More than anything, desperately, he needed to stop doubting himself. Stop getting distracted. Besides, she'd wanted different things, normal things— to go out, to drink, to socialize, to buy a house. Right now, she was stepping out of the shower, her hair arranged in a pile high atop her head, even as he sat staring at weeds (he was sure of it), stepping out and wrapping herself with a towel, walking to the closet of a new apartment, all the drops of water still clinging to every part her.

He couldn’t have said how many minutes passed by, how many thoughts blew through, leaving the same stillness. Nothing here seemed to matter as much. Even the absence of his car was unreal, somehow. It didn’t quite belong here anyway, any more than he did. But then, WRONGNESS, all at once.

What other word could describe the creeping sensation that was stealing over him? WRONG. He found himself scanning the tree line. Or was it only paranoia? Or, suddenly, he jerked his head around, twisting his body to look. It was only the door there, still closed. He’d closed it earlier. No sound, the window shut, yet certainty lingered behind him, like smoke hanging in the air. As if somebody had just been there, not a moment ago. But it just wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible that a cold fingertip had just gently, deliberately, caressed the back of his neck. It hadn’t. Or had it?

The sudden trundling crackle of tires on the path sent another jolt through him. A red Nissan Ultima. It rolled to a stop. The interior was hidden by reflections. He stood up to get a look as Nadine exited. She was young, definitely in her twenties, and shorter, carrying her curves well, in a pleasant, unselfconscious way. Her black hair extended past her shoulders, her bangs framing a pretty, roundish face; she looked harried as she shut the door and immediately opened it again. Judging from her clothes (blue jeans and a half-tucked white blouse), she’d dressed in a hurry. She leaned across the driver’s seat to get to the passenger side, one foot lifting off the ground with the effort. He walked toward her cautiously, glancing back at the cabin and rubbing his neck where he’d imagined the contact. The certainty was gone, leaving only the pang of a panic attack. He felt equal parts foolish and disturbed.

She pulled out a large, brown paper bag from McDonald’s.

“I’m sorry. It’s probably cold by now. There’s not much between here and Manistique by way of fast food. Or restaurants. Got apple pies, breakfast sandwiches, pancakes, whatever you’d like. Pretty much ordered the menu.”   

“Thank you.”

“How about we eat it here? I’m starving.”

She stood there a moment, unsure, her keys in one hand, the bag held up in the other.

“Alright.” He said it reluctantly. That didn’t happen.

She nodded. “Sure, hold this.” She retrieved a trey of beverages from the backseat and he led her up the steps. He opened the door for her but she spun on her heel and used the higher vantage of the decking to survey the area. She explained after a pause.

“I visited this place once, a long time ago. When I was younger. That’s what my dad told me, at least. He came out here to hunt, I guess. I don’t remember it.”

“Huh.”

She seemed to be contemplating something. He had the distinct impression that her reminiscence was highly personal and his presence for it incidental. Waiting on her rekindled his earlier frustrations. He cleared his throat. When she turned, she met his annoyed expression sheepishly, holding the drinks up on her way by as though shielding herself with an olive branch. He let the door hang open.

“Is it just how you remember it in here, too?” he asked her.

She stopped in the middle of the room, taking it in, her attitude more business-like. But her hazel-green eyes were surprisingly bright when she turned back to face him again, and convincingly penitent.

“Look, I can’t apologize to you enough. Seriously. My brother, he was in charge of renting this place out. He was supposed to clean it up, take pictures, post it. I told him I’d take care of everything after that. He skipped some steps, apparently.”

He found his burning hostility toward her diminish considerably, flickering uselessly for a long moment. She didn’t seem particularly lazy, or anything like a villain or a scam artist. He immediately began to regret his harsh conversation with her over the phone.

“Your brother?”

“Yeah. Since our father passed away, Syd hasn’t dealt with things very well. Don’t get me wrong, he struggled a lot before that.” 

She cast about for somewhere set the drinks down, pausing to have another look at the curiously listing chair, before setting the drink tray down on the oddly made table behind it. Two rattling ice waters, an orange juice, and a lukewarm coffee. 

“Let’s eat, shall we?” she suggested. She looked around. “Where would you like to sit?” She clamped a hand over her mouth as the surprising sound of her own snort of laughter erupted. She weathered several more cascading quakes, unable to control it. Her face was flushed red by the time she finally got in a deep, steadying breath. She knuckled moisture away from the corners of her eyes, looking embarrassed.

“Are you doing alright?” he asked her. He had to fight off his own automatic grin. 

“I swear, I’m not laughing at you, I’m really not. I know it’s all a big inconvenience, Eli. Do you mind if I call you Eli? It’s hard to explain. It’s been a really, really terrible month. And like I said, Syd isn’t going to deal with any of this, so it all falls on my shoulders. None of this is supposed to be your problem, obviously, but here we are.” She lowered herself down onto the bed. He sat on the other end and set the bag of food between them.

“Your father, he died recently?” he hazarded.

“A few weeks ago.”

He dug into the bag and grabbed out the first item his fingers could locate. An egg and cheese bagel. He offered it to her. She took it without comment, resting it unopened on her thigh. Her eyes wandered to the bottles on the floor.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Was he sick or something? Your dad?”

“He seemed physically healthy before the end, as far as we knew.”

When she offered nothing else, he stood up.

“Orange juice?”

“What?”

He walked to the table on the other side of her, prying a drink loose from the tray.

“Would you like the orange juice, or can I?”

“You have it. So, your car, it’s missing, huh. You didn’t hear anything last night, did you? Any strange noises?”

“No. I wonder. Could it just have been towed? Would someone do that?” He resumed his seat, peering down into the paper bag to locate a straw.

“In the middle of the night? I highly doubt it. As far as I know, no one around here would be bothered with it. The guy who lives closest, or he used to, at least, lives there all by himself. Sullivan. Even if he did somehow notice it, he wouldn’t just steal a car.”

“You know him?”

“My dad knew him. By his account, Sullivan is a bit of a religious nut, but harmless. Retired Navy. They used to hunt together sometimes. Dad liked drinking more than most, but it seems they got along alright with each other. We can go check with him if you’d like.” She unwrapped her bagel as Eli pulled out a sausage and egg biscuit for himself.

“Ok, maybe we should.” Remembering his conversation with the police, he added, “The thing is, I don’t think my insurance is going to cover theft.”

“Who knows, maybe he saw something, or did something. But I think he’s harmless.”

“Anyone else out here? In the immediate area, I mean.” He had in mind the awful certainty that had crept up behind him just before she’d arrived. But he could no more have described it to her than a vestige of a half-forgotten nightmare.

“I don’t know this area very well. I grew in the lower peninsula. Dad moved up here when I was very young. He drove us up in the summers usually, but pretty much always just to his house in Manistique.”

They started eating quietly. Eli contemplated the ramifications of losing his car. If this Sullivan she’d mentioned didn’t know anything, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. Rent a car? Drive south again? As if guessing his thoughts, she spoke up.

“I’ll give you a refund. If you don’t want to stay. If you do decide to, I can have someone take a look at the generator, make sure it’s working. Also, I can bring you some furniture if you’d like. There’s plenty at my dad’s house.”

“I don’t think I can afford to stay without my own car. Puts a pretty big wrench in my plans.”

She swallowed down the last of her sandwich.

“What were you planning to do up here, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I’m a writer.”

“Oh? What have you written?” 

“Ok, I’m trying to be a writer.

“So, is it a novel or what?”

“Yes.”

“What’s it about? 

“It’s about a man who’s the sole survivor of an airliner crashing. He uncovers this big conspiracy.”

“Sounds interesting.”

He mustered a smile in appreciation for her comment, but half-heartedly. He had a few thousand words written. The vague concept playing out in his head was of a dystopian corporate cover up, but the idea was held together by a fragile thread at the moment.

“I’m sure it’ll be very thrilling,” she pursued, sounding a lot like Margret used to in the beginning. Apart from a modest but spartan gym regimen, most his evenings for the past six months had been spent browsing social media, watching unrelated videos, and, on occasion, adding a few sentences or adjusting a paragraph here and there. The disconnect between his expectation and reality weighed on him periodically. For the most part, though, he’d managed to fool himself into believing he was on the verge of breaking through. He was in no mood now to revisit the underlying sense of failure, or the breakup that had punctuated it. They finished as much of the food as they could, saying little else to each other.  

“Let’s check in on that neighbor,” he finally suggested. “Maybe I’ll get lucky.”