Still Waters (7 page)

Hannah shot him a quick glance. His face was getting that drawn look again and there were lines around his mouth. He did look tired, and pale. “Okay,” she said quickly. This wasn’t going at all as planned. She stared at the hand-drawn map again. Maybe those two intersecting lines in the middle were the crossroads they were at now. If that was the case, they were almost there. “Left,” she said, taking a chance.

Colin swung the car left. Here, a rough rock wall bordered the road for several miles, enclosing overgrown farm fields. Broken, rusty machinery was scattered across the landscape like mastodon skeletons. In the distance, Hannah could see a gaunt white farmhouse. But they were too far away to tell if anyone lived there or not. She shivered. Everything about this trip since they got off the highway was wrong. First Colin’s bad mood, then the weird gas station, and now the desolate landscape. Into the back of her mind wiggled the faint worm of worry that this might have all been a mistake. But Hannah shoved that thought away firmly.

The rock wall ended and the car bumped onto dirt. Colin and Hannah looked at each other. “Guess this is where the paved road ends,” Hannah said. She tried a tentative smile. Her heart lifted when Colin smiled back.

“Good thing I just got new shocks put on.”

Heavy pinewoods lined either side of the road, making a tunnel of arcing boughs. This had to be it. There were all those woods around the house in the photo. “Colin, I think we’re getting close.” Her spirits rose a little. They’d get to the house and then everything would be fine. The ride was just stressing Colin out—that was all. They’d get to the house and unpack and take showers and a nap on some comfy old bed, all twined up in each other. Hannah hung on to this vision. She ran her finger along the triangles indicating woods on the old map. There were several more turns. She examined the county map again. None of these roads were on there. She flung the map in the backseat.

They turned down another dirt road and then a third. Hannah hoped they were going in the right direction—they hadn’t seen a road sign since they left the crossroads. Not another car either. Colin drove steadily, silently. Gray shadows had appeared under his eyes.

Just tired,
Hannah reassured herself, leaning forward in her seat. She could see an opening in the dense woods. “I think this is the turnoff here,” she said.

Colin turned the car down the tiny dirt road. It was barely big enough to get the truck through. The pine boughs scraped the truck on either side, like reaching fingers. The road could barely be called a road—it was a rutted path. Weeds grew knee-high up the middle. Hannah clutched the door handle as Colin hung onto the steering wheel to keep it from flying out from his grasp.

Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips. Any minute she’d get her first glimpse of Pine House. Hannah kept her eyes fixed on the path, waiting to glimpse some kind of opening at the end. She glanced at Colin’s face but his expression was unreadable.

Suddenly the woods opened up, pulling back on either side. “That’s it!” Hannah couldn’t keep the excitement from her voice. She grasped his sleeve as he stopped the car and turned off the ignition. They both stared through the windshield.

The house sprawled at the very edge of the lake—its clapboards gray like the sky. Bay windows jutted from the front, and elaborate scrolling dripped from every eave. In front of it spread what Hannah thought must have at one point been a lawn. Now
the grass lay in luxuriant green swathes, crowding the foundation. Ivy wound its way up the rain gutters. Paint hung in shreds from the clapboards, and from where she sat Hannah could see dead leaves and twigs strewn across the porch. Her eyes followed the big wraparound porch over to the right corner. There was the broken railing, just like in the photo.

The worm of unease hatched earlier now uncoiled in her belly.
Not exactly a vacation paradise
. And it was so far off the road too. Hannah glanced over at Colin, but his face was blank as he sat behind the wheel. For a moment, she thought of telling him to just drive away, that this was obviously a mistake. They’d go back to the highway, find a motel for a couple days.

But then she looked back at the house. It was sitting patiently, waiting for her, as it already knew her decision.
Come here,
she could almost hear it whispering. She got out of the truck and slammed the door. The sound echoed in the silence. “Come on,” she said to Colin. “Let’s go in.”

Colin paused, just for an instant, and then followed Hannah up the path toward the house. Their feet crunched on the gravelly soil as the long grass caught at their ankles. Halfway up, Hannah stopped and inhaled. The air was heavy with the rich, rotting odor of lake mud, overlaid with the astringent scent of the pine needles that lay everywhere. A whip-poor-will called once from a nearby tree and then fell silent, as if thinking better of it.

Hannah looked up at Colin. “Do you remember it now?” she asked eagerly.

He shook his head. “No. It’s like I’m here for the first time.” He paused. “The smell, though. I do remember the smell. Like dead fish.” His voice was flat.

Hannah squeezed his arm. “It’s not so bad. The lake is gorgeous, don’t you think?” She cast an arm toward the water and as if commanded, the sun broke through the clouds—lighting a million sparkles on the lake.

Colin looked around at the wild landscape. For the first time since their fight in the car, his face relaxed. “Yeah, it’s not too bad.”

She took Colin’s hand and swung it a little as they walked together. Almost like they were married, Hannah thought, and they were about to go into their home together for the very first time.

She mounted the porch steps, her eyes already fixed on the front door, when suddenly she felt the top step give way under her foot and her hand slide out from Colin’s. She gasped and arms flailing, managed to grasp the rickety banister.

“Careful!” Colin grabbed her around the waist. She clung to his shoulders as she pulled her foot out of the middle of the step, trying not to snag her jeans on the jagged edge.

“Nice welcome,” she said. Colin and she stared down at the dark hole. The point of a rusty nail stuck out two inches from the rotted boards.

“Okay?” Colin asked. She nodded and he released her.

She laughed shakily. “I guess a lot of things are probably falling apart in this house.”

“I guess so,” Colin replied, a little grimly. He examined the front door, a huge carved wooden affair. The brass doorknob was rusty and crusted with age. He paused, then twisted and pushed.

Hannah’s breath caught when the door swung open as if it had been oiled. “It’s not locked.”

Colin shrugged. They were standing on the threshold of a large, airy room. It was sparsely furnished with an old-fashioned
wood-frame sofa and a few scattered armchairs, the high-backed kind with wings for your head. Weak sunlight filtered through a picture window on the opposite wall. A footlocker trunk sat underneath.

Hesitantly, Hannah stepped over the threshold. “I didn’t know it was still all set up like this,” she murmured to Colin. Her eyes darted around the room, trying to take in everything at once.

“Me neither,” he said. His voice sounded abnormally loud. Hannah felt an irrational urge to shush him, as if they were disturbing someone.

The air was close and stuffy. Hannah walked over to the sofa. A book lay splayed open, facedown on the side table. It was
Middlemarch
, opened at page 210. Beside it was a coffee cup with a brown crust in the bottom. Hannah looked more closely. A lip mark still stained the rim. The sofa cushions were mashed in one corner, as if the reader had just gotten up for a second to answer the phone. Hannah backed away, bumping into one of the chairs. She jumped at the touch on her back and whirled around.
Jesus, this place was creepy.

Hannah looked around the room again, her mouth cottony. A jigsaw puzzle sat on a card table in the corner, partially finished. On a tall oak coatrack behind the door hung a brown jacket and a yellow slicker. She looked down at the floor. Next to the door, a pair of galoshes sat, one toppled over the other. Dried mud clung to the heels. Hannah inhaled sharply and her palms grew clammy.

As if propelled against her will, she crossed the living room to an open doorway leading to the kitchen. She peered in. A cup and saucer sat on the table next to an empty plate. The chair was pushed back, with a flowered napkin draped over the seat. Dried mouse droppings were scattered on the table and floor. The white, metal-rimmed counters were lined with canisters labeled
FLOUR, SUGAR, COFFEE, TEA
. A teakettle stood on a front burner of the stove.

Hannah turned away from the scene. “Colin,” she whispered. He didn’t answer. He was standing at the picture window, one hand on the heavy orange and yellow drapes, staring outside. “Colin?” Her voice rose with a touch of hysteria.

“What?” He swung around, his face blurry, as if he’d been woken from a heavy sleep.

“Christ, Colin,” she half whispered. “All of this stuff is here. Like your family just got up and walked away. I’ve never seen anything like this before.” She pressed her hands to her mouth. She darted glances all around. Three closed doors led off a hallway at the other end of the room. She stared, waiting for one of them to open.

Colin shook his head. “I don’t know why it’s like this.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t stay.” Hannah’s voice sounded high and nervous, even to her own ears.

“Why not?” Colin’s forehead creased. “We trekked all the way out here—we might as well stay.”

“I don’t know.” She looked at the coffee cup by the couch. “It’s just creepy to walk in and see everything laid out like this.
I thought things would be covered up and put away—stuff like that.”

Colin shrugged. “What difference does it make?” He folded her into his arms. “It’s my family’s place. Of course we can stay. We’ll just clean it up a little.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Look, I know I was a little upset about coming up, but we’re here now. Let’s just relax, okay?”

His chest was comfortable and familiar, like her pillow at home. She wrapped her arms around his waist. The tension flowed out of her limbs. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Good.” He kissed her.

Hannah kissed him back and then disentangled herself from his arms. “I’m going to go freshen up.”

“Okay,” Colin replied, turning back to the window.

In the little dark hallway, Hannah cracked open the first door to find a white tiled bathroom. With relief, she darted inside. A mildewed shower curtain hung inside a claw-foot tub streaked with mineral stains. The toilet bowl was full of rusty water, but it looked usable. She didn’t have a lot of choice anyway, she thought.

The sink—one of those old-fashioned ones with the separate hot and cold faucets—spurted warm, orange water at first, but then it changed to clear. Hannah splashed a handful on her face and looked around for a towel. A threadbare blue one hung on a hook near the sink. She pulled it off and wrinkled her nose at the musty smell. She dried her face on the hem of her shirt.

The medicine cabinet over the sink was a big metal box with a single small mirror set into the front. On impulse, Hannah
swung it open and gazed at the bottle of generic aspirin and the packet of straight razors that sat alone on the metal shelves.

She came out of the bathroom and glanced toward the living room. Colin was no longer visible at the window. Quietly, Hannah opened the door next to the bathroom. She looked in on a simple bedroom, a large wooden bedstead neatly made up with a plain white spread. A pair of reading glasses perched on a nightstand, where more books were piled. The one tiny window above the bed showed the tops of pine trees clustered closely to the house.

Hannah swung the door closed and opened the one across the hall. It was a child’s room—twin beds stood against each wall and a battered rug on the floor patterned with airplanes lay askew. In the corner by a window was a desk cluttered with pinecones, stones, and glass jars of twigs and dead grass.

Hannah turned away. She felt vaguely dirty. Resisting the impulse to glance over her shoulder, she hurried back down the hallway and through to the living room. The flood of light from the big window seemed very friendly and welcome all of a sudden.

She looked around. Colin was gone. “Colin?” she called. Her voice sounded oddly muffled and flat, bouncing off the walls of the room. Then she saw that a screen door on the other side of the room was open, flapping loose in the wind.

She went over to a short flight of spindly wooden stairs that led down to the little rocky beach. Hannah could see Colin standing off to the side, staring at something obscured by a big tangle of bushes.

She clopped down the stairs, which were sprinkled with sand. The lake spread out in front of her. Mist hung a few feet above the dark, glassy water, shrouding it heavily so that she could not see the opposite shore. The little beach was a jumble of sand and gray rocks. The water filtered through reeds poking up from the bottom before it lapped at the shore.

Hannah picked her way through the rocks, trying not to turn her ankle. She could see Colin’s head and shoulders above the bushes. Panting a little, Hannah reached his side. “Hey,” she said. She followed his eyes.

A moldy rowboat was pulled up on the shore. Hannah remembered seeing it in the photo. It looked as old as the house—the paint had long worn away from the soft-looking boards. A couple of planks laid across the middle served as seats, and a pair of oars were slung on the bottom.

Colin was holding his camera. As Hannah watched, he raised the camera to his face and pressed the shutter several times. He moved around to the other side and took a few shots there too. “Great shape,” he said.

She squinted at the boat. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

He leaned over the edge and snapped a shot of the oars. Hannah put a hand on his back and he straightened up. “Let’s go inside,” he said, draping an arm around her shoulders. They headed back toward the house. “I’m starving.”

Hannah looked back at the boat as they climbed the stairs to the house. A single piece of ragged rope trailed from the bow, the hemp prickly and dark with age. She shivered without knowing why.