Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

“How’d you sleep?”

Emma watched her father’s hopeful smile wilt under a well-aimed glare. Clearing his throat, he turned his attention back to the eggs cooking on the stove.

Emma took a sip from the cup of coffee waiting for her on the table. Her mouth puckered at the drink’s bitterness, but she ignored the sugar and creamer at her elbow.

“That stupid wind kept me up all night.”

Her father reached for the bag of bread on the counter and pushed two slices into the toaster. “Winters around here are usually pretty harsh. It should start calming down in a couple months, though.”

Emma rubbed her eyes and took a long draught of her coffee.

Great.

The eggs sizzled while she again took stock of the kitchen. While it had fewer rooms, each part of the cabin appeared larger than its counterpart back home, making her feel even shorter than usual. Every cabinet seemed out of reach.

“Where did you find this place, anyway?”

Her father scraped the eggs off the skillet with a spatula before depositing them on a plate.

“It belonged to a friend of mine. Or his son, actually. He was a big outdoorsman. Practically lived out here himself. Poor kid was only about thirty when he had an accident. His dad just wanted to get rid of the thing when it passed to him. Too many memories, I guess. He was selling it for a song, so I snapped it up.” He carried the plate of scrambled eggs over and set it on the table. “You want ketchup?”

Emma took another sip of her coffee before shaking her head. She stabbed a forkful, debating whether the eggs would play nice with the dirt aftertaste stuck to her palate.

“So, what kind of accident was it?”

Her father shrugged before going to collect the toast. “Disappeared with a friend of his out here about the same time a blizzard rolled through. The storm must’ve caught them out hunting. They never found any bodies—just the truck. The kid’s dad was still pretty broken up about it. I can’t say I blame him.” His fingers hovered over the toast before pulling it out. “Losing someone . . . like that. I can’t even imagine. I really can’t.”

The flash of sadness Emma saw in her father’s eyes stung. It wasn’t hard for her to remember when she saw it all the time. Both on his face and in the mirror.

You know you can. But who would want to?

Emma took a bite of the eggs. Tabasco sauce and cheddar cheese played on her tongue along with the salt and pepper.

Just the way I like it.

A tiny shred of guilt picked at her.

Damn it, Dad. Of all the weird hobbies, why did you have to buy into one that made you act so . . . so nuts?

She chewed another mouthful, already knowing the answer as she watched her father flit back and forth in front of the stove.

It’s always been about fear, hasn’t it? I’m really the last thing left you give a damn about, aren’t I? The last part of Mom you can protect. The last part of her that someone can take away.

Emma barely got the eggs down. She wanted to hug her father and scream at him at the same time. To make him understand what he refused to see. But as always, she couldn’t find the words.

Her father returned to the table, the butter knife in his hand smearing strawberry jam across the toast. His first piece disappeared in three large bites. He nodded toward the kitchen window.

“I’ll show you around after breakfast. It’s beautiful out here. No pollution, no noise, no traffic . . . ”

Emma downed the rest of her coffee.

No people, either. I guess bears are more trustworthy.

She speared another piece of egg, muttering.

“Hibernation would be great about now.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Emma said, lifting her fork to her mouth. “Just talking to myself.”

Her father’s eyebrow raised while she chewed, staying up until he shrugged and bit into the other piece of toast on his plate. The rest of the meal passed in silence. When it was over, he took the dirty dishes and deposited them in the sink before walking to the closet. He came back with a green parka in one hand and a hat and gloves in the other. A pair of long johns was draped over his shoulder.

Emma stared at the ugly things until her father chuckled.

“I know they’re not much for looks, but they’ll keep your legs warm. Now, go get changed. We’ve got work to do.”

***

Emma followed her father through the snow, the barrel of the rifle slung over his shoulder glaring light into her eyes. She winced and fought the urge to scratch at the itch prickling her thighs. The parka was so thick, she doubted she’d even be able to reach.

Cripes, I feel like that little kid in A Christmas Story.

She caught up to her father as he stopped at the tree line, examining the lower branches.

“What do you see, Em?”

She glanced at the snapped ends of the twigs near her father’s pointing finger. “From the height, it looks like a coyote or fox went through. Maybe a bobcat. Tough to tell for sure with no hairs and the prints filled in.”

“Good girl.”

“Kind of hard to forget when you made me read that book on tracking three times over.” She rolled her eyes. “And tested me on it.”

He laughed.

“Well, it stuck, didn’t it?”

Emma yawned and looked out at the expanse of wilderness before them. Beyond the clearing where the cabin stood, the forest seemed to stretch on forever. The swaying of the tree limbs gave her uncomfortable flashbacks of her dream.

“Just how much of this are we going to check, anyway? Our nearest neighbors are probably in the next state.”

Her father readjusted the rifle’s strap.

“I doubt we’ll have any trouble for a while yet out here, if at all, but that’s no excuse to be lazy. Securing the perimeter is important, and it’s a job I want you to take seriously.”

Emma grumbled and followed him past a half-mile tangle of trees before they hit a rise and turned, slowly carving a large square around the cabin as they went. There was nothing to find but white and the skeletons of the trees. She was huffing by the time they made it back to the front door, her nose threatening to spill snot that would only freeze to her lip. She glanced at the car, its gleaming red metal largely clear of the snow covering everything else.

He must’ve cleaned it off this morning.

She bit her lip, eyeing the steering wheel while her father dusted the flakes from his hat. A puff of crystallized air escaped her mouth.

I don’t even know where he keeps the keys. She looked at the growing layer of white surrounding it in disgust. Not that I’d be able to get any traction in this mess. Unless I get lucky . . .

She looked up when the front door creaked open to find her father at the threshold, holding the door open for her.

“Coming, coming,” she muttered, jogging for the steps. Her father caught her by the arm before she could make it past him. He wore the same expression as the night he’d caught her sneaking back in.

Shit.

Emma put on her best innocent-little-girl face—the one that reduced most of her groundings to slaps on the wrist.

“Daddy?”

She watched his face twitch in the direction of the car for just a moment before he released her. He sighed.

“Nothing,” he said. A smile flitted across his lips. “It’s nothing. Get inside. I’ll make us some hot chocolate.”

Emma wiped the flecks of ice from her cheek only for the wind to blast her back with a fresh torrent of powder. She tried to sputter a curse around the strands of hair that had blown into her mouth and failed. Slamming the door, she pulled off her parka and stomped through the specks of white littering the floor. Her father called to her as he placed a kettle under the head of the faucet.

“Don’t get too comfortable. There’s still lots to do today.”

With my luck, it’s probably latrine duty.

A hiss escaped the faucet when her father turned the handle, but no water came out. He placed the kettle in the sink and turned the handle as far as it would go. Then the other. The effort didn’t earn a drop. Emma stopped en route to the table when the faucet’s protests finally died with a gurgle.

“I’m guessing that’s a rain check on the hot chocolate?”

Her father stooped slightly before readjusting the handles.

“The pipes just froze, that’s all. It’s nothing serious, but we do need to take care of it before it gets any worse. Come on.”

Emma followed him to the living room. Moving the coffee table aside and lifting the rug, her father pulled a key from his pants pocket. A click came when it fitted into a crack in the floor. He gave a hard yank, lifting a square section free of the boards, several inches of steel gleaming under the wood. A light flickered to life in the darkness below.

Emma looked from her father to the pit and back again. She was still processing the trapdoor when her father’s foot reached the halfway point down the stairs. He glanced back at her.

“Em? Are you coming?”

She squinted at the dimly lit space below. Everything under her looked like it was carved out of concrete, and a faint, moldy smell drifted to her nose that made her think of open graves. She grimaced and placed her foot on the first step.

I sure wish I didn’t have to.

Reaching the bottom, an overflow from the kitchen waited for her. Half the area was crammed from floor to ceiling with enough preserved goods to fill a corner store. The other side held an assortment of tools. Crisscrossed between the two, a network of pipes loomed in the air, the metal obscured under thick layers of insulation. Emma balked at the reality of what she was seeing.

This isn’t just a basement. It’s a safe room. Hell, a bomb shelter!

Her father pulled a stepladder from the corner and set to prying at the nearest piece of the stuff. It crunched in his hands, barely able to peel away even when the veins in his forehead stood out. Several quick bursts of crystallized air escaped his mouth before he threw the insulation to the ground. He pointed at the same corner he’d gone to for the ladder.

“Em, get that torch down there, would you? And those gloves and goggles, too.”

Torch?

Searching, she found a tool with a small gas canister attached. Two heavy gloves were wrapped around it, held in place by the goggles’ strap. Carrying the lot to her father, he plucked them from her fingers and set the goggles over his glasses. He tucked the torch under his arm while he slipped on the gloves.

“Thanks, honey. Now, stand clear.”

Stepping back, Emma heard several clicks while she watched him toy with the torch. Then, a blue flame burst to life at the end of the nozzle. Her father lifted it near the pipe, keeping it just out of reach of the metal.

“It really wasn’t supposed to be this cold yet. It doesn’t take too long for pipes to start freezing over in these conditions. A few more hours like this and one of the things might have burst. We’ll have to crank the heat up for a while and leave the faucet dripping.”

Emma watched the flame go out while her father descended and moved the stepladder to the next length of pipe.

“Wouldn’t that mean we’d have no water?”

“No running water,” he said, climbing up. “We’d still have plenty in bottles.”

Oh, so just no showers or working toilets. That’s just fine, then. Awesome.

Her father grunted as he tore the next layer of insulation free. Emma shielded her eyes when the torch’s flame burst to life again. The process continued in the same way until they reached the last section. This time, her father descended and stood atop the insulation, pulling the gloves and goggles off. He handed them to Emma

“This one’s yours. You saw how I turned the torch on, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Just be careful.”

Emma put on the safety equipment and climbed, taking the torch from her father before starting it up. She kept the flame just shy of the metal, just as he had shown her. Being above him, working, unsettled her.

It’s not like you to trust me with something like this without any practice. Are you trying to bond with me? Or just trying to distract me from the shitty situation you put us in?

She narrowed her eyes against the glare.

And who really designed this part of the cabin? That trapdoor? Her teeth clenched until her jaw ached. Hell, does that “friend” you mentioned and his kid even exist at all? Or did you have this place made all on your own even when that pile of bills kept growing on your desk back home? When you only went in to see patients two or three times a month?

The questions echoed even after she finished and all the fresh insulation was wrapped around the pipes, the old stuff hung to dry out in front of the fireplace upstairs. Emma listened to drops of water strike the row of buckets below the stuff, the noise making her long for a light summer rain instead of the endless snow.

“You okay, kiddo?”

Emma turned and looked into her father’s face. The harder she looked, the easier it was to see the mask he was wearing. Hiding behind.

Or is that his real face now?

“My stomach hurts. Can I go lie down for a while?”

The flicker of concern—real concern—that flashed through his eyes almost made her feel better.

“Sure. Just let me know if you need anything. I’ll leave your dinner in the fridge, okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Emma stalked to her room, a very real pain in her gut. She kept listening, hoping, but the wind still howled past the window, skimming the drifts. And no matter how hard Emma tried, every storm she imagined flooded her mind with white.