Three brief scenes- Three different moods
He was late. She sat at the table made of two by fours, drinking her peppermint tea and trying to read Rebecca, a novel her sister gave her about a place called Manderley. Marta stretched her aching feet towards the little pot belly stove. The heat traveled up her legs and settled in her belly. A gust of wind whipped the tall evergreens and they slapped the cabin walls like the back hand of an angry mother. He didn’t call it a cabin, he called it a hut because in the winter, huts like this one became a temporary shelter for skiers coming down the big mountain. Except, this one was not temporary. This one was their home until he could earn enough money to move them into town and she liked calling it a cabin. A pattering began up on the tin roof. The weather was going to make it difficult for Kurt to pedal his bicycle. He rode down the mountain every morning before dawn and came home just before dusk. She felt the doorknob rattle before she actully heard it and then he came through the door. Her heart melted as she saw his wet face. He was home!
The cabin stood bathed in midnight moonlight. She stopped on the trail and took in the unexpected beauty of the dark evergreens bending in the breeze, the lapping of ominous waves on the beach, and the drip of recent rain from the branches above. The door should be locked but when Stevie tried the knob it moved easily. She slipped her gun out of the holster. The door creaked as she cracked it open and light flickered across the wall. She stopped, listening. The pounding of her heart missed a beat. Using the door as a shield she moved into the room further, scanning the perimeter. It looked empty but not deserted. The light came from a candle on the table; alongside ribbons of steam undulated from a mug of tea, and open next to the hot mug, a book. On the dog-eared page a sentence was circled in red. Stevie slipped the small flashlight out of her pocket and read the words. “Very few of us are what we seem.”
Who’s idea was this again? Two buckets were almost overflowing with the steady plunk from above. A piece of crusty linoleum curled up to snag her feet. Mouse droppings in every corner kept her scanning the cupboards. This cheery weekend at the cabin was turning sour. It would take more than a couple of hundred dollars to make repairs. Every family needed a vacation get away, right? Dan’s words sounded ridiculous in this setting. And then he couldn’t come with them because the boss needed him to sort out the taxes. Dorrie and David were rolled up like burritos and refused to get out of their sleeping bags. She stepped over them trying to get to the sputtering fire in the stove. She should go outside and check on Davis who decided to brave the rain and go to the beach just one hundred feet from the front door, but the fire needed stoking and she just couldn’t let it die. All she truly wanted was to sit by the fire and read a good book, with a cup of tea.
****************************************************
My novel Rubato
A riveting murder mystery about a morally compromised woman’s resolve to protect her musical discovery.
No comments:
Post a Comment
What do you think?