Flutter (7 page)

“What? What did you say?”

“Roy at the diner.”

“No, the cabin … What kind of cabin?”

“Dala Cabin. It’s a little place out by the lake, lonely.… Nearest neighbor is the lighthouse.”

I felt goose bumps break out all over my arms now. This was weird. Beyond weird. “Dala? Like the little Dala horses?”

“Yes.” Jeannette nodded.

Of course. The boy had showed me. “I want to stay there,” I said.

Jeannette looked a little confused. “Well, I—”

“Will this Roy be able to rent that to me or—”

“I’m not sure, but—”

“I have to stay there,” I said, feeling a rush of excitement, a thrill that, yes, these loops were real. Confirmation. I was right about all this, my loops, about coming to Esperanza, about being needed by this boy.

Jeannette gave me a quizzical look. “Well, sweetheart, sure. I’m sure Roy’d be glad to help you out if he can.”

I realized I probably sounded a little crazy. But I smiled, and Jeannette smiled back at me.

I felt my heart beating a bit faster. Now I just needed to find the nine … the nine what? I was getting closer. The cabin was the first step.

I found the cabin easily, although Roy’s map turned out to be quite useless. I felt all Nancy Drew, paying Roy in cash and giving him a false name. In the end, all I could think of was Emery Smith instead of Emery Land. I nearly laughed out loud as it came out of my mouth. I was sure Gia would’ve come up with something much more romantic—Emery St. Claire, Emery Monalisa.

I ended up asking for directions at the post office, and I got a quizzical stare from the gray-haired guy manning the counter. He had an underbite and the bushiest eyebrows I’d ever seen. I tried not to stare as he offered me a few simple directions to “catch” a footpath that would cut right out toward the lake. I just had to find Red Rock Creek, behind Winging Stables.

“Welcome to these parts, miss,” he said. “Although I just don’t know why a young girl wants to stay all alone out at Dala Cabin, eh?”

“Right by the lighthouse,” I said, ignoring his question.

The man nodded and offered to give me a ride. I declined.

“We got a bowling alley here in town,” he told me with a very serious expression.

“Okay,” I said, unsure of the appropriate response.

“A nice one with electronic scoring.”

I still didn’t know what to say. “Okay …” We just stared at each other. “Thanks,” I told him quickly, turning for the door, happy to be on my way.

The short trek through the woods was beautiful. Thick pines lined the footpath, a light dusting of snow beginning to fall as I walked. The moment I stepped into the forest, onto the path, a hush seemed to come over the place. The noise from the town square, the stables—traffic and voices—seemed to dissipate more quickly than it should have, and there I was under this canopy of pine and falling snow.

I heard the lake first, before I saw it. As I followed the path’s easy-to-miss curve toward the east, I saw the lake and the lighthouse, just like I had expected, just like I had imagined it. It was gorgeous. I would have to paint it.

And there was the cabin. It was nothing special, a gray clapboard square with flaking white-painted shutters. But the location, the circumstance of this little cabin, it was extraordinary in that it was even here still, built too close to the bare, rocky shore, the Michigan winters having beaten the paint off three-quarters of the place with winds and water and life. If it stood here too much longer, I would be surprised.

Its little window looked at me, peered right back at me, as if it was waiting for me. It instantly welcomed me. I dropped my duffel and backpack in the clearing and ran up to the cabin, smiling.
DALA CABIN
, the sign said in blue letters, with little red and yellow flowers on either side of it. I traced the letters with my finger. I took a big breath of the brisk air and enjoyed how it burned in my throat. It was all mine.

I pulled my long scarf, hand-knit by Gia, up over my
ears and walked around the perimeter of Dala Cabin. I saw that there was a huge pile of firewood chopped and neatly stacked near the west wall, and I began to feel a bit nervous that possibly Roy had been wrong about the cabin, that someone else was already here. I could see footprints in the snow too, around the cabin, the woodpile.

I tried the door and it was unlocked. As I pushed the door open gently, peering inside, I held my breath and half expected an orderly to jump into my view and cart me back to the hospital. I took a step forward on the threshold of the cabin, and a small pile of icy snow dislodged from the
DALA CABIN
sign and fell right onto the back of my neck.

“Aaahh!” I screamed, unnerved. I wiped the snow off and stepped into the cabin, taking a deep breath. The place looked unused, lonely even. But it was just like I remembered it. Just like the last time I had been here. In the loop. In that instant, so much of my existence, my theories, my life, felt validated.

The air in the cabin seemed to let out a sigh, as if it had been expecting me.

The one room really was impeccable. Clean and well lit—homey, yet stark.

I laughed, a loud and startling noise, as I saw the red Dala horse on the mantel that I had picked up and looked at in my loop. I noticed a photograph too on the mantel, a photograph that truly looked like an advertisement for Michigan summers. The lake in summer, blue and glistening, with the cabin in the background, everything green and blooming.

I went back out to the clearing for my things. And then I dropped my backpack and my duffel right onto the hearth of the monstrous and beautiful fireplace and tiptoed around the little room. It smelled of coffee and earth, firewood and clean sheets. I was here, out of place, and stealing away a piece of this tranquility, but I so drank it up. Everything about the cabin calmed me instantly.

Everything about it told me I had done the right thing.
This is where I need to be right now
, I thought. At this time, this place was the right one.

I didn’t know much about how things were going to go, about what exactly was in store for me, but I knew that being here, sitting down on this red-and-white-checked bedspread, felt right.

I let my head flop back on the pillow and smelled a clean, soapy scent from the pillowcase. I inhaled deeply, and that was when I saw the tiny drawings, on paper no bigger than index cards, all lined up on the west windowsill—seven of them. Each one better than the last.

I had to sit up and get a good look. They were each done in pen and ink, with many sharp angles and deep strokes: a sketch of the cabin itself, a blue heron—which I chalked up to coincidence—an empty bottle, a Dala horse, the heron again, and a portrait. It was a handsome young man, with a shock of dark hair and sad eyes. The last one, I couldn’t quite figure out what it was supposed to be.

The most recent tenant must have been an artist
, I told myself. If I had only known.

I took the last drawing back to the bed with me. I lay down and stared deeply into it. It was something very close up. There were lots of lines, scratching, the whole paper almost black with ink. I couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be.

I turned it around for a fresh perspective. And then I saw it: a woman’s face, agony, a scream. For a moment, it felt like the sound echoed in my ears.

It was unsettling. I folded the drawing in half and shoved it in my pocket. I didn’t want to look at it again.

I spent the afternoon sleeping. I have always been one to need things perfectly perfect in order to fall asleep—a hard mattress, darkness—but not today. My sleep was oddly deep, undisturbed by loops or dreams or otherwise. I counted back. It had been at least seven days since I had slept a whole night without looping. This peaceful nap seemed like a good omen to me, a good start. Could stress have been triggering the onslaught of loops at the hospital lately? I thought about it. Maybe. Maybe the cabin would help me to decompress, give me some time to think and figure all this out.

After my nap, I walked back to town. I spent some time in Hansen’s General Store, picking out just enough groceries that I could comfortably carry in my backpack, and I bought
two Duraflame logs, knowing I had never paid enough attention in Girl Scouts to count on only the firewood at the cabin. I stopped in at The Stacks, a cool used bookstore. I realized while I was flipping through old vintage comics that my cheeks were hurting from smiling. I was smiling too much.

The walk back to the cabin was gorgeous. The ambergray twilight gave the snow a magical glow. It surrounded me, not too cold, feeling like insulation, like a cushion against all things bad.

But I could feel just how much my physical self had been deteriorating. I was winded, tired, light-headed by the time I reached the cabin.

I fumbled a bit with my keys at the door, sucking on some Lemonheads that I’d bought at the market. But by the time I reached up with my keys toward the doorknob, the door was open.

I looked up, startled, dropping my Lemonheads all over the ground. Someone was standing in my threshold, just inside my cabin. A man.
Dad?
I thought immediately. But no, it wasn’t him. Cowboy hat, jeans, his arms up in an “I surrender” position.

All of this registered in an instant, and I felt the whoosh and hum behind my eyes. I felt my eyes flutter, my body stiffen.

I was gone.

I’m trying to run, but I stumble over my feet. I fall onto my knees and push myself up on the heels of my hands, deciding to walk. I’m alone in a cornfield. I remember for only an instant that I should be terrified of the man in my cabin, but I’m in the loop, so serenity rules. I calmly walk through the corn rows, the stalks all taller than I am. I can’t see where I’m going exactly. But I think I know
.

Sure enough, I turn a corner then, right where I picture that I should, and I see him. My boy
.

“You found me,” he says
.

“I did,” I answer
.

“Don’t lose this,” he tells me, and hands me a silver key
.

I reach for it clumsily, my hands uncoordinated and heavy. “I won’t lose it,” I tell him. I don’t think to ask what it is or why I shouldn’t lose it
.

I pocket the key, and the boy grabs my hand. We walk slowly toward the creek
.

“They’re frogs now,” he says. I squint, and I can see two tiny frogs swimming in the shallow water near the edge. One hops onto the bank of the stream for a moment, and the boy bends down and catches it, watches it jump from one of his hands to the other. I marvel at how tiny it is. He lets it go, back into the water
.

We walk down the hill toward the farm then, and we settle on a big blue plaid blanket under an oak tree
.

He has a picnic lunch, in a real hamper with cloth napkins, with the most fantastic egg-salad sandwiches, tied up in brown paper and string
.

I love the old-fashionedness of it all, and I sit down on the picnic blanket and smile. I like it here
.

We eat our lunch together, talk about the go-cart he is building in his barn, and play tic-tac-toe. He beats me more than I beat him. After a dessert of fresh whipped cream and strawberries, I lie back on the picnic blanket
.

I start to count the leaves on the closest branch of the hanging oak, feeling so content, but then the leaves blur. They begin to have fuzzy, oddly colored edges, rainbow colors, a prism in my peripheral vision
.

I realize only then that I should ask what the key is for. I want to look at the boy and decipher exactly what period his clothes are from. I want to ask him about Dala Cabin, about the nine something. I want to ask him about Esperanza. I want to—

I’m gone again
.

I came back abruptly and opened my eyes. I was lying on the bed, in what I had already begun to think of as my cabin. I suppressed the urge to scream, reliving the moment before the loop, seeing this man in my cabin.

I swallowed hard and looked to my left. And there he was—all large and broad-shouldered.

He sat in a chair at the kitchen table, his head bent over a small sketchbook. He was drawing intently. He hadn’t yet realized that I was awake. I again swallowed back the urge to scream.

I watched him for a second, his large hand gracefully shading his picture. I looked at the line of his profile, his shock of blue-black hair. He was younger than I had first thought, not too much older than me. And somehow he
didn’t seem quite as menacing now. But I was still scared. I glanced at the door. I could be there in six steps if I had to, out the door. Had Dad tracked me already?

I swung my legs onto the floor, cleared my throat. Part of me wanted to yell at him to get out. Part of me knew I needed to thank him for … what? “Um …” I stood up from the bed, eyeing the door again. “I don’t know you.”

I startled him. He stood up immediately, his hands in the air in surrender. “I’m sorry. I’m not going to hurt you. I—”

“It’s okay,” I said, relaxing a bit, shaking my head. I rubbed at my temples and between my brows. My knees shook. “I figure if you had wanted to kill me or worse, I’m sure …” I let my voice trail off. I was so exhausted from the loop, from my trip. My knees buckled, and he crossed the room in a beat to steady me.

“I’m okay,” I said, resisting his hand, his help.

“Clearly,” he mumbled.

He turned and reached for his hat on the table. I was relieved that he was going to leave. “Mr. Genk gave me the keys this morning,” I explained to him. “Did you just have the wrong cabin or …?”

He looked at me then. Our eyes met for the first time. He started to say something, but then thought better of it.

He shook his head and hid his eyes once again under the brim of his hat.

He turned toward the door, then turned back one more
time. “I reckon you had some sort of seizure. Are you epileptic? I—” He shoved his notebook and pencil in his pocket. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I answered. “You don’t know my father, do you?”