She smiles in the soft light. “We don’t fear men in this house,” she tells me. “Men fear us.”
WHENIWAKE,it’s a quarter past noon, and Myrtle’s cabin is empty. I find the bathroom and take a long, hot shower, washing off days of filth and fear. I have to sit under the water because of my foot, now a grotesque shade of eggplant. After, I wince when I run a towel across the bruising around my left rib cage. I’ve been taking small breaths and aspirin to manage the pain, but it’s not enough. Still, a doctor will ask questions. They might see a news report and put two and two together. I wonder if Aunt Myrtle knows someone trustworthy.
In my room, I find a pearl-snap shirt on a velvet chair in the corner, along with a pair of denim overalls, a fresh pair of cotton underwear, and thin wool socks. My other things are gone. Myrtle must have realized I didn’t even have a change of clothes. The overalls are a tad long, but I roll the hems up. I’m just grateful to be clean.
I limp around the cabin, taking in its homey details. The designer in me delights in its quaint, romantic take on wilderness living, the wood ceiling and vintage Audubon prints, the tramp art frames and cross-stitch tablecloth—mushrooms with ferns and birds—and clumps of dried flowers and herbs. On a table by the sofa, I find a framed black-and-white photo of several women. I recognize Myrtle at once. She can’t be more than sixteen, her dark hair shining. Beside her stands another woman, nearly as blond as my mother was. She’s not as tall as Myrtle but just as assured,and they share the same jutting chin, square shoulders, and oval faces, the same glimmer of defiance in their eyes. Behind them is an older woman whose hair is pulled back off her face, her slim black dress severe in shape. And they are flanked by two more, a graying woman in white pearls and one who looks to be in her twenties with a sweater draped over her shoulders. They could be any group—a bridge club or a charity board—but there’s something restless behind their eyes that unites them, something feral.
Feeling brave, I step outside and marvel at the difference a little daylight can make. In the sun, the woods around Myrtle’s house are thick and gloriously green like something from a storybook, charming even, with trees that tower over the cabin and branches that run nearly to the ground. Ferns fan out across the turf, and decaying logs play host to mosses and shelves of fungus. Near the porch, a tender knot of white emerges from the dirt, spotless and enticing. A destroying angel, as Regis called them. More glint in the undergrowth like tempting fairy lights, weaving their way through the woods around the cabin. A spike of warning lances through my center like pain. Do they always grow so abundantly?
A red squirrel makes angry noises in my direction as I start down the trail. I don’t have Myrtle to guide me, but the path is evident enough, and once I clear the trees, the A-frame café sits only paces away. A large black Lab is lying in the sun near the front door. He barely lifts his head. Stooping, I can’t resist giving his head a good rub, delighting in the way his tongue lolls out happily. I asked Henry for a dog, but he couldn’t abide the smell. I place my nose on top of the Lab’s head and breathe in deep. He smells like comfort.
Inside, I find Myrtle behind the counter separating the kitchen from the dining room. A couple sits at one table with a little girl, and a man drinking coffee at the bar watches me as I enter. “Thank you for the clothes,” I tell her as I approach.
“Your others are in the wash.” She points to indicate the small addition jutting off the left side of the A-frame, a laundry and bathroom for the guests. She smiles as she refills the man’s coffeecup. “Acacia, this is Ed, one of my boarders. Get used to his ugly mug ’cause you’re going to be seeing it a lot. He lives in cabin five, likes to drink up all my coffee with his dog, Bart, whom I see you already met.”
I brush the dog hairs from my arms and smile at Ed as I take my seat at the neighboring barstool. “Hi.”
He nods. His eyes are close-set and sunken, camouflaged behind wiry, graying brows that hang over them like untrimmed climbers. A long nose and sloping cheeks end in a thick parcel of white beard. A trucker’s cap sporting a patch embroidered with a wide-mouth bass sits high on his head like a crown. “You renting a cabin all by yourself?”
“Acacia is family,” Myrtle tells him. “She’s come to stay with me for a while.”
“You don’t say,” he drawls, looking me up and down. “I think I see the resemblance now that you mention it. She’s not your daughter, is she Myrtle?”
My aunt shoots him an unreadable look. “A niece,” she says, “of sorts.”
“Huh.” He doesn’t seem to know what to make of that.
“We’re an old family,” she continues. “A lot of branches on the tree. We keep in touch.”
He nods slowly.
A blond woman breezes into the café, smiling at us as she approaches. She can’t be a day over forty, pretty in a simple kind of way. “Myrtle, you’re a lifesaver,” she says, beaming. “That vinegar-soaked tennis ball trick really worked! I can’t thank you enough.”
Myrtle smiles. “When I know,I know.If only everyone around here listened to me like you did,” she says, shooting Ed a look. Turning to me, she adds, “Beth Ann had a raccoon living under the front porch chewing up her stairs. So, I gave her a few tennis balls, told her to soak them in vinegar, and roll them right under there. They hate the smell.”
Ed cocks a suspicious eyebrow. “Those wouldn’t be Bart’s tennis balls, would they, Myrtle?”
“I’ll buy ya more,” she tells him. “Beth Ann, this is my niece, Acacia. She’ll be staying with me for a while. She needed a little R and R, and I told her some fresh mountain air would set things right.”
The woman turns to me, one hand brushing her straw-colored locks back from her face. “Welcome! You know, I moved up here a couple of years ago from the city. Got tired of all the pollution and noise. Best decision I ever made! You’re going to love it.”
I haven’t had a female friend in two years. And really, I never managed to forge those bestie bonds most girls do in childhood. But she’s so open and energetic, I can’t resist smiling. Maybe, in this new life, we can be friends. “Thank you.”
She pats my arm. “We’ll chat soon. Well, gotta go, Myrtle. Those turnips aren’t going to plant themselves. Just wanted to say thank you since I was passing by.”
Ed watches her as she leaves. “Remember when you didn’t think she’d last a month?” he says.
Myrtle smiles warmly. “Once in a while, it’s good to be wrong.” Then, she adds, “Anyway, try not to be too much of a pest with Acacia here, eh, Ed? Keep that hound of yours from baying at the moon all hours.”
“Aww, Myrtle, Bart never causes no trouble. You know that.” He turns to me. “Best boy that ever walked on four legs. I can promise ya that. You afraid of dogs?”
I shake my head, giggling. “No, sir. I love dogs. Never had one, but always wished I did.”
He brightens. “Well, Bart belongs to everybody around here. Ain’t that right, Myrtle? She don’t like to admit it, but she loves that dog as much as me,” he says, throwing a thumb in her direction. “You know, I had a great-aunt with tuberculosis. She stayed with us for a whole year when I was a kid. Slept right out on the porch when the weather was warm enough. Cleared her lungs right up. We got on good.”
Myrtle cocks an eyebrow at Ed like he’s lost it. “Uh-huh.”
He swats a hand at her. “All I mean is, lots of people come up here to heal what ails ’em.”
