Pretending to be imitating a bird? What nonsense is that? I’ve been writing mysteries too long. Crafted too many scenes of my heroines in forests, being stalked by?—
A shadow flits past the corner of my vision. I wheel and find myself peering down a game trail that cuts through the forest for the lake. Something crossed the trail and disappeared into the forest. Something a whole lot bigger than a fox.
A deer, obviously.
A mental “wrong answer” horn blast from a dozen old TV game shows.
A deercrossinga game trail instead of following it? A deer that silently slips through thick forest, passing ten feet from me, undetected but for the dark shape of its movement?
Uh, no.
Not a deer. Not a bear. Not a wolf walking on its hind legs.
Someone is out here.
Goddamn it, I need to stop playing this game with myself. Stop denying that someone’s here out of fear that I seem silly and paranoid. Ididhear a knock earlier. A distinct knock. Ididhear a person imitating a bird. Ididsee someone sneak across the game trail. Because I wassupposedto hear and see all that.
Someone is trying to spook me.
I do not for a single moment wonder if it’s one of my younger grandkids. Four are in their early twenties, old enough to drive out here and old enough to want to spent a little time with Nan and decide to surprise her. None would do it this way. Oh, sure, Ivan is fond of a good practical joke and Toni adores horror movies, but my children raised them well, and not one would think it was funny to scare the shit—and possibly the life—out of their elderly grandmother.
I glare into the forest. Whoever is out there is a stranger. Someone whodoesthink it would be funny to scare an old woman. They must have been poking around—or camping out—when I arrived, and they either want to see me soil my old-lady drawers or scare me off so they can go back to enjoying my lovely bit of land.
Well, that’s not happening. I have plans, and they will not interfere with them.
“Haven’t they already interfered?” I imagine Richard whispering. “You’re setting up a meticulous murder, and they’re ruining it with false clues.”
They’reallfalse clues. That’s the point. If this intruder adds a few more, fine. If those extra clues cause the police to targetthem for my murder, well, that’s what they get for pulling this shit.
I march back to the house, head for Richard’s old closet and get the shotgun from the locker. That takes a while—I have to find the combination on my phone. Only after I take the gun do I realize I’ve messed with my own plan. I wasn’t supposed to suspect anything before my murder, and now there will be signs that I removed the shotgun.
I’ll deal with that later.
Gun in hand, I head outside. As I stand on the porch, I blink into the falling sun. Is it that late already? Yes, because I’m eight hours north of home, and twilight comes early here in the fall.
With the gun under my arm, I walk the perimeter. I circle twice, just to be sure that whoever is out there sees that I’m not just an old lady—I’m an old lady with a gun. I could be half blind. Half deaf. Half senile. I could fire at the first blur of motion. Fire at a friendly “Hello!” Fire at an unarmed camper in my mental confusion.
I conduct my patrol. Then I stride into the house, lock the door and stand there, gripping the gun, feeling my heart race with an odd exhilaration. My mind races too, with an excitement of a very different sort.
I want to write.
I sputter a laugh.That’smy reaction to a straight shot of adrenaline? I am afraid, and I am angry, and I want to…write?
Yes. I want capture this moment, this feeling, and mine it for fiction. I’m seized by an idea. A story. An elderly woman alone in a cabin in the woods. They always say to write what you know, and I am itching to use this as the spark for a new story.
Soon I find myself in my studio with my laptop and a banana for dinner and only the vaguest idea of how I got there. That isn’t my mind slipping—it’s my mind enflamed by inspiration.
I intend to craft a short story, which would be perfectly acceptable under the circumstances, giving me time to both write and quickly edit it before I’m gone. Instead, after an hour, I have the first few chapters of a novel. I also have a character, and that is even worse. Those early chapters are like test driving a car. Most of the time, I wrinkle my nose and say “Not that one.” A character is an altogether different thing. I have crafted one I want to get to know better. I want to spend some time with her. I want to give her a story.
Too bad. She’ll get a piece of short fiction, and that will have to do. I’ll re-craft the chapters into?—
A wordless whisper sounds behind me, and I jump, laptop sliding from my lap, me executing a World-Series-worthy dive to catch it. Then I pause there, half out of my chair, joints screaming in protest as I clutch my precious laptop, and I listen.
Silence.
I tilt my head to peer around. It’s dark, and I forgot to turn on a light. There are no curtains on the window—nothing to impede the view—but no moonlight pierces the heavy clouds. The glow of my laptop is the only thing lighting the room, and it did a much better job of that when my eyes had a thirty-year-old’s photoreceptors.
I reach one careful hand toward the lamp. Tug the chain. It clicks, and nothing happens.
