So it’s definitely takes some getting used to, living in the woods like this.
The hardest part is the silence, especially at night. My apartment back in Boston was near the Red Line, and I’d hear the late-night commuter rails go by as I was falling off to sleep. I liked it, the soft whirring racket of the wheels against the tracks. Plus, there were all the other city noises: voices down on the street, honking car horns, the occasional thump of music through my apartment’s thin walls.
Out here? Nothing.
For the first week in the house, I’m struck with an overwhelming loneliness. I never hear my neighbors, so they might as well not exist. My coworkers are, as always, user pics on the company’s Slack channel and voices in the video-optional meeting we have once a week. I have a single in-person exchange with the teenage cashier at the Food Lion in Pinella, his smile pleasant enough as he hands me my receipt.
My one saving grace is my two best friends, Penelope and Abi, and the video chat we have on my first Friday night at Hanging Lake. We met in college but spread out across the country afterward. Abi went to grad school for a few yearsand then moved back to Texas afterward to take on her uncle’s mortuary business. Of the three of us, she’s the most responsible. Penelope is the least, at least on paper. She never stays in one place for too long, and I’m surprised she made it through four years of college, honestly. But she’s also the one I’m closest to, the one who took me in when I was spiraling after I realized how much I’mnotcut out for interpreter work.
We’re close enough that I know the real reason for her nomadic tendencies, about the darkness that runs through her family. Even Abi doesn’t know that.
Regardless, when Friday rolls around, it’s such a relief to see both of their faces and hear their voices, even through a computer screen. Something to fill up the enormous silence of this house.
“How are you holding up out there?” Penelope asks. “I don’t know why the two of you both want to live in the middle of nowhere.”
Abi rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t say I’m in the middle of nowhere.”
“Texas. It’s bad enough.”
“No, my place is way more isolated.” I pick up my laptop and my glass of wine and cart them over to the window. “Check it out.”
I turn the computer around so they can see out the glass at the pier, and the orange-red sunset melting into the lake. I get a chorus of oohs and ahhs from Abi and some gentle chiding about environmental degradation from Penelope. Typical for both of them. Later, it’s nice watching a movie with them on my computer, pretending for a few hours that I’m not alone.
The weekend rolls into the next week, and I slowly start to find my footing. There’s one big consolation: as lonely as the woods are, they are absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful. Even better, my WiFi signal is strong enough that I can take mylaptop out to the patio and work by the lake, leaning back in an Adirondack chair as I sift through my company’s database. It’s probably hell on my wrists, but I like being out in the warm, sunny air, the sound of the lake lapping around me. I can almost pretend I’m on vacation.
It’s during one of my work days that I run into Oliver again. Or rather, he runs into me. It’s a little after lunch, and I’m scrolling my way through a particularly vexing data discrepancy when I hear a splash out on the lake. I glance up and see a small rowboat on the lake, coming from the direction of the wild peninsula across the water.
Inside the boat is Oliver. Alone. He’s also not wearing a life jacket.
I frown over the top of my laptop. The realtor who transferred the house deed into my name told me about the peninsula, a little overhang of land stabbing into the lake proper. Namely, she told me that it was dangerous.
Stick to the eastern side of the lake,she said as I signed papers in her office.The peninsula’s got a bit of a reputation, you know. Hikers have gotten lost out there. Some dangerous wildlife. Ticks and rattlesnakes are probably the least of your worries.
I’ve never been one for hiking, so I didn’t think much of it. But I do wonder what a ten-year-old is doing wandering around on some apparently dangerous peninsula.
I don’t have much time to dwell on it, though. When Oliver sees me, he starts waving one hand furiously around. Then he rows faster, turning the boat toward my pier. I watch him with a sense of alarm rising in my throat; the oars seem too big for his skinny arms, and the boat careens through the water, sending up splashes on either side. It occurs to me that he’s going too fast?—
And then the boat rams into the pier, sending little shockwaves up to the patio.
“Are you all right?” The words are out of my lips on instinct, and I sign the question a half-second later, as I jump from the chair and bolt down to the boat.
Oliver’s grinning, though. He throws a frayed rope around one of the posts on my pier, anchoring the boat in place, then heaves himself out. I can tell he’s done this before.
“What are you doing out here?” I ask, signing and saying it at the same time. Oliver adjusts his shirt, slides his backpack onto his shoulders, and looks up at me.
“Visiting my friend.” Then he makes a shape with his hands I’ve never seen before.
“Sorry,” I tell him. “I’m still a bit rusty. I didn’t catch that.”
Oliver sighs, but then he spells out a name: Theo.
“Oh,” I say. “That’s your friend’s name? Theo?” I spell it out, rather than trying to reproduce the sign for it.
Oliver nods.
I frown and look out at the lake. It’s as calm and serene as always, and the trees on the peninsula sway back and forth a little in the wind, like paint brushes moving across the sky. I keep thinking about the realtor, though.Dangerous wildlife.
“On the peninsula?” I ask, then point toward the trees. “I didn’t think anyone lived over there.”
