Cody frowned. “That shack in the woods?”
“I don’t know if the shack’s still there. But the land might be.”
“You think it’s ours?”
“I think nobody else wants it if it exists.”
He looked out through the windshield, where rain streamed down in silver lines. “That’s not exactly comforting.”
“It’s what we’ve got.”
He was quiet for a beat. “Then let’s go.”
So I drove.
We left Hendersonville after midnight and climbed into the dark, winding roads of western North Carolina. The rain eased into mist. Headlights cut through low fog hanging between the trees. Every curve felt like it was taking us farther from one life and not yet close enough to the next.
The truck shuddered on the steeper grades. Twice I thought it would die. Twice it somehow didn’t.
By the time we reached the gravel turnoff that I hoped was the right one, dawn was just beginning to gray the sky. The forest rose around us in black ridges and dripping pine. The road narrowed into two muddy tracks with weeds growing between them.
Cody leaned forward. “This is it?”
“I think so.”
“That doesn’t sound confident.”
“It’s the best you’re getting.”
We bumped along for almost a mile before the trees opened into a small clearing.
The shack was still there.
It leaned a little harder than I remembered, and one section of the porch had collapsed, but the roof held. A chimney of rough stone rose on one side. Beyond it, the woods thickened into a wall of oak, pine, and hemlock. The whole place looked forgotten in a way that hurt to see.
Cody opened his door and climbed out into mud. He turned slowly, taking it in.
“Well,” he said, “it’s ugly.”
“Yeah.”
He looked at me. “I love it.”
That made me laugh for the first time in months.
Inside, the cabin smelled like mildew, old smoke, and rotted wood, but it was dry. There was a cast-iron stove, a table with one leg shorter than the others, a pair of bunks built into the wall, and enough dust to write our names in on every surface.
It was miserable.
It was perfect.
We spent that first day hauling out moldy blankets, sweeping floors, patching a broken window with a feed sack we found in the corner, and making lists of what we needed: food, water, fuel, luck.
When evening came, we sat on the porch steps eating stale crackers from a gas station and watching the trees darken.
“You think Aunt Denise knows about this place?” Cody asked.
“Maybe.”
“She’ll come after it if there’s anything valuable here.”
I looked around at the sagging cabin, the weeds, the rusted hand pump twenty yards away. “Then let’s hope she keeps thinking it’s worthless.”
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