The House in the Pines(56)

She passed beneath its lobes, twigs branching like arteries overhead as she entered the forest. This time she had a flashlight, one she’d borrowed from her mom, but Maya found that she didn’t need it. The snow glittered, and if it was cold, she couldn’t tell. Adrenaline kept her warm. She thought of all the effort she’d put into repressing her memories of the last time she was here, all the pills she’d taken, only for the truth to go on simmering beneath that fake comfort that never quite fit. She should have been terrified right now, and she was, but there was also relief in feeling that she was finally getting to the root of Frank’s secret—and she sensed that she was close, that she could almost reach out and brush it with her fingers.

This time she didn’t hear the stream as she neared the bridge—it must have frozen—but it didn’t matter. The road, though clearly abandoned, was easy enough to follow. A straightforward path through the woods.

Although now that she was on it again, there was something so off about this road—about the very idea of it. Suddenly she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it sooner. How could she have been so dense at seventeen?

It was obvious—both then and now—that no one had driven on this road in years.

You’d have to walk there, Frank’s father had said.

And all at once she understood the cruelty of his smile. He really had been laughing at her. There’s no way Frank could have carried the supplies needed to build a cabin—the lumber, the stove, two sinks, every one of those chimney stones—all this way on foot.

But then Maya hadn’t been so dense back then, had she?

She had figured this out before—she remembered this now. It all came back to her the moment she saw the bridge.





THIRTY




Maya stops dead in her tracks as it comes into view, a bridge that not so much as a bicycle could safely cross. The flashlight from Frank’s dad flickers in her hand. A cool wind slithers thought the leaves, scattering the last of the day’s heat as she stands piecing it together.

A chill claws up her spine.

The bridge before her isn’t just abandoned—it’s crumbling. Lost to history, a bridge of rusted bones, turrets exposed like a giant’s rib cage. Large chunks of concrete have fallen away, leaving only a sliver of passable road in the middle.

She’s about to turn back, rattled to the core, when she notices a light on the other side of the stream. She squints. The light is larger, steadier, and more diffuse than a flashlight. She takes a few steps closer, and now she’s sure of it. There is someone over there, across the broken bridge. She assumes it must be Frank, though she can’t see him.

Every instinct tells her to leave, but she doesn’t. That same curiosity that feels almost like a compulsion has gotten stronger with every step, as if she has been drawn here tonight by some invisible string. Plus, if Frank crossed it, the bridge must be safe enough. She’s extremely careful as she makes her way across, walking as if on a tightrope when she gets to the middle portion, where the edges of the road have fallen away on either side.

The bridge here is only about three feet wide, the water below fast and black. It looks deep. She’s trembling as she arrives on the other side and passes through a last stand of trees into a clearing. She’s figured it out now, the reason Frank’s so weird about his cabin, yet what she sees takes her breath away all the same.

There is no cabin. Only the weathered concrete remains of a foundation, a wide, cracked rectangle in the middle of the clearing. This is where she finds Frank, reclined on top of a plush red sleeping bag several feet in front of where a fireplace seems to have been. He’s set up a battery-powered lamp in the spot, the orange glow she saw from the other side of the bridge a crude replica of the cozy fires that might have burned here once, back in whatever era this house actually stood.

He squints in the glare of her flashlight as she approaches but doesn’t look surprised to see her. He smiles weakly, apologetically even, not moving from his comfortable-looking position as she takes in his surroundings. The portable lamp and sleeping bag, a jug of water, his backpack, and a half-peeled orange.

He wears a flannel shirt and jeans, but no shoes. His shoes sit several yards away at the edge of the foundation, as if he had left them at the front door, like he hadn’t wanted to dirty the floors, and the thought of him playing make-believe out here, acting as if the house is real, is so absurd and sad and strange that a startled laugh rises in her throat, and she covers her mouth as if to hold it inside.

“Hey,” he says. He sounds sheepish, or tired, or both.

“Frank . . .”

“I know . . . I’m so sorry, Maya.”

But she’s too bewildered to be angry. “Why would you lie about something like this?”

He lets out a long sigh. “I guess there’s really no excuse, is there?”

Maybe not, but she still wants an answer. She stares down at him, waiting, the flashlight at her side beaming down at the cracked foundation.

“The truth,” he says, “is that I’m just some guy who lives at home and takes care of his dad. I don’t even have my own car, and my job is embarrassing. And you . . . well, you obviously could do better.”

Another shocked laugh bubbles up. “Are you saying you made up the cabin . . . to impress me?”