Page 9 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth

Nine

Emily

T he winding uphill climb ends at a wide gravel driveway. A rustic wooden sign staked into the grass welcomes us to “The Farm at the End of the World.” I raise my eyebrow at the name, but it’s apt.

The driveway continues for about the equivalent of a city block before it forks.

To the left, it leads to a large white farmhouse with blue gabled roofs and a gracefully curved wraparound porch.

A barn behind the house matches the structure.

A dirty black pickup truck is parked beside the farmhouse.

Tristan takes the right branch, which meanders downhill and ends at a tiny, adorable cottage-style cabin.

It’s a squat box of stacked white stone covered with a faded red slate roof.

A tall, skinny chimney protrudes from the roof.

Flower boxes hang from the shuttered windows.

The online photo gallery on the rental website could never capture the charm this place oozes.

“It looks like something out of a fairytale!” I exclaim, delighted.

Tristan parks the car and gives me an indulgent smile. “So long as it’s not a fairytale tower.”

My grin falters. Fairytales do have a way of transforming enchanting enclaves into dark dangers.

After a beat, I shake off the whisper of foreboding. “It’s perfect.”

I hurry out of the car and approach the little structure with a mixture of joy and disbelief.

It’s too freaking cute. I almost expect it to dissolve right there in front of me, revealing that this whole thing has been an elaborate hoax, an illusion, or maybe a dream.

If this setting doesn’t shake my story loose, I’m a broken writer.

Tristan joins me on the porch, my laptop bag slung over his chest and my weekend duffle bag in his right hand.

“I could’ve carried that,” I protest.

“Your toiletries and the groceries are still in the trunk,” he tells me.

I jog around the car to grab the two remaining bags. As I slam the hatchback closed, the black pickup truck bounces into view. The driver parks parallel, across the mouth of the driveway, blocking Tristan in, which is fine, I guess.

A broad-shouldered woman with close-cropped flaming red hair, several shades darker and brighter than mine, hops out of the cab.

She’s a few inches shorter than I am, but muscular.

It’s obvious even though she’s wearing a heavy field jacket and jeans.

As if to prove the point, she reaches into the truck’s bed and hefts out a large bundle of firewood one-handed.

She carries it past me, nodding a greeting, and drops it into a holder near the cabin’s front door.

Then she smacks her gloved hands together, knocking up a small cloud of wood dust.

“You must be Emily and Tristan. Have any trouble finding us?”

“Nope,” Tristan says cheerfully. “Alex’s directions were spot on.”

“Glad to hear it.” She fishes a key out of her jacket pocket and extends it toward me. “Let’s get you settled. I’ll give you the VIP tour.”

“Do you work for Alex? I thought he was going to meet us,” Tristan asks as I shift the grocery bag to my other hand and take the key.

She laughs. “I am Alex.”

Tristan does a double take. I guess he assumed Alex Liu was an Asian man, not a White woman. I know I did.

“Oh, right. Sorry. I didn’t–”

Alex waves off the apology. “No worries. I don’t have a profile picture on the rental site. You’re not the first person to make that mistake, and believe me, you won’t be the last.”

I frown. Why doesn’t she just put up a photo, then, and avoid the issue? Instantly, I chide myself. She might live here alone. A single woman residing in an extremely remote location might not want to advertise the fact to the entire Internet.

I unlock the door and push it open. Alex gestures for me to go inside first. I walk through the living room to the galley kitchen and dump the insulated grocery bags on the small butcher block island.

“The bedrooms are upstairs, right?” Tristan asks.

“Right. The stairs are behind the kitchen. I only made up the bigger of the two rooms. But there’s extra bedding in the trunk by the foot of the bed if you want to use the other bedroom for some reason.”

“I’m sure the big one’s fine,” I tell her as Tristan trades me my laptop bag for the toiletries case and heads upstairs.

I swivel my head around. “Where are the outlets?”

“Your best bet is the little table between the two windows in the living room. There’s an outlet under the table. But, you do know you won’t get cell coverage up here, right?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s one of the reasons I’m here. I just need to keep my laptop charged.”

I walk into the living room and check out the burled wood table.

It’s actually a small writing desk. I take it as another sign that this is the place where I’m meant to write The Tower, my version of Maid Maleen.

I run my hand over the smooth surface, feeling the decades of stories pulsing up from the furniture’s memory.

I feel Alex’s eyes on my back. I turn and smile at her. “I’m here to write.”

“That’s right. Your husband mentioned you’re a writer. Have you written anything I’ve read?”

I will never understand this question. How could I possibly know? But people ask it all the time. They must mean something else by it. But I don’t know how to answer it. So I give her my stock response.

“Maybe?”

She chuckles. “That’s a dumb question, I guess. I did look you up after I got the booking inquiry. I didn’t recognize any of your covers, but I read a lot. Like, a lot. Sometimes I get three-quarters of the way through a book and suddenly realize I’ve read it before.”

“That’s the lot of the voracious reader, I think.” I smile. “Have you read anything good lately?”

I’m always happy to bond with strangers over book recommendations, and this question is usually a winner. Not with Alex.

Her mouth thins. “A biography.” She says it flatly and without elaboration—no details, no title, no enthusiastic explanation of why I should read it.

I twitch my lips to the side and search for a different topic of conversation, silently urging Tristan to hurry up and come back downstairs already.

“So, have you always lived up here, in the mountains?”

“No. My husband’s in the military. I used to move around with him, but a few years ago we bought this place as a home base for when he retires. It suits me, so I stay here now.”

“You don’t find it … isolated?” The nearest community is at least a thirty-minute drive down the mountain, and it didn’t seem like much of a town.

She shrugs. “No. I grew up in a very small town in rural Maine. This isn’t all that different.”

“Wow, really? Tristan did, too. Grow up in a small rural town in Maine, I mean.”

“Huh.”

“Where in Maine? The coastline is gorgeous. So wild and undeveloped.”

“You wouldn’t have heard of it,” Alex tells me. “It’s a little place on a peninsula—Windy Rock.”

My jaw hinges open. “That’s where Tristan’s from! What are the odds?”

“The odds of what?” Tristan asks as he clomps into the room.

“Alex is from Windy Rock, too. Can you believe it?”

My husband draws his eyebrows together and frowns.

Not exactly the reaction I’m expecting. I turn to Alex.

Her face is pale, almost translucent. Her freckles stand out, stark against her white skin.

Her pulse throbs in her neck. She clasps her hands tightly in front of her.

The two of them stand there in heavy silence for a long, awkward moment.

Finally, Tristan coughs. “We moved away when I was pretty young. My mom remarried a guy from Arizona. I haven’t been back in a long time, decades.”

This is true. We’ve vacationed in Maine, but never on the peninsula. He’s never shown any interest in stopping there. He says there’s nothing there to make the long detour worth it.

Alex finds her voice. “I think I’m probably a good bit older than you, too. So our paths wouldn’t have crossed.”

“But, isn’t it a really small, insular community?” I insist. “Wouldn’t your families know each other?”

“No,” Tristan says in a firm voice.

Alex shakes her head. “Nope.” Then she shifts her weight as if she’s ready to spring. “I should get back to the house. There’s a landline in the bedroom, Emily. Local calls only, I’m afraid. And there’s a notepad on the nightstand with my number if you need me.”

Before I can respond, she rushes from the cabin as if she’s being chased. The door slams shut, and she runs down the driveway to her truck. The engine roars to life, and the truck speeds off, sending up a spray of gravel in its wake.

I give Tristan a puzzled look. “That was weird, right?”

He doesn’t answer. He’s gazing out the window, gnawing on his bottom lip.

“Tristan?” I prompt him.

He blinks and turns away from the window. “Sorry, what?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. What were you saying?” He shakes his head like a wet dog.

“Nothing important. Just … don’t you think it’s odd that Alex didn’t want to talk about Windy Rock?”

“You wouldn’t think it’s odd if you’d been to Windy Rock.”

He laughs. I join in, but my laughter is forced. There’s definitely something off about Alex’s reaction. Can he really not see that?

He crosses the room and wraps his arms around me. I lean into him and try to push aside all the questions tumbling around in my mind. He kisses the crown of my head.

I tip my chin up and study him. Something about his eyes feels wrong—distant and shaded. Like he’s keeping something from me. I shake the thought away. Tristan doesn’t keep secrets. That’s my specialty.

He strokes my hair, tucking a stray tendril behind my ear, then says, “I have to get on the road.”

“Already? Don’t you want to stretch your legs? We can take a walk around the property before you get back in the car.”

He gives me a sad little smile. “Wish I could. But?—”

“I know.” I shouldn’t try to guilt him into sticking around. I already feel terrible that he’s making the ridiculous round-trip drive.

I stand on the tiny porch and watch him back the car down the driveway.

He pauses, gives the horn a short beep, and waves goodbye.

I blow him a kiss even though I doubt he can see me from this distance.

Then his hand shoots up, and he makes a quick fist—as if he’s caught the kiss. Guess he saw me after all.

I stand there until the car vanishes behind a curve in the road.

Then I reach back through the open door and grab my coat from the hook on the wall.

I’m going to take that walk anyway. The crisp mountain air is sure to get my creative juices flowing, and maybe it’ll clear away the weird knot of uneasiness in my gut about the way Alex reacted to Tristan.