You don’t get it, do you?
Aubrey’s words simmer in Maya’s head as she walks home. She’s so distracted that she steps in front of a car as it pulls out of a gas station. The driver honks. The air smells like gasoline. Her plan had been to smooth things over with Frank, but instead the opposite had happened. He was upset with her when he left Dunkin’ Donuts—but he was the one who’d made a point of seeing Aubrey again.
Why?
Her mom looks up as Maya walks in the front door. She’s on the couch, feet on the coffee table, painting her toenails yellow. A nature documentary plays on TV. “What is it?” she asks.
“Nothing.” Maya doesn’t want to hear again about how Frank won’t matter once she gets to BU. She goes to her room.
Her mom knocks gently on the door. “Hey.” She peeks her head in. “Is this about Frank?”
Maya starts to cry. She’s never been good at keeping things inside. She tells her mom that she caught Aubrey with Frank at Dunkin’ Donuts.
“This is Aubrey you’re talking about,” her mom says. “Since when do the two of you fight over some guy?”
The words burn because Maya knows they’re true.
“You’ve known him—what? Two weeks?”
“So?” Maya asks even as she sees her mom’s point. “So what?”
“Do you think you might be a little too into him? When’s the last time you looked at your father’s book?”
Maya can’t argue, so she doesn’t, and her mom gives up and goes back to the living room and her nature documentary.
It’s a good thing she doesn’t know, Maya thinks, about her potential deferral at BU, as she would hate for her mom to share her awful uncertainty about the future. She has never been one of those teenagers who can’t wait to get away from her family. Maybe it’s because hers feels so small: her mom is often at odds with her parents, who continue to find reasons to be disappointed in her even now that they’ve forgiven her for having Maya. It’s always been her and her mom against the world. These last few nights living at home would have been emotional under any circumstance, but instead of trying to cherish this time that she spends preparing and eating dinner with her mom, Maya thinks only of Frank. She hardly tastes the fresh basil in the eggplant stir-fry, or the coconut milk in the rice.
Instead she replays the smile she caught Frank giving Aubrey, like he was her getaway driver in some romantic heist. Maya used to think that smile was just for her; now she doesn’t know what to think. Frank had been so vulnerable with her the night before last, telling her painful things about his childhood, and had seemed so sincere when he confessed his feelings for her. I spend all this time with you because there’s no one else I’d rather be with. She’d memorized the words as soon as they left his mouth. But had he meant them?
You don’t get it, do you? Aubrey had said, and she was right. Maya doesn’t have a clue. But after dwelling on it all throughout dinner with her mom in the garden at sunset, Maya decides she needs an answer. Because if Frank thinks he can kiss her and discard her for her (prettier) friend, he’s going to have to tell her to her face. Maya won’t leave town without knowing. If the library were going to be open tomorrow, she’d wait until then, but since it will be closed, she’ll just have to go over to Frank’s house and ask him.
She knows generally where that is (at the edge of the forest) and can probably find the exact address in the phone book. The only problem is getting there. It’s too far to bike. She’ll have to borrow her mom’s car—but will her mom lend it to her knowing her plans?
“Did you feel that?” her mom asks.
“Feel what?”
A raindrop on her cheek. Maya looks up at the sky. It’s lightly cloudy. “Should we go in?”
They wait. No more drops. They have brought out a folding table and a pitcher of limeade and cups. “I think we’re fine,” says her mom.
Maya has an idea. “Hey, could I drop you off at work tonight and borrow the car?”
Her mom looks over at her.
“You know,” Maya says, “since it seems like it could rain. I was thinking I might go over to Aubrey’s tonight.”
“Sure,” her mom says, unsuspecting.
Another raindrop lands on Maya’s shoulder. She feels her face getting hot.
The weather holds as Maya drives out past Onota Lake, where the houses grow farther apart and the trees closer together. There are hardly any lights along these narrow roads. She found Frank’s father’s address in the phone book, then matched it to the phone number Frank had given her—the phone number to the landline no one answers.
She almost misses the turn onto Cascade Street. Running along the edge of the state forest, it looks more like a paved trail than a street. Trees grow thick along both sides. Maya feels nervous. Frank has never told her what is wrong with his dad. He’s used words like malignant and terminal but never named the illness, and she has never pressed him on it. Because who is she to make him talk about something painful?
Now she wishes that she knew more about what she was walking into. Here on this dark, wooded road, she feels less fired up than she did back home. She thinks back to the troubles Frank alluded to, the fights that had driven him into the forest as a child. There is so much Maya doesn’t know about him, so much he’s glossed over.
She is thinking about turning around when the mailbox appears on her right. She can see the number on it; the house itself is invisible from the road, set back at the end of a long driveway. Anyone who would choose to live out here must value their privacy—showing up like this could be seen as an intrusion.
And yet she has come all this way. And Frank has always felt free to drop in on her.
She tells herself she’ll knock quietly so as not to wake Frank’s father if he happens to be asleep. If no one answers, she’ll turn around and drive home.
The house is bigger and more impressive than she expected. She had taken Frank’s worn-out clothes and part-time library job as evidence that he, and by extension his father, weren’t well-off. But now she sees that they live in a stately colonial with tall windows and a steeply gabled roof. Frank’s car is parked out front, and all the downstairs lights are on.
Maya parks at the edge of the driveway and tucks her flip phone into her back pocket before getting out of the car. Now that she’s here, she can’t believe she’s doing this. Even though they are fighting, she wishes Aubrey were with her.
Tall grasses brush her calves as she walks across the lawn. No one’s mowed here in a long time. She hears crickets. The wind in the leaves. The moon is full but mostly hidden, and the air has a heavy feel. She takes a deep breath before knocking.
The footsteps are immediate. They hurry to the door, then pause. Please be Frank, please be Frank.
Frank’s dad, an older, squatter, paler version of Frank, opens the door. Gray hair and a pronounced gut, but the same small chin. The same thin lips. His eyes narrow as he tries, and fails, to place her. “Who are you?”
“Hi, I’m Maya. I was wondering if—”
“Why are you here?” He speaks quietly but with urgency.
“I’m looking for Frank.”
Bewilderment from his dad. “Frank? You’re here for Frank?”
“Yes, but . . . if this is a bad time . . .” She can’t tell what’s wrong with him. He’s edgy and strange but doesn’t look sick.
“He’s not here. I’ll tell him you stopped by.”
But Frank’s car, she thinks. It’s right there in the driveway. “Can I ask where he went?”
He waves his hand dismissively toward the woods. “Oh, somewhere out back.”
Somewhere out back? “He’s at his cabin?”
This question seems to catch him off guard. Then his surprise gives way to a smile that is chillingly like his son’s but without the warmth, and it’s like the difference between laughing with someone and laughing at them. “Yeah,” he says. “I suppose that’s where he is.”
“How do I get there?” She tries to sound confident, but Frank’s dad makes her nervous.
“To the cabin? You’d have to walk there, and it’s dark out.”
“I know,” she says. But even mostly covered, the full moon is bright and there’s a small flashlight on her mom’s key chain.
“The road starts just back there,” he says, a strange mirth to his voice that she doesn’t like. He points around the side of the house. “Follow it until you come to a stream, then cross over. You’ll find my son on the other side. It’s not far, but you really should have a light. Do you?”
She holds up the key chain light.
“That won’t be enough. Wait here.”
While he’s gone, she peers through the partly open door into the cluttered foyer. A small writing desk crouches at the base of wide, dark stairs, its top littered with unopened mail. Stacks of newspapers and what look like magazines or trade journals line the wall. She has a bad feeling. She knows she should leave but feels compelled by something darker than curiosity, some other impulse she doesn’t try to name.
A light blinks on—a strong white beam—directly in her eyes. It blinds her, and she stumbles back, hands flying up to cover her face.
“Sorry,” Frank’s father says, standing right in front of her now. “Just making sure it works.”
The light clicks off, but its afterimage is all she can see. He presses the heavy flashlight into her hand. She’s disoriented as he follows her back outside and points her to the abandoned road out back. An old logging road, reclaimed by forest but still holding its shape. The smell of rain is in the air, rich, earthy. No one’s driven on this road in a long time, its old asphalt carpeted in dead leaves and growing things. Saplings, ferns, moss. She’s grateful for the flashlight as the trees thicken around her. She runs the light ahead of her as she walks. A rabbit darts across her path and she flinches. There are other dangers out here beside getting lost, and yet it’s like she is helpless to turn around.
She tries to anticipate how Frank will react to her showing up unannounced. Why is he so secretive about the place?
You don’t get it, do you?
Maya walks faster. She hears the stream before she sees it, a light trickle just ahead, and it reminds her of Frank’s story about how it was that sound that led him back to the road when he was lost. The sound of its water as he described it to her was so clear that she feels something like recognition as she begins moving toward the bridge.
A cloud covers the moon. The flashlight flickers in her hand.
The door closes at her back.
“Wow,” she says.
Frank has just let her inside and although she had known what to expect, nothing could have prepared her for this. The amount of work and love he must have put into the place. The level of skill. It’s hard to believe this is the first cabin Frank has built. Tilting her head back, she looks up and recalls how he had used the term cathedral ceiling, and she hadn’t known what he meant, but now she understands how a ceiling can make a place feel holy. The height, the soaring beams, everything made of pine and rose gold by the fire. Between its light and the many votive candles glittering on windowsills and countertops and the moonlight streaming through the windows, Maya can see everything, and it is beautiful.
“What do you think?”
“It’s . . .” She turns to him. “Amazing.” She doesn’t mean to speak so slow. Moments ago, she’d been rushing here through the woods, all upset about Frank and Aubrey having coffee. (But then what? And why can’t she remember crossing the bridge? Or knocking on the door, or Frank letting her inside? It’s as if she has skipped the last few minutes like a track on a CD.) That hardly seems to matter now, though. All Maya knows is that being here, she feels better. Safe. She is ready to let go of all that other stuff.
She’s just so happy to be here with him.
“Here,” he says, offering her his hand. “Let me show you around.”
Her hand is strangely hard to lift, so he catches it for her. He threads their fingers together. Her steps are unsure as he walks her around the airy, open floor plan. She feels heavy. Pleasantly drowsy. It must be the fire.
The stone fireplace is built into the wall. The gray stones go all the way up to the ceiling, smooth and round, ranging from the size of her fist to as large as a cantaloupe. Maya and Frank pause, basking in the warmth. She closes her eyes, feels the heat on her face. She smells the burning wood.
He leads her up a wooden ladder in the center of the room. The ladder is made of the same honey-colored pine as the walls. The rungs are solid in her hands, polished to a shine, but like in the rest of the cabin, the natural unevenness of the wood has been preserved. The rungs are like branches.
The loft is like a tree house she might have wished for as a child. The ceiling slopes down to meet the floor on either side of an oversized bed covered with pillows and blankets. The perfect place to lie and look up at the stars through the round, curved skylight in the roof. Frank has lit candles here too, and she sees flowers arranged in a glass jar on the wooden table by the bed. He must have known that she was coming.
When she feels his hand on her shoulder, she thinks that he will lead her to the bed. And that she will go. But instead he guides her gently back down the ladder, telling her that he has something on the stove.
He’s making them dinner, and when he pulls the lid off his pot, a fragrant wave of steam tumbles out. The smell of cooked meat and aromatics, earthy vegetables and comforting spices. Sage. Garlic. Her mouth waters, even though she already ate dinner. Frank sets two bowls on the table. It’s a stew, but she can’t tell what kind. Some kind of meat and vegetables.
“Do you remember,” he says before picking up his spoon, “when I told you that I had never shown this place to anyone?”
She nods. She wants to start eating but thinks the polite thing would be to wait.
“Well, it’s true,” he says. He gazes at her from across the table, candlelight gleaming in his eyes. “You’re the only one who’s ever been here.”
“Oh . . . I’m . . . honored.”
“I don’t invite just anyone,” he continues. “This cabin . . . it means a lot to me. It’s the one place my dad can’t find me.”
She flashes back to his father. His anxious eyes. His health. She can’t explain why she has such a bad feeling about him.
Frank leans forward. He rests his forearms on the table. “I put everything I had into this place. I thought I had everything I needed. But you know what? It felt empty, lonely. I needed to bring someone else here, but not just anyone would be able to find it. But you, Maya. As soon as I saw you, I knew that I’d bring you here someday.”
“Why . . .” she asks. Her hand rests on the spoon, but she doesn’t pick it up.
“Why?” he says. “Because of the way I watched you read your father’s book, day after day. It was like nothing else existed. I don’t think you even knew where you were.”
Maya tilts her head.
“And, of course,” he adds, “I chose you because . . . well, look at you, Maya. You’re beautiful.”
This makes her redden. She has been called cute before, even pretty a few times, but only her mom has ever told her she’s beautiful.
Frank looks like he’s about to say something else—something big, like I love you. He looks vulnerable. Full of hope.
“I think you should stay,” he says.
She blinks at him. “What?”
“Stay.”
He smiles and leans back in his chair, relaxed. He picks up his spoon and begins to eat.
“Are you . . . asking me to move in?”
“Mm-hmm,” he says around a mouthful of stew. “I’m asking you to think about it. Think how easy it would be. No need to pay rent or deal with some random roommate. Nothing to worry about. No trying to make it in the big, crowded city, trying to find a job. Here . . .” He opens his arms to her, welcoming. “You’d have all this.”
“Frank, I . . .”
Something’s definitely off here. She practically flew here tonight in a fit of jealousy, yet now she is thinking about moving in with him.
The fragrant steam rising from her bowl tickles her nose, distracting and enticing, and she thinks about how she had, after all, been thinking about deferring at BU. Her mom wouldn’t like her living with Frank, but soon Maya will be eighteen and can do whatever she wants. And maybe this is what she wants. To be with Frank. To live in this beautiful cabin he’s built.
Her mouth waters. Her stomach growls.
“You don’t have to decide right now,” he says. “Let’s just enjoy dinner. You haven’t even tried it yet.”
Maya dips her spoon into her bowl but doesn’t bring it to her mouth.
There’s something about the sight of him across the table, his face shrouded in steam. A half-formed image of people walking through clouds. Faces emerging from mist. Where was it that she’d seen this? In a movie?
“Maya?”
She stares at him, unable to explain her growing unease. The image, remembering where it’s from, feels urgent, like a gas stove accidentally left on in the kitchen. A thing she must articulate, must attend to before something bad happens.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Something’s . . . wrong.”
“Oh, sweetie . . .” He smiles lovingly at her. “Nothing’s wrong.”
She closes her eyes, unease blooming into dread.
Caras en la niebla. The words come to her in Spanish, though she doesn’t know why. La niebla—she only recently learned the word for mist, having come across it while translating her father’s book.
Her father’s book! The village in the clouds. This is what she’s reminded of here—Pixán’s true home, the place he yearns for. She opens her eyes to find Frank staring at her. A wave of dizziness.
“Listen to me,” he says. “Whatever’s wrong, we’ll figure it out together. Nothing to worry about.”
But the story feels like a warning. Like Pixán, Maya has forgotten something. Her heart beats faster as she thinks back to the last moment she can recall before arriving here: The sound of water as she approached the bridge. The flickering flashlight in her hand. “Why . . .” she says, face growing crowded. “Why can’t I remember?”
Frank sets down his spoon. He stands, walks slowly around the table, never breaking eye contact, his face calm.
Maya begins to shiver.
He kneels at her side, eye level, as if he intends to propose.
Her shivers grow deeper. The cold is in her bones.
“Relax,” he says. “You’re having a panic attack.”
He takes her left hand, which she has curled into a fist, and pries it open, finger by finger. He presses something small and hard into her palm. She knows what it is before she sees it. She feels its metal teeth.
The rain strikes her face, her arms, her chest. She draws a sharp breath. The drops are like a bucket of ice water sloshed unexpectedly on her head. She clutches her elbows, unsteady on her feet.
Frank is there to catch her. He walks beside her, arm around her shoulders, his father’s flashlight in the other hand. He shines it on the ground just ahead of Maya so she won’t trip over anything as they make their way back down the abandoned road. The forest is dark. “What—what’s happening?” she asks, but her voice is lost beneath the drumming of rain on leaves, branches, and earth. The rain soaks her clothes, running in rivulets from the frayed hem of her shorts.
Her hands feel raw, and when she looks at them, she sees dirt. There’s dirt on her palms and knees. She stops walking, shrugs out from under the weight of Frank’s arm. Turns to face him.
He looks worried. “What is it?” His voice is measured, but his jaw is tight, as if he’s more upset than he’s letting on. He doesn’t try to shield himself from the rain plastering his hair to his scalp.
“What the hell is going on?” she asks.
He looks confused.
She can’t stop shivering.
He opens his arms to her, offering warmth, but she flinches away from his touch, and he looks hurt. But this time she’s sure of it. This time there’s dirt on her hands and knees, and the fact that she doesn’t know how it got there chills her more than the cold rain.
“What did you do to me?”
The question takes him aback. He raises his hands as if to show her they’re empty, that he doesn’t mean her harm. “You said you wanted to leave,” he says. “Asked me to walk you back to your car, so that’s what I’m doing.”
Bewildered, she looks back over her shoulder, as if the way they’d come might hold a clue to the last few minutes, but all she sees is the overgrown road disappearing into dark woods. “Why can’t I remember?” she asks. The wind picks up, sharpening the rain. She shouldn’t be here. Aubrey was right—Frank is weird—and for the first time, she senses he could be dangerous.
She turns and continues walking in the direction they’ve been going, hoping that it is, in fact, the way back to her car.
“Wait, Maya.” But the note of pleading in his voice makes her walk faster. He follows her, lighting her path even as she tries to get away from him. She breaks into a run as soon as she sees the dark outline of his father’s house, the rain pounding, her sneakers kicking up mud. She’s soaked and out of breath as she crosses the wild lawn to the street where her car is parked and unlocks her door with trembling hands. She turns back, expecting to see Frank, but now he’s gone, and the only sound is rain and her own heaving breath and heart.