2

Sarah’s directions lead her to a dirt road with a beautiful sign that suggests one of the visiting artists was a truly gifted woodcarver. The road rumbles through the forest under trees that kiss overhead, the first orange-dotted leaves drifting to the earth in lazy parabolas. The car windows are all the way down, the familiar scent of oak must and the first breath of fall filtering in with the crisp breeze. There’s a curve and a hill, and then a valley opens up with undulating fields of dying wildflowers in a patchwork of green. When she sees what waits ahead, Sarah’s eyes tear up.

It’s just so beautiful.

Tranquil Falls was once a posh resort where the richest people in America came to soak in the natural beauty, bathe in the mist of the waterfall, and luxuriate in the sumptuous spa. Rockefellers, Du Ponts, Vanderbilts, and Astors stayed here and raved about it. A grand avenue leads down into the valley and up to an impressive building with two wings built into the side of the mountain. Even in a state of decay, it looks like an old hotel out of a Wes Anderson movie. Glorious gold-limned trees line the road in pairs, and Sarah thinks that this is the closest she’ll ever get to feeling like she’s in The Great Gatsby—the first part, though. Not the back half, where everything falls apart.

Although she knows she’s supposed to check in at the community house by the parking lot, she continues driving, past the studios and cabins hidden in the forest, right up to the circular courtyard in front of the stately old resort. A fountain molders in the center, the cherubs missing most of their limbs and the once-creamy stone coated in dark-green streaks. This close, right where visitors would’ve stopped their coaches to enter, she can see evidence that the hotel is no longer the dignified queen she once was. Beyond the tall fence topped with razor wire, pieces of the façade are cracked and crumbling, and those tall front doors are lashed together with a thick, rusty chain.

All of the many, many windows are now boarded up, but the plywood is painted with ornate curtains and beautiful women in costumes right out of Jane Austen movies. A motherly figure with glasses and a gentle smile sits in profile, a book in hand. A young blond woman has her elbows on the sill, gazing out with a look of stark yearning, as if waiting for her beau to stroll up the walk. Two young girls in pigtails giggle together over an orange tabby kitten. An old woman in a bonnet and shawl stares out contemplatively, chin in her hand, as if keeping watch and wary of strangers.

Sarah loves it—loves this artistic touch. The women all look as individual as real people, with expressive emotions. She already feels at home. Satisfied that she’s made the right choice restarting her life here, she circles the fountain and drives back up the promenade.

Just as the brochure and email said, the community house is impossible to miss. It’s an imposing sort of place, an oversized Victorian with a turret and garrets and fanciful details, painted the same green as the surrounding pines with lavender and seafoam detailing. This grand dame served as the boardinghouse for the hotel staff with an expansive penthouse for the large family of one of the two doctors who owned the resort.

There are modern improvements, though. A big air conditioner hums around the corner, and the canted bay window out front is gorgeous stained glass with vines and butterflies. This valley was home to a lively artists’ colony in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, and all of the other cabins and outbuildings were constructed by the original founders of the colony and enhanced over the years by visiting creatives. The mountains here aren’t stark and regal, like the ones back in Colorado. They’re smaller, rounded, cradling the valley as their forests ripple down like a threadbare quilt dappled with green, gold, and orange. Cabins peek out enticingly from between the trees, the autumn sun flashing on a window here, a patch of roof there. The waterfall is behind the old hotel, Sarah knows, although apparently it’s too dangerous to allow visitors to enter the pool as the hotel guests once did. Still, she’s never been so excited about a place in her entire life.

This is the first thing she’s chosen on her own, without pressure from her mother or Kyle. This is the first thing she’s done for herself.

She parks in the gravel lot by the community house, leaving a few spaces between her car and the ancient, beat-up truck that’s sprawled out almost diagonally. After giving her hair a quick brush and putting on some lip balm, she walks up the stairs and pauses before the front door, which looks like it might’ve been carved by the same person who did the sign she saw by the road. Vines and flowers curl everywhere, with pots and paintbrushes and hammers and scissors and yarn hidden among the greenery. A wooden plaque reads December House. No dates, no further information. Sarah wonders if it’s a historic landmark. When she googled Tranquil Falls while researching her next step, the only information available online came from the program’s About Us page.

Pushing through the door, Sarah’s first impression is of honey-gold light and incense. There’s a small store like you’d see in any hotel, snacks and pain meds and feminine hygiene products, plus glass water bottles and books and homemade soap and bath salts. The reception desk facing the door is carved with what might be a scene from Bambi, all the forest creatures posed dramatically. Through open French doors on the left, she can see the cafeteria—and smell something fallish baking, yeast and cinnamon and apple. The door to the right is closed, but when Sarah is done looking around and gently taps the brass bell on the desk, that’s the door that bursts open.

The woman who appears looks sturdy and eclectic, like she can wrestle a bear or do downward dog, as necessary. She’s a young-hearted sixty, maybe, with bobbed gray hair, big earrings, bigger glasses, and a capacious purple sweater that looks hand-knit. Although she’s flustered, the moment she sees Sarah, her face does a one-eighty, going from annoyed to warm and welcoming.

“Let me see your hands,” she says.

“What?” Sarah is taken aback by this greeting.

The woman chuckles. “It’s a game I play. I can guess who’s who by looking at their hands.” Instead of going behind the counter, she bustles over to Sarah in a cloud of lavender and plucks up one of her hands, turning it over. “No ink, so it can’t be calligraphy. Fingertips aren’t callused, so not the musician. No burns, so not the welder. No darkroom stains, so not the photographer. Although I suppose you could wear gloves.” She squints as she looks Sarah up and down, making Sarah want to squirm. “Nothing knit or bespoke. That makes you either the potter or the glass artist. But I know what the glass girl looks like so that makes you…” She grins. “Sarah. The potter.”

She releases Sarah’s hand, and Sarah steps back. Between Covid and Kyle’s anxiety, she hasn’t been this close to someone else in quite some time. “That’s me,” she says.

“You’re the first here, or it would be easier to pick you out of the lineup. I’m Gail. I’m the property owner and resident adviser.” She gestures down at her sweater. “And an artist myself. Welcome to Tranquil Falls.”

She’s smiling aggressively and obviously expects some response to this, so Sarah says, “Thanks! I’m so glad to be here. I know I applied late, and I haven’t been in the studio in a while—”

“Nonsense.” Gail brushes a hand through the air as if wiping away Sarah’s past. “We’d always rather facilitate someone returning to their passion or exploring something new than some smug little shit just out of art school who thinks they know everything, you know? This place is for rediscovering yourself. You’re exactly the kind of person we’re looking for.”

She doesn’t mention the sob story Sarah told in her application about escaping an abusive relationship, but the pity in her eyes suggests she remembers it.

“So this is December House, as I’m sure you saw,” Gail says. “We have a little store here. There’s a ledger, so if there’s no one around, just write down your name and what you took, and we’ll settle up every Sunday. George!” she calls suddenly. “George, get in here!” She looks back to Sarah. “My husband George is our handyman. He does plumbing, electrical, leaks, pests, that sort of thing.”

The door swings open again, and a sleepy-eyed wizard in a bulky brown sweater appears, blinking at her like he’s been napping since the place was built. He waves at Sarah, nods at Gail, and shuffles back through the door. His gray ponytail matches his gray beard, and he’s wearing bunny slippers, Sarah notes. The man doesn’t look like he could turn on a faucet, much less fix one.

“Now, over here,” Gail says, leading Sarah toward the open double doors, “we have the café. My daughter Bridget does the cooking, and we both do cleaning. You’re on your own for laundry, but we have two sets of machines in the basement around the back of the house.”

The café has six rectangular tables and a small buffet, which is empty just now. To one side, a selection of teas waits, along with honey and sugar and one of those machines that heats water to scalding. Gail heads for a swinging door with an Employees Only sign and opens it to show a brunette in her twenties, red-faced and dripping with sweat as she checks something in a huge oven.

“This is my Bridget,” Gail says in a no-nonsense voice lacking any affection. “Bridget, this is Sarah, the potter.”

Bridget looks up and shoves damp hair out of her face. Sarah wonders if she should be wearing a hairnet for this sort of thing but isn’t about to ask because Bridget looks like she’d spit in someone’s soup.

“Hi,” Sarah says with a little wave.

Bridget gives her a death glare before refocusing on Gail. “Is that all?”

“We talked about this,” Gail hisses. “Being nice to our residents is part of the job.”

Bridget snorts and turns away to check the other oven. “When you pay me a living wage, you can ask me to smile.”

Flustered again, Gail hooks her arm through Sarah’s and guides her out of the café as if that interaction had never happened. “Breakfast is served from seven to eight, lunch from noon to one, and dinner from six to seven. You’ll hear the bell ringing. If you can’t make it, let us know, and we’ll box up a plate for you. The food is excellent. Bridget has a degree in food science. She’s just a whiz with spices.”

If that spice is rage, Sarah thinks but doesn’t say.

Back in the front room, the mood is calm again, the air hazy with incense. Gail reaches under the counter and holds up a key attached to a slice of wood with a bird carved into it. “You’re in Cardinal Cabin,” Gail tells her. “It’s close enough to the pottery studio. Should have everything you need in there. Did you read all the attachments in the email?”

Sarah nods. She read everything she could about this place, like a little kid studying up on Disney World. It took approximately five minutes, as there’s almost no information online, and the “attachments” Gail is referring to was a single page.

“So you know there’s no WiFi, almost no cellphone signal here in the valley. If you head up the mountain, you might get a bar, depending on your carrier.”

Sarah whips out her phone and checks. Sure enough, no bars, and not a single WiFi signal.

Gail nods knowingly. “It takes some getting used to.” She leans down and holds up a big brick of a phone. “I’ve got this satellite phone for emergencies. And December House is wired, of course.” She nods toward an ancient black landline phone with a curly cord. “You’re welcome to make any calls you need to here. We’re happy to give you privacy. If there are any long-distance bills, we’ll settle that at the end of your stay. But your cabin has electricity, just no phone. Most people say it helps them find their muse.”

Sarah hasn’t been without a phone in twenty years, and she’s a little nervous, but also a little excited. No one can reach her. There’s no way to track her through social posts, no way to text her at three in the morning like Kyle was doing before she blocked his number. She feels…oddly free.

“Good so far?” Gail asks.

Sarah nods. “Yeah, it all sounds great.”

“Good.” Gail pulls out a xeroxed copy of a hand-drawn map. “You can keep this. Here we are”—she points out December House—“and here’s Cardinal Cabin, right across from the pottery studio. You can see all the studios and trails here.” The map shows the studios for pottery, fiber arts, painting, music, photography, printing, jewelry, and glass, as well as a forge, all inside a big oval. Around the oval, the seven cabins are set back from the road, each marked with a drawing of a different kind of bird. “We have more studios than artists, so we just keep the ones we don’t need locked up.” She uses a black Sharpie to put an X over the jewelry and painting buildings. “There are various walking and hiking trails around the property, well marked by color.” She takes out red, blue, and orange markers and draws dots by the trailheads. “There are some old trails, too, but they’re closed due to rockslides and such. They’re taped off. Definitely stay off those.”

“Okay.”

“And here’s the most important thing.” Gail puts her hands on the counter and leans forward, suddenly very serious. “The old resort is off limits. Completely off limits. There’s a fence for a reason. The doors are chained shut because it is absolutely not safe in there. The floors are all rotten, the stairs are falling down, the ceilings are collapsed in several places. If you go in there, you get kicked out of here permanently. Got it?”

“Got it,” Sarah says.

“And remember—if you get hurt, it’s a long ride to the hospital. If it’s bad enough to need an ambulance, it won’t get here in time. You don’t want to risk that, do you?”

“Of course not!” Sarah says, taken aback by the fact that it sounds like a threat.

“We’ve just got to make sure,” Gail says tiredly. “People are so accustomed to phones and living five minutes away from dependable medical care. This is practically Little House on the Prairie, you know? Oh, and if you see a bear, don’t run away. Walk slowly away from it, backward, trying to look big.”

“Are bears a problem?” Sarah asks, because that wasn’t mentioned on the website.

Gail laughs like this question is hilarious and not directly based on what she just said. “Of course not! There’s never been a recorded black bear attack in this county. The little guys show up and try to get in the trash, but they won’t bother you. And they’ll mostly be going to sleep, once the cold kicks in.”

Sarah fidgets, half because this has been the most bizarre introduction of her life and half because she’s been driving through the mountains for hours and has to pee. Gail nods and flaps a hand at her.

“Go on and get settled. Dinner’s at six, remember. We should have everybody in by then, and we’ll have a bonfire after. Bridget’s making apple buckle.” She slides the map across the counter, and Sarah takes it.

“Thanks,” she says. “Anything else I need to know?”

Gail’s face scrunches up. “I think that’s it, but menopause is a real pain in the ass, you know? If anything comes up, just ask. And if I remember anything, I’ll tell you. Our living quarters are through that door—our private family space, you understand—but if you ring the bell, someone is always around. Now shoo!”

Sarah takes her map and her key and heads back out to her car. Her rolling suitcases bump over the gravel path into the woods, and her arms begin to ache from tugging them over uneven stones. She passes cabins marked with a robin, a heron, a goose, a bluebird, and an owl. Well, they’re called cabins, but they don’t all look like cabins. One is a tree house, one resembles a castle, several look like they were just hammered together with whatever was lying around, constructions of whimsy decorated with artistry and oddly shaped, flat glass windows. There’s the pottery studio, and then there’s her cabin, marked with a bright-red cardinal. It’s not a tree house, but there is a tree growing through the center of it, and she likes the look of the two chairs on the porch. She turns her key and opens the door, and she’s hit with a wall of stench, the worst thing she’s ever smelled in her life.

When she turns on the light, she sees it.

Lying on her carefully made bed is a dead possum, bloated and crawling with maggots.

She drops her bags, hurries out the door, and vomits on the path.