Some Call it Fate

The cabin had always been a bad penny.

Willed down through the family, a responsibility that no one wanted. We got stuck with it in the end.

Dad attempted, poorly, to make it sound like grand fun to be had. Summers by the lake; winters for cuddling near the pot belly stove. Yet, it sat for many years. Suffering season after season, empty and forlorn, in disrepair. We visited once when I was twelve.

Now I’m forty-two winters in and the crunch of snow under my boots resonates through the icy forest as I make the three-mile trek from the county road.

My breath is sharp, nearly painful as I turn through the final portion of a long-dead trail. This is just what I need, a break in an isolated place to gather myself. At least these are the promises I have sold to my hesitancy.

It’ll be good, I grit silently through chattering teeth. Even my inner voice didn’t sound very convinced. I’ll gather the wood and start the stove.

The final uphill bend and I round the embankment with a particularly sinister looking tree. And there she sits alight from inside.

What the hell?

I don’t hesitate though, warmth lies within and this place is mine. I pull the door wide and as if expecting me, a man I have never seen before sits calmly, waiting.

Through my gasps, I try to manage a firm tone, “And you are?”

He smiles like a fox, “At last.”