Choices

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

I jerked awake from yet another nightmare. Sweaty and clammy, hating my life and situation with every ounce of my being, I sat up and considered the idea of jumping into the lake and staying under until the nightmares ended. But when I managed to focus in the dark, I focused on the candle burning in the window of the cabin across the lake.

Jess and I bought this cabin the year we married. We’d been looking for a let’s-get-lost place, and this cabin on this lake filled all the boxes of our requirements. Remote, but close enough to town to ride our bikes or even kayak across the lake for supplies. Away from the city, but only a little more than an hour from out cramped apartment. There was our own dock where we kept our kayaks and two Adirondack chairs where we watched the sun come up while we drank our morning coffee or sat beside a fire in the firepit after dark. The cabin itself was a bit primitive, but had working plumbing and hot water, and I had satellite installed for Wi-Fi. Over the last four years of our marriage, we’d updated it to fit our needs, and more and more we’d begun searching for ways to work remote and give up the apartment life altogether.

There were hiking paths, and we spent a lot to time fishing or reading or talking or coming up with our next favorite dinner. The winters here were often cold, but I paid for firewood and the fireplace heated the entire place. It was perfect. My life with Jess, the woman who held my heart was perfect. The perfection ended three months ago when Jess woke me in the middle of the night.

“T.B.?” T.B. was my secret nickname she’d given me. She only used it when we were alone. Never mind they were my true initials for Thaddeus Birkshire, III. “T.B. stands for The Best, because that’s what I’ve got,” she often said. When we were around anyone else, I was Thad to her, just as I was to everyone else.

“There’s someone in here.”

Her whisper seemed to crack through the silence. Her hand on my bare shoulder trembled.

I heard nothing.

But then I did.

Someone was in the kitchen, looking through what sounded like the drawer under the microwave.

I was suddenly sick to my stomach, but I forced my legs to slide me out of bed as silent as possible. My cell was on the bedside table. I reached for it. However, we were packing to leave the next morning for the cabin, and I stepped into my duffle bag and stumbled over it.

That is where my memory of that night stops.

I’m told the guy had a gun, he was in the wrong apartment, searching for money and/or drugs. I remember none of it. All I remember is waking up in a hospital bed after a month-long medically induced coma to learn my wife was dead from a gunshot wound. I had a gunshot wound, too, although not fatal. The main concern for me was a brain injury from him beating me over the head with a blunt object, maybe his gun, maybe the flashlight that was on my nightstand, maybe it was a bottle of olive oil from the kitchen. It doesn’t matter.

I can tell you, there is nothing worse than waking up and discovering your life has been ripped away from you. After three months, that guy is still out there running around, probably robbing others. The police say they are working on it. I’m not sure I believe them.

I spent time working to heal, although I didn’t want to. I wanted to join my wife. I spent time standing in the rain at her graveside, wishing for answers, looking for any way to ease the pain that burned through me.

After several months, I came to our cabin alone. I couldn’t function without Jess. I couldn’t stay another night in our apartment. I couldn’t breathe sometimes. So here I am, searching for comfort or perhaps a simple remnant of my former life, anything I could hold on to that would give me reason to take another step forward.

Sitting out on the dock next to an empty chair last evening after my arrival, I watched the fish jump now and then. My heart was as empty as Jess’s chair. The lake is surrounded by houses. The nearest to my cabin is an A-frame. The walkway leads down to a dock that is just eleven feet from mine. The place is owned by a family with the last name of Bench. Although we were always polite, Jess had quite the vocabulary regarding them. “What a bench.” Or “Oh, look at all the little benches.” Or, “Oh, look another new, little bench showed up over the winter. I guess they’ll have to store that one in the kitchen. They’ve got quite the bench mob over there. I wonder where they all sleep.”

Right then one of them stood on dock not too far away. He must have been about twelve, still a kid with carrot-top hair, but old enough to understand my wife was never again going to be sitting in the chair beside me. “How ya doing, Thad?”

“Fine,” I lied.

“Not really, I know.” He spoke with an odd sense of understanding for a kid. “We’re having hot dogs with macaroni and cheese if you want to come over here.”

I guess I did look a lot like the lonely, lost dog. But I didn’t take the offer. It wasn’t that I didn’t think I could handle seeing the happy Bench family stuffing hot dogs into their mouths. It was that I didn’t think I could step into my empty cabin afterward. “Thanks anyway, maybe tomorrow.”

I sat out there until night blanketed the lake. It was still hard stepping into the cabin. I didn’t turn on the lights. I couldn’t look at it. I made my way in the dark where I flopped down onto our bed and cried myself to sleep.

It’s strange, I don’t remember Jess’s murder. I don’t remember being shot. But I have nightmares about it every time I sleep. Tonight, was no exception.

In my dream, my nightmare, I actually know I’m dreaming, and I can’t wake up. “T.B., there’s someone in here.”

Jess’s words send my dreaming heart pounding. I even taste bile on my tongue. In every night past since waking to find my wife is dead, I slide out of bed. I see a flash. I hear a scream, and I startle awake.

This time there was a different nightmare. This night, Jess said more than her simple sentence that there was someone rummaging through our apartment. “We’d be safe if we could get to the cabin,” she whispered.

“Our cabin on the lake?”

“No, the cabin across the lake from ours.”

“That abandoned shack?”

“Yes. But we have to hurry. Now!”

I woke, sat up.

And that was when I saw the candle in the window of the cabin in the woods across the lake. My focus on it wiped away any lingering remnants of my nightmare.

And as I stared at it, I felt drawn to it.

For the first year Jess and I owned this cabin and spent every possible free moment here, swimming and kayaking or whatever, we didn’t know that cabin existed. It wasn’t until winter set in and there were no leaves on the trees that Jess even noticed part of a structure through the trees and pointed it out to me. It was some distance from the lake, unlike all the other houses that had docks to give access to the water. The following spring on a nice day, we hiked around the lake to explore it, but the many NO TRESPASSING signs and the overgrown brush we would need a machete to hack through just to reach the porch steps made us keep our distance. Besides from what we could see, it was just a run-down, abandoned set of walls with a roof. Jess had joked we’d probably fall through the floor and break a leg. If there was even still a floor left in it, that is.

Now there was the light of a single candle in the window.

In my bed, I leaned forward, as if the few inches would make any difference when it came to seeing details from across the lake.

Apparently, it did. A shadowy figure moved across the window.

I saw it clearly.

I actually jumped back and fell back on the bed. Then I realized how ridiculous that seemed. I had no light on in the cabin except for the old naked bulb in the bathroom in the back which Jess and I always left on in case we needed to find our way there in the middle of the night. That light wouldn’t be seen from this direction.

In the dark, there was no way anyone from across the lake would know or see I was watching him or her. And yet…

The dark figure returned to the window and remained there. As if looking back at me.

My heart pounded in my chest so hard I struggled to suck in a breath. Although why the idea bothered me so much, I had no idea. If I saw any other neighbors peering out any of their windows or lighting candle or turning on a light, I would ignore them and think nothing of it. But this was different.

I felt watched.

I felt whoever stood at that candle-lit window studied me, waited for me.

Remaining low and out of sight, I slid out of bed, crouching beneath the window.

For a single moment, I forgot, I actually forgot, Jess was not there beside me. “Jess, there’s a candle lit in the window of that old cabin.”

She wasn’t there to reply, but I know if she was, she would have said, “Oh, let’s go explore and see who is crazy enough to whittle their way into that place.”

That was Jess—fearless and adventurous.

In the dark, I slipped on a pair of shorts and a tee shirt before struggling into my running shoes without socks. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but it did the trick.

With a flashlight in hand, I stepped out into the dark. Crickets sang. I remembered a night a year ago, just like this, when Jess had awakened me to say, “Hey, T.B. it’s a perfect night. Let’s go for a moonlit swim.”

My heart actually hurt with the idea nights like that were over.

I heard two or three fish jump in the lake. At least I think that’s what I heard. It was too dark to see, and I didn’t turn on my flashlight until I reached the overgrown brush near the old cabin. The Bench cabin was completely dark, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t up stumbling to the bathroom. And the next three houses I had to pass before reaching the cabin with the candle in the window were all dark, too. I didn’t need any questions to why I was out wandering around in the middle of the night.

The candle in the window was a beacon guiding me anyway.

When I knew I was out of sight of anyone, I flipped on the flashlight and stopped in my tracks at what was lit up by that single beam.

The path leading to that old cabin was cleared as if the owner had hired a lawn care company.

“Impossible,” I let out. That job would have taken a while.

“Of course, I haven’t been here in a while.”

My words didn’t convince me. I didn’t believe anyone bought this piece of property. If they had the cabin might have been the first thing to be demolished. It would have been easier to start from scratch than to just fix. And it did, indeed, appear fixed. Not just redone, or repainted, but as if some magic genie blinked and made it like new again.

What was even more perplexing was the door standing ajar. As did everyone around the lake, we had screens on all our windows. We had screened doors on both the front and back doors, doing everything possible to keep bugs out of our living space. Here, the door was wide open. I was amazed at the candlelight that poured from that opening, just beckoning bugs.

And me.

I stepped up the three stairs. Previously I hadn’t even known there were three steps there, they’d been too covered by overgrown brush and brambles to see them, much less count them.

In the light of that single candle, I saw the large, open room. I was pretty certain The Squeaky Clean cleaning service had just whirled through and managed to suck up every speck of dust. The welcoming aroma of coffee invaded my senses and filled me with such a sense of longing, I thought my knees might buckle. Our cabin would smell just like that before Jess and I took our cups down to sit on the dock and start our morning.

A figure wearing a black hooded robe sat at the table, his back to me. But I was able to see the head rise and shift as I stood in the doorway, as if acknowledging my sudden presence.

“Please come in, T.B.”

“How do you know my name?”

“That’s not really your name, is it? It’s just your special name. Am I right?”

I didn’t answer, thinking obviously my usual nightmare had taken some odd turn. I should step away and leave, just find my way back to my lonely bed.

“I can grant a wish for you,” the stranger said.

I chuckled. Maybe this really was a genie who simply wished all the mess away and made the place like new.

“I can make your life like new, too.”

Was he reading my mind?

“I can do more than read your mind, T.B. I can give you exactly what you want. All you have to do is ask.”

“How can you do that?”

“The how is not important, really, is it?”

Maybe this wasn’t a dream after all. Maybe I’d lost my ever-loving mind somewhere in all the weight of my grief. “No, I guess not. But hey, yeah, I’ll take the bait and ask. I want my life back to the way it was. I want my wife alive and healthy and beside me. Can you really do that?”

“In the blink of an eye and with the wave of my hand.”

“Right.” There was no mistaking the sarcasm in my voice. I turned to leave, pretty well convinced this was not real.

“But I’ll need something in return.”

“Ah, my soul?”

“No, but I think the youngest Bench child should do. I’ll even make it easy for you. You don’t have to do anything, except maybe watch. And you’ll have everything you want. I’ll give you and Jess a very long, happy life together. You won’t believe how easy it will be. Now get out of here before I change my mind on my offer.”

The stranger never moved, never turned his head. I had the feeling there was no face within that hood, and to tell the truth, I didn’t want to see if my feeling was true. I wasn’t given any chance to see him after that. I heard a blowing sound, like a kid giving it all he had to blow out a bunch of candles on a birthday cake.

The candle in the window was extinguished, leaving me in only the light of my flashlight. Suddenly, I felt strong hands shove me backward. I tumbled down the stairs. Well, there was more than the stairs now, and I didn’t really feel the stairs. All I felt was thorns and sticks and brush. My arms and legs and face were poked and scratched in a matter of seconds. My shirt even rode partly up my back as I did a very clumsy feet over head maneuver and landed in a pile of stickers and thorns. I lost my flashlight in the action and was forced to reach through more unforgiving prickles to grasp it.

I got to my feet feeling suddenly old and lost and weak, as if I’d just sprinted a three-mile race.

I sent my flashlight beam to the cabin to find it dark. It looked exactly like it had when Jess and I had tried to investigate it. I shook my head, still not believing what I thought I’d just seen. Although my legs were weak and scratched and feeling like there was bleeding going on in spots, I turned. I had to climb through more thick brush to escape. I swear vines grew as I moved and wrapped around my ankles trying to keep me there. It took everything I had to tear myself free. Once I did, I ran all the way back to my cabin. The shirt stuck to my clammy, sweaty skin. Over and over, I had to suck in a breath and swallow to keep from puking.

As I flopped down on the bed, I spoke out loud. “I’m out of here tomorrow. And I’m selling this place.” There was no way I could look at that cabin. There was no way I could stay in it without Jess anyway.

I don’t remember falling asleep. What I do remember is that it was the first night in three months I didn’t dream, no nightmare, no roses, no anything.

I woke to morning sun in my eyes. I had never closed the curtains. It had been how I’d seen that single candle in the cabin window.

My knees aching, I slowly stretched before I moved to get up. The sound of a sleepy sigh beside me had me turning in a heartbeat. I took in Jess’s blonde morning hair, the familiarity of her body under the sheet. She slept with her back to me. She rolled toward me and sighed again, waking and offering me a sleepy smile. I forced down a swallow and stared.

“I’ll get up in a minute and make us some coffee, T.B.” She closed her eyes and presented me with her back once again.

I was certain I’d lost my sanity. This could not be real.

I was certain my heart stopped. My chest seized and it was impossible to suck in a breath. I stared at Jess’s back for a moment.

Either last night had been real, or the last three months hadn’t. Either way, my brain couldn’t grasp the sudden one-eighty.

I still couldn’t breathe. I stumbled to the door and stepped out into the morning. I braced myself against the deck railing, stared at the lake. Who—what—was that who spoke to me last night? The devil, a magic man, a faery? Something definitely not of this world, something I couldn’t face.

I looked down at myself in the early morning light. My arms and legs were scratched, spots of dried blood dotted every extremity. My tee shirt was torn. My sleep shorts were stained with green. I brushed off what appeared to be a sticky bunch of pine needles.

It was then that I looked over at the dock belonging to the Bench family. Their crawling baby, maybe seven or eight months old was out on the dock, alone, heading for the edge.

You don’t have to do anything, except maybe watch. And you’ll have everything you want.

The baby girl giggled, filled with happiness over nothing only babies understand.

Through the screen door of our cabin came the welcoming aroma of morning coffee.

The baby’s little body made barely a splash as she crawled off the side of the dock coming toward me.

Could I watch?

Could I save her, knowing Jess would not be there to share our coffee?

Could I?

Would I?

“That’s not a real true story, is it, Uncle Thad?”

I’d been lost in my story and was brought back to the present instantly by the sound of the question. I looked around at those who sat on the dock with me, enjoying the warmth of the fire in the fire pit. Five pairs of eyes stared at me, all reflecting the light of the flames.

I held my wife’s hand. And I gave her a knowing smile before bringing her hand close to my lips and kissing the back of it.