The Hidden Cabin

A crinkly sound resonated from the ground beneath black combat boots, crushing the slowly dyeing leaves that had flown away from the trees to move on with life. The brush of wind pushed through her long brunette hair, leaving goosebumps on the back of her neck while sweeping away the various shades of orange and red from the dirt trail. While placing her hands in her pockets to keep them warm, she started her pursuit home through a set of abandon train tracks just behind her school. A couple feet ahead was a fellow student walking on the tracks, also appearing to try and keep warm from the aggressive wind. Roselen recognized the student and jogged up ahead, having a desire to have some company on her walk home. Catching up to the fellow peer, she recognized him as Harlow, someone she used to have a close friendship with in their younger years, but drifted apart entering high school.

“Hey Harlow! Don’t usually see you walking on the tracks after school,” Roselen began, looking up and giving a beaming smile to Harlow.

“Hey Rose, it’s been awhile! Felt like I’d try something different today, and I can see you're clearly familiar with this way home. How’ve you been recently?” Harlow responded, his mood brightened by having the 5’5” kindhearted female to walk home with.

“I’ve been good, keeping myself busy with studying and trying to maintain a social life. What about you? I heard you got captain on the football team, that’s pretty exciting!”

“You studying? Well I guess you were always a bit of a nerd,” he said with a teasing smile. “But yeah, coach said that if I can keep my grades up, then he’s happy to make me captain of the team.” The pair continued to walk on the train tracks, talking about anything and everything that came to mind. Since they just so happen to be next-door neighbours, they were stuck with each other until they reached home. As they were walking, Roselen noticed a run-down cabin a bit deeper in the trees that the tracks were surrounded in.

“Hey Harlow, look at that,” Roselen tells Harlow, pointing at the cabin buried in the trees. It had clearly been inhabited before, but appears to have been left to rot away by its owner many years ago. Its metal roof supported an accumulation of dead leaves and small branches from the enclosing trees. The majority of the cabin was made of wood, which now had green moss thriving on it, and was of a dirty brown on what wasn’t covered in moss. Roselen gently pulled Harlow by his wrist to follow her to the remains of the cabin.

“Sure, let’s just walk into the cabin that looks like it could collapse at any second, completely safe.” Harlow mumbles to himself as he lets Roselen drag him to the front entrance of the abandoned home. Roselen lets go of Harlow as she enters inside, being cautious of her steps while letting her eyes take in her surroundings. There wasn’t much space in the main living area as the kitchen, dining table, and living room were mushed into one small room. Roselen didn’t spend much time there as she went to go explore more by herself, leaving Harlow behind. Her feet brought her into a small bedroom that only had a wire twin bed by a broken window and a beaten up wardrobe with one door missing and the other having a scattering of bullet holes littered in it. After inspecting the room for a few minutes, Roselen wandered back to the sad wire bed which currently supported a paper-thin mattress that looked like it had been cut open with a sharp object. Looking underneath the mattress, her eyes fixated on an almost square thin metal box. Reaching under, she grabbed the box and pulled it towards her wiping off the dust that had settled on top.

“Harlow! Come into the bedroom, I have something you show you!” Roselen shouted from the bedroom floor, and in a few seconds heavy footsteps could be heard coming towards the bedroom.

“Hey, what’d you find?”

“This box was under the bed, it feels pretty light, but it has this lock on it. Do you think you could open it?” Roselen asked, passing over the box to Harlow.

Harlow inspected the box, lightly shaking it to get an idea of what might be inside. “Probably could, do you have bobby pin handy in your bag?”

Roselen unzipped the small pocket at the front of her backpack which she kept full of various small essential items she may need on a daily basis. After digging around for a few seconds, she handed Harlow a small black bobby pin. Gently taking the miniature tool from her flat palm, Harlow got to work picking the lock on the box they were both eager to get inside. Thankfully, since having some practice, Harlow was able to get the lock open fairly quickly, only to be confused with its contents. Roselen slowly placed her hands in the box and gently took hold of the dusty black notebook that laid inside the locked box. Flipping to the first page that was marked by a thin strip of ribbon, written in cursive black pen was “Mirella Ellesmere - 1976”.

“I guess this was her journal, I wonder if she was the last person to ever live here,” Harlow thought out loud.

“Well looking at the current state of what once was her bedroom, and also the fact that her journal was locked away, I wonder if she was maybe hiding form someone, either herself or what’s in this journal.”

Flipping through the first few pages, a folded page falls out. Harlow grabs it, opens it and begins to read allowed its contents…

“I hope this message has come to those who are deserving of what is next to come. I’m not given much time left as they are after me for what I hold dearly, so I’ll make this quick and pray that they don’t find it before you do. What you seek is hidden from the sly eyes of those wanting revenge for my actions, and what they pursue is hidden in this home. It is surrounded by those of the great and most respected figures, asked for guidance by the commoners of our society. But the specific place lies just beneath of what brought you here to my cabin today. Please make wise decisions with what you are soon to fine.”

-Mirella Ellesmere

Both Harlow and Roselen sat silent for a few moments, pondering over the information that has been brought to light.

“She might be referring to that shrine of saints in the living room,” Harlow inquired while keeping his eyes on the tired notebook.

“Wait, what shrine?” Roselen asked quizzically.

“There’s a shrine of saints in the living area, I’ll show you.” Harlow leads Roselen out of the bedroom, still keeping the notebook in his gripe. Roselen saw on the floor up against the wall, picture frames and figures of various different saints.

“You think this is what Mirella meant when she said surrounded by the great and most respected?”

“Well I don’t see how it could be anything else. There isn’t much of this place to be looked at and this is the only part of the cabin that has any sort of figures and pictures.” Harlow replied, shrugging his shoulders. “So now we found the area of what she hid, but where is it exactly?”

“She said that it lies beneath what brought us here, which would be our feet. So if we were to stand directly in front and centre of the shrine, then it must be underneath the floor boards,” Roselen acknowledged, tapping her foot on the dirty floor. She stepped away slightly as Harlow got on his knees, knocking on the boards. Once hearing a hollow one, he took out his handy pocket knife from his bag and began to pry open the floor. With some help from Roselen, they were able to quickly break open the floor, coughing as dust flew up into the air around them. Looking downwards, Roselen grabbed a light brown burlap sack that was hidden away, holding it by its tied end. Together, Harlow and Roselen opened the bag, only to gasp at the substance inside. Thick stacks of bills were tossed over each other in a heavy pile, but what was placed above it all, was what mattered the most. Harlow carefully took out the photo that was clearly dated. It was black and white, of a young couple standing in front of a waterfall, hugging each other. Flipping it over, Roselen read out what the cursive writing told.

“Just got engaged to my beloved Torryn, my best friend and soulmate. I look forward to our many years together ahead of us.”

“So that was Mirella,” Roselen whispered. “She was beautiful, looks to be barely over 20.”

“This was probably there get-away money there were going to use, maybe start a new life together. I wonder if Torryn knows what happened to her.”

“If she kept this photo of them hidden in this sack, it’s possible that she didn’t want the people coming after her to find out about him, in fear of what they would do to him.”

“Quite possible, but I keep thinking of what Mirella could have possibly done to get people to be after her, especially with the damage done to her bedroom. I wonder if they were trying to find this money, maybe she owed it to them for something.” Harlow stated. They both started to count the money in the sack, counting each stack of bills. As they finished, they concluded it held $20,000, enough for the young couple to move away and live together at the time.

“We need to make sure we do the right thing with this money. We owe it to both Mirella and Torryn, especially with her life she most likely lost protecting this bag.” Roselen suggested, looking Harlow in the eyes.

“Then let’s do it.”