A Cabin in the Woods
Ren and Gareth, a world much like our own.
Ren and Gareth, a world much like our own.
The car rocked Ren back and forth in a steady rhythm, bumping her shoulder against the door she was leaning on, half-asleep. She wasn't accustomed to long car rides yet, and napping took the edge off of the carsickness that she was still occasionally plagued by.
She drifted in and out of hazy sleep, time slipping by like syrup. Between blinks, the scenery outside changed, from buildings to billboards, from plains to forests, flat to hilly, oaks to pines. There was a misty rain, the sound of small drops against the windshield joining the sound of the engine and tires on the road in a hum of white noise, punctuated regularly by the clunk of wipers across the windshield.
There was quiet music on the radio, something indistinct with acoustic guitar, something Gareth liked. She could listen to any kind of music and be happy, but she liked the music he liked best, the music he had on brightly colored vinyls throughout his house. Any music that made him relax or smile was automatically the best music in the world.
She had kicked off her shoes early on in the trip, and her feet were tucked in bright blue socks with tiny gray rats embroidered on them, little pink noses and black eyes. She had them up on the seat, even though Gareth didn't like her to sit like that in the car, her knees tucked against her chest as she drowsed. Still half-asleep, her hand groped out towards the stick shift. Gareth's hand left the wheel briefly to tangle with hers, hand larger and warm and calloused. Her hands weren't as bony as they'd once been, and felt less fragile in his.
She recognized an old church as they drove by, and yawned. Old and off-white and wooden, a familiar landmark amongst the pines. A sure sign that they were moving through time and space, as sure as the way the road tilted up as they headed into mountains. They had never stopped at the church, because why would they, and she had no idea who it could possibly service, what houses might be hidden in the woods. But it represented a fixture of the escape from city to country. It was relaxing and exciting all at once, the reminder that they had left their lives behind, briefly, to be in a long-weekend stasis.
She stretched with her yawn, dropping Gareth's hand so he could focus on driving. The sound of tires on cement shifted to the sound of tires on gravel. Soon, it would just be tires on dirt and mud. Despite the steepness and lack of quality of the roads, Ren was confident that Gareth and his unreasonably large truck could handle the muddy roads. Ren appreciated those roads, even if her tendency towards carsickness didn't. They indicated a kind of lack of travel, a sort of isolation. There weren't any big mansions up in the mountains, just cabins spattered here and there, like the kind she and Gareth were traveling to. Up there, it would be quiet, quieter than you could really get in the city.
They pulled up one final dirt path, coming around a copse of trees and into a tiny clearing. Gareth pulled up to the end of the path, close-ish to the a-frame cabin. There was just enough space in the little natural meadow for the cabin itself, the rest of the plateau being taken up by their tiny garden, wrapped in chicken wire fencing to keep the rabbits and deer out. The trees were mostly pine, but there were a few still to drop orange and red and brown leaves onto the ground. Ren jumped out of the truck without remembering to put her shoes back on, and when raindrops and dew from the grass soaked through her socks, she just pulled them off rather than stick wet socks into shoes. Dead leaves crackled under her bare feet as she ran towards the cabin without stopping to help Gareth unload.
She breathed in deep of the crisp mountain air, rushing up the steps to unlock the front door and then flinging it wide open, letting sunlight trickle into the cabin. The cabin was small, in a sense, just big enough for the two of them. But Gareth was a very big man, and everything inside reflected that. Big chairs and a big couch and a kitchen with very tall counters and step stools hidden in every room. Ren pulled the curtains back from the windows, pausing only to watch Gareth out the window as he grabbed all of their bags and both of their suitcases to drag them to the cabin in one trip.
They had stopped along the way at a farmer's market, and Gareth had picked up all number of things to cook while they were here. Later, Ren would check on the garden and see if there were any vegetables there that needed to be eaten. They left the little garden mostly to itself, tending it only when they were there, so it grew free and wild and disorganized and they simply ate what was available when they were there. Ren mostly kept it as an excuse to get her hands into the dirt. Most people, she’d learned, abhorred weeding, but to her, it was the best part. She always appreciated a way to get her destructive tendencies out in a productive manner.
Ren scurried through the rooms, turning on every faucet, ostensibly to make sure they were working but also just because she enjoyed the chaos of a house with every single faucet on. Gareth would inevitably trail along behind her and turn them all off again.
The bathroom was small, but the sink came up to her chest. The bathtub was similarly huge. Ren felt like an afterthought here, a mouse in a world built for dogs, but she didn’t mind. She had a lifetime of feeling small in many ways, and the way she felt small around Gareth didn’t bother her in the least. Ren knelt down to shove her bag of fancy bath supplies into the cupboard by the bathtub. Foaming, deep green bath bombs and delicious smelling soaps and reusable bubble wands that would stain the inside of the tub until Gareth--inevitably Gareth--scrubbed and rinsed it clean. Just baths had felt luxurious enough for a long time, but once Ren had been introduced to the concept of fancy bath products, well, it was all over. She was very much looking forward to their use; the bathtub they had at home wasn’t really big enough for both of them, but this one was. She had brought all her favorite products in enthusiastic preparation; both bath products and a small bottle of silicone-based lubricant that wouldn’t merely rinse off in the water.
Gareth had entered the cabin by the time she finished stashing it all away, flicking the lights on as he did. For all she tended towards disorganization--faucets on and cabinets left open and scattered messes on her work desk--Gareth never had to remind her to turn the lights off. In fact, he normally had to remind her to turn them on in the first place. She would work by the dim light of a window half a room over, forgetting to turn on the lights until it was fully dark out.
Gareth unpacked their food into the kitchen as Ren wandered through what passed for a living room. The cabin itself wasn’t really large enough to be said to have rooms, but they had an area round the fireplace with an over-sized armchair and a couch that could be pulled out into a bed, not that they’d ever really needed it. On the back of the couch were two afghans: one a beautifully crocheted, multi-color affair, the other one smaller and awkward in shades of gray. As metaphors for their relationship went, the mismatched afghans on the couch worked admirably. Ren was better with machines than yarn, but it had been fun to try.
On the floor between the furniture was a ludicrously soft, long-furred rug. It was real fur, though she wasn’t sure what animal it was from. Either a very big sheep or a very small wooly cow, she supposed; she didn’t know enough about animals to say and had never asked. It was decadently soft, and she buried her bare toes into the plushness. She had in the past and would no doubt again fall asleep on it in front of the fire.
Ren was distracted from her thoughts by a clattering of bowls in the kitchen. Glancing over, she saw Gareth already pulling out ingredients. Eggs and sugar, though she saw cream cheese and butter softening on the counter. He was getting everything ready the way he liked to, baking trays and baking paper pulled out of their assigned places, measuring out everything so that it would be easy to use later. Mise en place, he called it. Everything in it's place.
She approached quietly, bare feet on wood floor, as he pulled out a whisk. No electric mixer here; they had very few gadgets. Gareth seemed to prefer it that way: a break from shortcuts, for better or worse. She watched closely as he broke the eggs and separated the yolks from the whites, then began to whisk them steadily. There were much worse things in the world than watching his arms while he did so, sleeves rolled to his upper arm.
He glanced over at her as he pulled the whisk up, checking the texture of the meringue, one eyebrow rising. She approached wordlessly, catching a stool against one ankle and pulling it along with her. She scrambled up next to him and grabbed the caster sugar, adding slowly as he whisked. They'd done this dozens of times before, and it was a comfortable task. Ren wasn't much good at baking on her own, but there were certain tasks she could be trusted to do well.
Piping wasn't one of them, so she left him alone to neatly form line after line of little meringue roses on the baking paper. While he did, he set her to grinding up lavender buds in a mortar and pestle, which she applied herself to with gusto, sitting at the counter with her feet pulled up onto the stool. The smell of lavender filled the small kitchen, making her fingers itch for her bath supplies.
She didn't know how he could beat meringue and then go right to beating cream cheese and butter together, without his arm getting tired. Well, she did know; she was intimately familiar with the strength in his arms. But it was still impressive. Once again, she helped by adding sugar a little at a time. He covered it once it was done, and there was nothing to do but wait for the meringue to bake.
Well. There were a lot of other things to do.
While Gareth was still cleaning up, Ren scampered up to the loft. The majority of it was dominated by a massive bed. It was a monstrously huge affair covered in mounds of pillows and blankets, pressed right up against the windowed wall of the A-frame cabin. Above it on the slanting roof was another window, a skylight that let them watch the clouds during the day and the stars at night if they turned all their lights off. It could get a bit cold, with all those windows, which was probably the reason why it was so covered in blankets of all types and colors.
She liked to sleep on the inside, next to the windowed wall. With Gareth on the outside, she was boxed in. A lovely, safe feeling, although arguably less lovely for Gareth when she had to pee in the middle of the night and resorted to scrambling over him to get to the ladder.
For now, she ignored the bed and went to the wardrobe, shoved into the corner that didn’t contain the bed. She pulled it open, ignoring mothballs and sweaters, to rummage in the bottom storage. There she found what she was looking for, a stack of old jigsaw puzzles. She picked them up, now and then, from thrift stores and the like, but never did any except for here. Because of that, they tended to pile up. She rummaged between them now, staring at the faded pictures on the front and contemplating.
The one on top had a picture on the cardboard box of a white dragon, all pale opalescent rainbows where the sun hit it, flying through blue skies and white clouds. Beneath it was one with an ancient-looking Gothic-style church, as dark and ominous as it was beautiful. The third was a tableau of a bakery through a window, cupcakes all in the windows in a riot of pastel colors. Each one was a delight in its own way, and Ren was looking forward to working through each one, one at a time, and losing herself in each picture.
For now, she picked up the bakery one, smiling down at the bright colors. It almost seemed alive, with the smell of baking rising up from downstairs. She put the other two back in the wardrobe and closed it up, coming back down the ladder with her prize. She spread it out on the coffee table while Gareth pulled out the things he’d make for dinner. She poured out all the pieces and set the box lid up so she could look at it while she worked.
Later, there would be food and baths and the things that happened in baths and out of them. But for now, Ren hummed quietly to herself, harmonizing with the sound of Gareth in the kitchen, and relaxed into thoughts of a little bakery in a little city.
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