She’s just so happy to be here with him.
“Here,” he says, offering her his hand. “Let me show you around.”
Her hand is strangely hard to lift, so he catches it for her. He threads their fingers together. Her steps are unsure as he walks her around the airy, open floor plan. She feels heavy. Pleasantly drowsy. It must be the fire.
The stone fireplace is built into the wall. The gray stones go all the way up to the ceiling, smooth and round, ranging from the size of her fist to as large as a cantaloupe. Maya and Frank pause, basking in the warmth. She closes her eyes, feels the heat on her face. She smells the burning wood.
He leads her up a wooden ladder in the center of the room. The ladder is made of the same honey-colored pine as the walls. The rungs are solid in her hands, polished to a shine, but like in the rest of the cabin, the natural unevenness of the wood has been preserved. The rungs are like branches.
The loft is like a tree house she might have wished for as a child. The ceiling slopes down to meet the floor on either side of an oversized bed covered with pillows and blankets. The perfect place to lie and look up at the stars through the round, curved skylight in the roof. Frank has lit candles here too, and she sees flowers arranged in a glass jar on the wooden table by the bed. He must have known that she was coming.
When she feels his hand on her shoulder, she thinks that he will lead her to the bed. And that she will go. But instead he guides her gently back down the ladder, telling her that he has something on the stove.
He’s making them dinner, and when he pulls the lid off his pot, a fragrant wave of steam tumbles out. The smell of cooked meat and aromatics, earthy vegetables and comforting spices. Sage. Garlic. Her mouth waters, even though she already ate dinner. Frank sets two bowls on the table. It’s a stew, but she can’t tell what kind. Some kind of meat and vegetables.
“Do you remember,” he says before picking up his spoon, “when I told you that I had never shown this place to anyone?”
She nods. She wants to start eating but thinks the polite thing would be to wait.
“Well, it’s true,” he says. He gazes at her from across the table, candlelight gleaming in his eyes. “You’re the only one who’s ever been here.”
“Oh . . . I’m . . . honored.”
“I don’t invite just anyone,” he continues. “This cabin . . . it means a lot to me. It’s the one place my dad can’t find me.”
She flashes back to his father. His anxious eyes. His health. She can’t explain why she has such a bad feeling about him.
Frank leans forward. He rests his forearms on the table. “I put everything I had into this place. I thought I had everything I needed. But you know what? It felt empty, lonely. I needed to bring someone else here, but not just anyone would be able to find it. But you, Maya. As soon as I saw you, I knew that I’d bring you here someday.”
“Why . . .” she asks. Her hand rests on the spoon, but she doesn’t pick it up.
“Why?” he says. “Because of the way I watched you read your father’s book, day after day. It was like nothing else existed. I don’t think you even knew where you were.”
Maya tilts her head.
“And, of course,” he adds, “I chose you because . . . well, look at you, Maya. You’re beautiful.”
This makes her redden. She has been called cute before, even pretty a few times, but only her mom has ever told her she’s beautiful.
Frank looks like he’s about to say something else—something big, like I love you. He looks vulnerable. Full of hope.
“I think you should stay,” he says.
She blinks at him. “What?”
“Stay.”
He smiles and leans back in his chair, relaxed. He picks up his spoon and begins to eat.
“Are you . . . asking me to move in?”
“Mm-hmm,” he says around a mouthful of stew. “I’m asking you to think about it. Think how easy it would be. No need to pay rent or deal with some random roommate. Nothing to worry about. No trying to make it in the big, crowded city, trying to find a job. Here . . .” He opens his arms to her, welcoming. “You’d have all this.”
“Frank, I . . .”
Something’s definitely off here. She practically flew here tonight in a fit of jealousy, yet now she is thinking about moving in with him.
The fragrant steam rising from her bowl tickles her nose, distracting and enticing, and she thinks about how she had, after all, been thinking about deferring at BU. Her mom wouldn’t like her living with Frank, but soon Maya will be eighteen and can do whatever she wants. And maybe this is what she wants. To be with Frank. To live in this beautiful cabin he’s built.
Her mouth waters. Her stomach growls.
“You don’t have to decide right now,” he says. “Let’s just enjoy dinner. You haven’t even tried it yet.”
Maya dips her spoon into her bowl but doesn’t bring it to her mouth.
There’s something about the sight of him across the table, his face shrouded in steam. A half-formed image of people walking through clouds. Faces emerging from mist. Where was it that she’d seen this? In a movie?
“Maya?”
She stares at him, unable to explain her growing unease. The image, remembering where it’s from, feels urgent, like a gas stove accidentally left on in the kitchen. A thing she must articulate, must attend to before something bad happens.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Something’s . . . wrong.”
“Oh, sweetie . . .” He smiles lovingly at her. “Nothing’s wrong.”
She closes her eyes, unease blooming into dread.
Caras en la niebla. The words come to her in Spanish, though she doesn’t know why. La niebla—she only recently learned the word for mist, having come across it while translating her father’s book.
Her father’s book! The village in the clouds. This is what she’s reminded of here—Pixán’s true home, the place he yearns for. She opens her eyes to find Frank staring at her. A wave of dizziness.
“Listen to me,” he says. “Whatever’s wrong, we’ll figure it out together. Nothing to worry about.”
But the story feels like a warning. Like Pixán, Maya has forgotten something. Her heart beats faster as she thinks back to the last moment she can recall before arriving here: The sound of water as she approached the bridge. The flickering flashlight in her hand. “Why . . .” she says, face growing crowded. “Why can’t I remember?”
Frank sets down his spoon. He stands, walks slowly around the table, never breaking eye contact, his face calm.
Maya begins to shiver.
He kneels at her side, eye level, as if he intends to propose.
Her shivers grow deeper. The cold is in her bones.
“Relax,” he says. “You’re having a panic attack.”
He takes her left hand, which she has curled into a fist, and pries it open, finger by finger. He presses something small and hard into her palm. She knows what it is before she sees it. She feels its metal teeth.
* * *
— The rain strikes her face, her arms, her chest. She draws a sharp breath. The drops are like a bucket of ice water sloshed unexpectedly on her head. She clutches her elbows, unsteady on her feet.