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There was enough that still made them uneasy about the basement that they might as well resolve before leaving, Fern decided.

That flashlight, for one, should go with them; if they did get caught out late, they’d want it, rather than draining their phone’s battery. They headed back to the shelving, grabbing it, testing it—nice and bright—before shoving that as well in one of their deep pockets. Also in the bin were a hammer and screwdriver, which they certainly didn’t need to be hauling around, and, surprisingly, a set of spare keys. That they pocketed, too; they probably didn’t need to be too nosy, but subtlety beat destruction of property if they did end up nosing around.

The fuse box had the old-fashioned screw-in fuses rather than breakers, so it had been hard to tell which had power. They briefly considered unplugging a bunch of them to check, but there didn’t seem to be much point. If a room or appliance didn’t have power, they could always come down here and replace those later.

The last two weirdnesses were the dust cloth on the mirror and the oddly-placed tapestry, neither of which had exactly given Fern a good feeling. Better to check those now than give themself anxiety nightmares later. They could always put back anything they’d moved before they left in a couple weeks.

The first thing they did was pull the dust cloth off the mirror. Sure enough, it was a standing, full-length mirror, but they immediately saw why this of all things would get covered. There was something wrong with the glass in some subtle way; as the cloth came free, the hair stood up on their arms and they couldn’t quite suppress a shudder. It looked like it had warped slightly; not exactly a fun-house mirror, but just enough that they looked distorted in it, like it was a pond with a faint ripple. Still, only a mirror, if an ugly one. They left the dust cloth draped over the chair and checked under the carpet—nothing of interest—before moving over to the tapestry.

Behind that was a door.

For a long moment, they just stared at it, feeling something between Why didn’t I expect this and This is how a horror movie starts. It was locked, at least; they gave it a jiggle and felt momentary relief that nothing would easily be getting in or out.

But why was there a door here? The basement was the size of the whole cottage above, so that was… strange. It was far away from any neighbouring houses, but maybe a long time ago there had been another one and they’d joined with an underground tunnel, Fern supposed. Or perhaps it was some kind of escape tunnel from a long time ago, just in case—what, if a tornado came and the original owners would need another way out of the basement?

The only way to answer their too-many questions was to open it. With hands that only shook slightly, Fern tried different keys on the spare key set—already a discovery they were glad they’d made—until one clicked. Moving a bit too slowly, too cautiously, they swung it open.

They almost went weak-kneed with relieved foolishness as they saw the rows of wooden shelving and somewhat dusty jars in there. A root cellar, dug out separately so it could be cooled to do its job properly while keeping the basement insulated.

Nothing to worry about after all. Fern locked the cellar back up and headed upstairs again, still embarrassed at letting their imagination and fears get away from them. Always the problem, wasn’t it? If they didn’t have such a wild imagination they probably wouldn’t even be here.

Better to feel silly than have unwelcome surprises they didn’t check for, they reminded themself, tugging their shoes on and heading out into the woods. A glance at their phone showed that at some point, the text had sent, though they hadn’t yet received a reply.

They’d just do a quick perimeter check and then eat dinner. Maybe they’d make themself a pasta, they thought. Do something with the sausage in the fridge. 

It was crisp outside, bright and cool without being biting, so that Fern didn’t need to go back in for a heavier jacket. The wind rustled through the leaves, but the background silence behind it was strangely uncanny, the lack of traffic nearby almost shocking. They were too used to cities, and wondered how normal sounds like this had seemed to their ancestors.

The front of the cottage was nicely kept, with a gravel driveway that gave way into the dirt path Adrian had driven them down, and no garage. The flagstone path led from the driveway over to the front door, and bushes crowded underneath the living room window.

Around one side, they could see where the furnace let out. Several paths lead out into the woods, which they ignored, continuing to circle the house instead, leaves crunching underfoot. Near the back of the house was an odd tree: a half-dead pine with a crack along it; when they drew closer, they saw that someone had, a long time ago, buried a railway spike into the wood. The tree itself had done its best to grow around it, absorbing it into the wood, but it had done damage that had scarred regardless.

Fern had to wonder how that had happened. Was it meant to discourage logging too near the cottage? Or perhaps something long since removed had once hung from that spike.

They dismissed it, continuing their walk. There were several bushes at the back, and again, more paths vanishing into the woods. Then, not far from the other side of the house, an old well. They didn’t have any coins, but they picked up a pebble and tossed it inside, hearing no splash. Perhaps it had gone dry.

Nothing else of interest turned up as they reached the front of the house again, but it felt good to have a sense of what was—or wasn’t—around.

[Comment below with a suggestion for Fern]

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Fern’s thoughts strayed briefly to that locked storage door—and dismissed it. Breaking a lock to check out someone’s private storage might come with fees involved. They weren’t sure if it had been specifically mentioned in the listing or not, either. It’d be hard to justify their curiosity if asked.

No, the most practical thing would be to check on that theoretical fuse box, spiders—they shuddered—or not. Then they could go for a walk around, get a sense of what the land was like to keep from getting lost if they had to go out there.

Not that it sounded so bad, getting lost out there. They kept almost wondering if that was part of why their parents had suggested this outing, to give Fern a chance to just disappear if they wanted to. To run off and live like a wild thing in the woods. Fern pushed that thought away as soon as it bubbled up again—that was cruel, and even if it was clear that their family didn’t know how to handle them for the last few years, nobody wanted them gone.

Losing someone was hard. Living forward after it, wondering how much of it had been your fault, that was harder. Fern wouldn’t wish it on anyone, especially their own family. The immediate aftermath had been bad enough.

The longer term psychological repercussions, those were somehow worse. The long nights. The nightmares. The constant background imagined whispering that they’d never heard before but that they couldn’t seem to tune out anymore. Manifestations of guilt, someone had called it, and Fern had liked that term, manifestations. It had felt like that, like something that Fern had previously been unaware of had suddenly started to manifest whenever they were around people. 

It was quieter out here in the woods, though. They’d thought it would be; the fewer people were around, the less noisy it tended to be, their sandpaper-skin awareness of every person nearby now faded with nobody around at all.

Maybe two weeks out here would actually reset them to the person they were before all this. A laughable thought. That person didn’t exist any more. Fern had been trying to recreate themselves as someone they liked again. Some steps forward, maybe.

Ugh. They were getting philosophical. They stood, jamming their phone into a pocket and clapping their hands a few times sharply until the sting grounded them back in their own body and out of the morbid spiralling thoughts. Fuse box, right. Better to check for it in case of problems, since getting anyone out here over a fuse blowing would be a real nuisance.

The door at the foot of the stairs had no lock; Fern opened it and discovered, instead of a small room with an embedded fuse box as they expected, stairs going downward into darkness.

This place just seemed to keep getting bigger and bigger than the listing had implied, but the theoretical fuse box was down in the basement instead. Thinking wistfully of doing anything but this, Fern found the basement stair lights, then headed down.

The stairs let out into a single big room. The walls were finished in wood; an odd tapestry hung next to the furnace on the wall to the right, depicting a maiden tangling with a unicorn that had impaled her through her chest. The wall facing the stairs had a bunch of sitting room furniture against it—two old armchairs facing a round table. A matching round carpet was laid out on the cement floor under the table. Not exactly where Fern would hang out with guests to chat, but they supposed someone was into it. Next to that was what looked to probably be a freestanding mirror, though it was covered with a dust cloth.

The wall to the left had a bunch of shelving with paint, cleaning supplies, extra toilet paper and paper towels, and so on, and next to that was the fuse box. There was a stack of spare fuses on the shelving next to the box. The fuse box itself, when opened, did indeed reveal a few spiders in its corners—damn—but all the fuses were clearly labelled.

Including one, they noted, for “2nd Bedroom.” Interesting implications for the locked room, especially since there was so much room down here for storage. But they couldn’t fault the owner for keeping a bedroom for themselves to stay in that guests wouldn’t have access to, and keeping their personal belongings in there.

There were plenty of small boxes on the shelving as well, clearly containing various useful things—they caught sight of a flashlight sticking out of one. Good to know where to find one if they needed it. They wandered the length of the room instead, feeling weirdly uncomfortable about the draped mirror. It was the dust cloth making them feel that way, they decided. Something about it being covered felt like a shrouded corpse, even if it was just to keep the glass clean.

The furnace had been serviced recently enough, and beyond that, Fern didn’t know enough about furnaces to form any opinion. No laundry down here; that might be in the bathroom, or perhaps somewhere else Fern hadn’t looked yet. 

There didn’t seem like much else to do down here, they supposed. They could head out to the grounds as they’d originally been thinking, but tried to decide if there was anything from here they might want to take with them—or if that was even still a good idea to do in the afternoon. They should still have a few hours of sunlight, though.

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It would be terribly stupid to ignore their brother’s unasked-for reminder to unpack the frozen goods first, Fern reminded themself regretfully. They’d never hear the end of it if Adrian had to come all the way back out here just to deliver them more groceries, even if it was a little tempting to make him jump to their will.

They grabbed the heavy cloth grocery bags, doing their utmost to carry all three in one trip. The front hall gave way to stairs up on the right, a hallway forward to the kitchen, and some kind of sitting room to the left.

The kitchen was fairly roomy, with a table in one open half that had three chairs around it—for a one-bedroom place?—and generous cabinets. The fridge and freezer were clean on the inside except for a single box of baking soda to keep it fresh, and was lit up and humming. 

They unloaded the groceries quickly, perfunctorily, starting with the frozen goods as instructed; they more or less shoved in the refrigerated goods in a rough order to make things easier to find later. Meats on the middle left, cheese on the right, veggies on the bottom. 

There was no dedicated pantry, but opening the cupboards revealed that one of them had plates and cups, another had a few appliances that were kept there to not overcrowd the counter—a toaster, a kettle, a small food chopper and, oddly, a small portable radio that might offer some entertainment at some point—and the third double-cupboard had clearly been used as a pantry before. This last was mostly cleared out, but had a couple boxes of tea in it, along with a sealed box of off-brand cereal, and an opened bag of flour that Fern wasn’t sure if they trusted.

They threw the rest of their groceries into that cupboard with the ones that had been left for them and shut the doors before anything could fall out. Survival prep: complete.

On their way back through the hallway, they noticed that the side of the stairs up had a door in it; storage, maybe—or the fuse box, perhaps, something worth keeping in mind in case there were any problems later. The risk of spiders kept Fern from checking immediately; besides, they were on a roll with unpacking things.

Since there weren’t any on this floor, they had to assume the bedroom was upstairs, so shrugged their backpack back on, then grabbed their suitcase and began dragging it up, trying to keep the wheels from hitting the wood stairs too hard. 

Fern’s curiosity about the size of the place immediately paid off. There were three doors on the second floor, two of which were open—a bathroom and the master bedroom where Fern was to sleep—and the third of which was firmly closed and presumably locked, with a printer-paper sign taped to the outside reading “OWNER’S STORAGE, NOT FOR RENTERS USE.”

Fair enough, they supposed, though they were terribly curious. There didn’t seem to be any cameras set up in the hall, either… 

No, they were unpacking right now, they reminded themselves, and they had only received the front door key, even if this lock looked plenty old and jimmy-able. 

They headed into the master bedroom—a big room with a large bed against one wall, a nice writing desk to one side with a closet next to it, and a TV on a dresser on the wall facing the bed. They pulled out their bag of toiletries, their laptop, and chargers, and then decided they’d unpacked enough. Clothes could move into the dresser or closet later, if at all.

The bed turned out to be comfortable enough when they laid on it, but despite their Olympics-level ability to sleep anytime and anywhere, they weren’t in the mood to sleep. Instead, they stared up at the ceiling, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the woods for a few long moments and feeling themselves coming perilously close to thinking about their problems before instead grabbing their phone and being immediately reminded that there was no internet access.

They sent a brief text to Trev to say they were here safely, and saw it go gray as it tried to send. Only time would tell if it got through. 

Fern swung their legs back off the side of the bed. Maybe it was time to look at some of these rooms in more detail, they decided, really do a deep exploration of where they were likely to be staying. They’d seen a lot of rooms in passing on their way through that they could return to—and the grounds outside too, of course. Any of them would be a fine starting place.

But where to start?

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The cabin was an hour away from the nearest town. This would have been inconvenient if Fern could drive, and was outright damning since they couldn’t.

“I’ll call every day,” Adrian had promised while unloading the car. “You should have enough groceries here to last the whole two weeks, but if you run out, I’ll get some and bring it over. Make sure you unpack the frozen goods first.”

It was the kind of well-intentioned but obvious reminder that Fern didn’t know how to answer without being sarcastic; when family was involved, they tended not to say anything at all to avoid poisoning their own well. They’d watched their brother fumble when the silence stretched on a little too long and felt a little spike of amusement.

“You’ll like it,” Adrian had finally said. “It’ll be good for you. Calming. I’ll see you later, Fern.” He’d accidentally called them by their old name, not ‘Fern,’ but there was no point getting upset about it, not when Adrian was just really the unwilling family volunteer, propped up to take the heat of the decision to strand Fern in the woods, away from all civilization.

That wasn’t a fair thought. Fern could have refused, but even if it felt like being shipwrecked, abandoned, their family’s suggestion was likely right. They needed a break, a rest, space from the world out there.

Shaking their head, they dragged the bags up to the porch. The owner had said that the key was hidden behind a loose stone in the front path, which they found after a little digging. Mortar ground to dust under their fingertips and several insects scurried away. Foreboding, Fern decided, a little pleased about that. 

The key itself was more modern than the little house in the woods was, the lock having been replaced recently. It stuck regardless, as if trying to resist Fern, but Fern leaned on it harder until it clicked, then pulled the door open.

It was a pretty large place for a single writer to stay in, although the ad had described it as a one bedroom. Fern could swear it was large enough that there’d have to be two of them in here somewhere. It was at least two stories tall, and the first floor looked well-kept, clean and bright. Admittedly, it came with a variety of odd decor choices, as if the owners had aimed for an old-timey, woodsy yet welcoming aesthetic, but had no idea what any of those words meant. On the stone fireplace’s mantle were a variety of family photos, but none of the people in the family seemed to match; over it was a mounted alligator head with a gruesome smile. Not only was this entirely the wrong area for alligators, it seemed bigger than it should be.

Not that Fern knew anything about alligators, to be fair.

It was nice enough, though, and honestly to Fern’s taste. Perhaps this really would be good for them, rather than just their family wanting to avoid having to deal with Fern for a while. Admittedly, it could be two things at once; Fern was certainly out of sight and out of mind, and whatever happened to them here would be nobody’s business. 

Still, it wasn’t like they were completely isolated, even like this. The lack of internet was a drawback, but the place had electricity, and their phone had a single bar that occasionally flickered up to two, so it looked like they could use roaming data in a pinch—if not reliably. There was an old phone on the wall, too, so presumably there was also a landline if their cellphone was unreliable. 

They chided themself for the thought. The whole purpose of this was to not contact anyone for a few weeks. To spend some time disconnecting, far away from other people. To take a couple of weeks to pull themself back together. 

How they’d get started on that task, Fern wasn’t sure.

[It begins! Comment with your suggestion for Fern 

For example, should Fern:
> Explore the cabin more thoroughly?
> Immediately unpack?
> Get started writing?
> Try to contact someone: friend or family?]

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