It’s the Visitor’s Guide to West Virginia.
“Found your book.” Margie tosses it onto the table, causing one of the chipped plates to rattle. “You should be more careful with it—if it hadn’t been tucked behind one of the planters on the porch, it would have gotten soaked,” Margie adds.
Sally looks up at her, lips stained dark with juice. “I didn’t take it outside, duh.”
Margie stands at the sink and looks out the window. She loves her sister, knows she’s probably right. But she has to believe Sally’s lying because otherwise someone came into the cabin and took the book. Someone stood leaning against the wall, flipping through pages while Sally and Margie sat inside, oblivious.
Her fingernails scratch against the old dingy grout of the tiled kitchen counter. This cabin’s the safest they’ve found since the change time. They’ve built a quasi-life here perched on the tip of a steep mountain. Margie’s garden is coming in, she has supplies enough to can and pickle, and the well has a hand pump so they don’t have to worry about water.
Though she lets Sally plan road trips in the evenings, Margie’s indulged herself with the idea of staying for a while. Settling in further. Spending the winter beside the fire quilting. Simple things you don’t dare dream about while the dead rumble around you.
Margie’s shoulders sag. Whoever’s out there hasn’t hurt them. Not yet. But if there’s anything Margie’s learned about the world since it changed, it’s that it’s only a matter of time.
She’s learned that lesson well.
“I’m going to check on the laurel walls.” Margie shoves a water bottle into a ragged backpack with extra shells and a plastic yellow flashlight. “It might take me a while. You going to be okay without me here?”
Sally lies on her back on the leather couch, an old paperback romance held above her head.
“I’m not a baby anymore, you know.” She says it slow and even. “I can tell there’s something going on. You’re not as good at hiding it from me as you think.”
Margie looks at the baby fat still visible under the smooth planes of her sister’s face. “It’s nothing,” she says.
Sally rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”
Margie isn’t lying about checking the perimeter, but that only takes an hour and then she finds a thick copse of weeds where she has a clear view of the cabin. Bugs swirl around her, creeping along her neck and tangling in her lashes, but she sits calm and still through dusk and into the late evening.
Through the window she watches her sister fix something to eat and flip through the atlas listlessly before selecting another novel and carrying it up to the loft. The lantern burns inside, beckoning to Margie, but she keeps to the weeds, waiting while stars begin to catch fire overhead.
He comes a few hours after nightfall, just as the moon burns a bright halo on the horizon. He creeps up the steps and eases into the swing, gripping the rusted chain to keep it from creaking. The ax he’d been carrying lies forgotten against the railing as if he’s not afraid of anyone or anything out here.
None of her traps signaled his approach, and Margie wonders just how many times he’s circumvented their defenses. She watches him a moment; it’s been so long since she’s seen a living human being other than her sister that she’s fascinated, even if this guy’s some sort of creeper who’s been in their cabin and touched their things. He hunches over himself so that most of him’s hidden in shadows, and she can’t get a good look at him except to tell that his hair’s tattered and his clothes ragged along the edges.
He jumps up as she steps from the weeds, but he doesn’t move for his ax. His body’s pole-bean thin, but even so she notices coiled muscles twined around his bare arms and knows he’s strong. She figures he’s her age or a little older.
“Just in case you can’t see out here,” she says, even and strong, “I’ve got a shotgun aimed at your gut. I wouldn’t reach for that ax.” Margie walks into the clearing, toes hitting the ground before she rocks onto her heels. She listens for movement just in case the boy isn’t alone, but she hears nothing but the night bugs screaming.
The boy raises his hands. “I’m not planning on doing anything stupid,” he says.
Margie swallows. She feels off balance inside, not really knowing what to do next. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“My name’s Calvin. I’m here because . . .” He looks down at his feet. He wears old yellow boots with knots in the laces holding them together. He shrugs. “I saw the light and I just . . .” He twists his face like it hurts him to say it. Then he looks up like he can see her in the darkness.
“I was lonely, okay?” He sounds defensive, his shoulders hitched forward.
The words cut into Margie—she doesn’t know what to do with them. “Where’d you come from?” she finally asks.
He shrugs. “Around. Here and there.”
Margie watches him, the slow rise and fall of his chest. He doesn’t seem as scared as he should with a gun pointed at him. “You know I don’t trust you, right? And I’m not going to trust you?”
He nods.
“Kick your ax off the porch,” she tells him. “And if you’ve got any other weapons, toss them too.”
Calvin reaches out with his toe and nudges the ax until it slips under the railing into the overgrown bushes. From his pockets he pulls two knives and a bag of bullets but no gun— they’ve become too scarce in the past years.
Margie keeps the shotgun on him as she climbs the steps. For a while they stare at each other, her trying to put the piece of his existence into the puzzle of her life up here.