The Cottage
Chapter 2
Written and illustrated
by Elaine Troisi
The windshield wipers swung in a steady arc, rhythmic and hypnotic. Whoosh, whoosh. Thwip, thwip. Don’t think, don’t think.
Only she controlled the pace now. Only she controlled the car. Gradually, despite the ache behind her eyes, she relaxed.
Her father called to check on her. He was worried about the rain. Their conversation was brief. When he suggested she stop at a motel for the night, she replied, “I’ll think about it.”
“Not a bad idea,” she thought. But she was only two hours away now. “Ah, nope. I’ll keep going.”
The dull ache behind her eyes had become a throbbing pain. The oncoming headlights blinded her.
Finally, she turned off the highway onto the back roads leading to the cottage. Only a few more miles.
She gritted her teeth. “I can make it.”
The ache spread up the back of her head and down her neck. She reminded herself to hydrate. Reaching for the bottle beside her, she took a long drink.
A deer!
She slammed on the brakes and grabbed the steering wheel. The bottle slipped from her hand, spilling water across her lap.
The deer stood frozen in the headlights. Then it moved on, two small fawns trailing behind it.
Caroline realized she had stopped breathing. Slowly, she drew in a deep breath and rested her forehead against the steering wheel. A blanket of silence settled around her. The smell of wet earth drifted through the cracked window.
She was safe.
She could breathe.
Then why was she screaming?
Despite the darkness and the heavy rain, she knew where the cottage was, yet somehow she missed it. She had to do a five-point turn, not easy in the heavy rain. She feared slipping off the road into a ditch. There was nothing around the cottage for a mile or more. Just woods. She was terrified. But success came with another deep breath.
There it was. The cottage was in sight. Instead of parking in the barn in the dark, she pulled into the stone drive on the other side of the house. Rainwater trickled down the back of her collar.
Her headache was nearly blinding. Her neck and shoulders were knotted with tension. She nearly fell asleep in the car. She was so tired.
She needed sleep. She rummaged in the console for the keys until she found them, also finding a bottle of aspirin. “Thank God for small miracles,” she said out loud and got out of the car.
The bright white cottage and the light from her cell served as beacons. She rushed to the front door but slipped and fell.
That’s all she remembered—slipping on slick grass and falling hard.
She woke up in bed. It was daylight. Passing the mirror, she caught sight of a purple bruise over her eye. It was a small knot, painful to the touch. In the bathroom were her clothes, neatly folded on the stool.
“What’s going on? It was raining hard… I fell. How did I get inside, in my bed, in my robe?”
She went to the familiar kitchen. She needed strong black coffee. As she filled the old percolator, she noticed the cottage smelled faintly of cedar, old coffee, and rain-soaked wood. She saw the ice pack in the sink. Had she…?
“I don’t remember that either,” she said, picking it up. It was warm.
She yelled, “Dad, where are you? I know you’re here!”
No reply.
She ran to the window, but his car wasn’t next to hers. “It must be in the barn,” she decided.
She quickly put on her mucklucks and raced outside.
“Daddy, where are you?” she yelled several times.
The barn door opened easily. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Her dad’s car wasn’t there, but the rusty old Chevy pickup sat in its usual spot, still defying the years. Dust and oil hung in the cool air.
She was about to leave when she heard a shuffling coming from the bunk room upstairs. It stopped as quickly as it had come. She waited. Nothing.
“Just barn devils,” she thought. That’s what they called them when she was a child. She smiled. “Barn devils, ha!”
She left the barn remembering her childhood years in the bunk room where all the kids, flashlights in hand, laughed and played into the night when they were supposed to be sleeping.
She entered through the back door to the kitchen. The coffee was past ready, but she didn’t mind its bitter taste.
She sat there, trying to make sense of the night before. Perhaps she had been dazed by the fall and managed to get herself to bed. Just a lapse in memory from the bump on her head, that’s all.
“That explains it, I guess,” she said. “Now I have to get moving.”
The day’s agenda included emptying the car of its boxes and going to the supermarket. It was already noon.
She ran a brush through her hair, splashed water on her face, and dressed. But she couldn’t find her car keys.
“Dammit, how many times have I done this?” she groaned. Lost keys had become a bad habit. Lost anything, for that matter.
After the coma, she’d become more forgetful. She also talked to herself all the time. She needed to hear a voice in the empty house, even if it was her own.
Her neurologist reassured her. “You’re not losing your mind, Caroline. Your brain was badly bruised and needs time to heal.” He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’s also probable the symptoms you’re experiencing are the result of grief and loneliness.”
As she was leaving Dr. Franklin’s office, he said, “Be easy on yourself, Caroline. If you need to talk, there’s a wonderful psychologist I know. Her name is Kate Barlow. Call her.” He handed her a business card.
Now Caroline wondered whether she could call her back. She saw Kate only twice. Mostly they sat and stared at one another. Caroline had not been ready to talk back then, so she simply stopped going.
“Where are those blasted keys?” she said, spinning around and looking.
Then she heard them. They were in her pocket.
“There you are!” she said gratefully.
She opened the front door, heading for her car. There, on the doorstep, was her suitcase and the boxes from her car.
“Did I do this in the pouring rain? How could I?”
She reached down. The suitcase was dry.
She stood and looked around, befuddled.
Someone was watching.
Dear readers,
I hope you are enjoying what could become my next novel, or a long story. Let me know what you would like to happen in chapter 3! I’m listening!
etlainie92@gmail.com
P.S. it would mean a lot to me if you would support my novel by reading it.
A hidden urn. A stolen legacy. A family silence stretching from Nazi-occupied Paris to modern-day New York.
The Urn — A Legacy of Silence is a haunting Holocaust novel of love, loss, resistance, and the secrets that refuse to stay buried.
