1931

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It didn’t really matter that the candle was burning because the cabin was so remote it wasn’t likely to be seen by any human anyway. Her being there was safe and secret from the rest of the world.

She lit the candle, not because she was cold, it was August Afterall, but because the soft light comforted her and reminded her of her life before. She didn’t feel self-pity, everyone she knew was struggling the same as she was and she was fortunate just to have a roof over her head at all she supposed. Even though she was miles from anyone she still felt the heaviness of the state of things as they had been for the past almost two years. The devastation hadn’t escaped her or her family - they lost everything except this humble cabin which had been in the family for so long she didn’t really even know when it was built or by whom, only that it was family and it was a long time ago.

She first remembered coming to the cabin when she was barely old enough to walk. The happy times she shared with her parents, brother and their yellow lab Hazel were so much a part of her that this place gave her a sense of peace that almost no other could. The cabin didn’t have electricity, there was none to be had this far from town, so they always used candles and oil lamps at night if they stayed up past dark reading or playing cards. They almost never did but she always loved the glow of the tiny fires any time she could sit near them and watch the flame flicker – alive in its own right.

The woods here were more like an extension of the home rather than being separate from it. The slightly musky smell of the water and the woods was in every fiber of the house, and it pleased her senses. The nearby lake was home to all the usual nighttime noise makers – peepers, crickets, bats and giant frogs. The music of the woods and lake was all around her and she was glad. She felt like everything would always be alright here at the lake, no matter how bad it was in the rest of the world.

She couldn’t quite recall how she arrived here tonight though. She kept trying to go back in her memory to piece together how she made it so far with no memory of ever having left her small apartment in the city. The last thing she could remember was hearing of Henry’s accident. That news had swept over her like an impossibly huge wave, and she felt sure she would never surface from the terrible sadness it brought her.

They hadn’t wanted very much even from the beginning. They had both been raised humbly and, having found their perfect love in each other, they wanted only to live a simple life. They both wanted children, not many, only one or two and they would be content, since the crash, to live apartment life for as long as it might take to raise enough money to move to the country. Of course, the stock market crash had made that seem impossible, but they were content to stick it out and just do their best. Her work as a seamstress brought very little money to their household but his work at the mortuary pretty much guaranteed some income at least. Afterall, death and taxes as they say. They had agreed to wait on children for a few years. They were young and it felt like they had forever to get started on family life.

Forever had come to a screeching halt the moment she opened the door that night and saw two policemen standing in the hall, looking awfully somber. She didn’t even want to invite them in but she almost collapsed so they caught her and walked her inside her small living room and helped her sit on the couch.

It hadn’t been raining so the news that Henry had gone off the road and hit a utility pole didn’t seem to make sense. What could have driven him off the road? She supposed it didn’t matter now because the result was the same – her Henry was gone forever. At that moment lying on the same table he had seen countless other poor souls on in the past three years he had worked at the mortuary. She felt cold inside at the thought of him lying there cold and alone. She didn’t know how long the police stayed or what she had said to them in response to this news that devastated her.

The next thing she remembered she was in the cabin, lighting a candle and listening to the familiar comforting sounds around her. Sounds that had been with her as long as any memory had. Smells and sights that were so much a part of her she couldn’t recall a time before them. It didn’t surprise her that she would come here to the one place she felt truly safe in all the world.

In the mortuary a young assistant wheeled in the body of the beautiful young woman. She seemed completely unharmed. The mortician gasped lightly and shook his head in dismay as he took in her countenance. Only two days before, his assistant Henry, this woman’s husband, had been on this very same table. Of course, the exam would show that her broken heart, otherwise young, strong and healthy, had just stopped beating. He cringed as he came to the understanding that the news so devastated this young wife that she had died of a literal broken heart. He hoped silently that she was at peace now.

She had found her peace in the most special place her spirit could find to go. It had slipped so silently and easily to her childhood refuge that she hadn’t even realized it was happening. Her candle would no doubt burn for a very long time before anyone noticed that the abandoned home now had a permanent resident in her.