You Wanted to Be Alone

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The wind swirled into the room, stirring the scattered leaves on the floor and riffling the blankets strewn across the ratty green couch in front of the fireplace. It swept underneath closed doors, touching every inch of the desiccated cabin before rustling the moth-eaten curtains on its way out. The candle burned on.

An old painting hung over the mantel. The woman’s eyes shone like embers.

The cabin was ready.

* * *

Eliza set her expectations low. Lewis had found the place online and chatted with the owner via email for two days before booking it, all without telling her.

“It’ll be good for us,” Lewis said, smiling at her from the driver’s seat. Eliza shrugged and leaned against the passenger door, watching the Blue Ridge fall foliage race by alongside them. The trees looked like she felt: bare, wasted, their beauty fallen in tattered shreds around them. The forests were meant to burst with vibrant colors, golds and reds and browns in chaotic harmony. Apparently this neck of the woods played by its own rules.

The winding road skirted more than a few cliff edges that overlooked the valleys of eastern Tennessee. They’d driven seven hours to get here, but Eliza would rather turn right around and drive seven hours back than spend a single night in some random cabin in the middle of nowhere.

“The owner said to take the dirt path on the left,” Lewis said. “So right about…here…”

Eliza sat up and stretched her arms as their sedan bumped its way up the last half mile. The cabin waited for them next to a promontory that overlooked a placid, sprawling lake bordered by evergreens. The twilight sun and orange skies cast a heavenly hue on the clearing.

“This could be really nice,” Eliza said.

“Good,” Lewis said, “because we paid up front.” He parked the car, leaned over to kiss Eliza’s cheek, and got out to grab their bag from the back seat. Eliza wandered around the cabin, noting fresh paint on the wooden walls and a tall, cream-colored candle that burned in an open window.

When she came back around, Lewis had the suitcase in one hand and a key in the other. Eliza followed him inside. The entryway and sitting room were tastefully smothered with rustic decor. A pile of neatly folded fuzzy blankets sitting on the plush green couch.

“It’s perfect,” Eliza whispered.

“I knew you’d love it,” Lewis said. Then he gestured to the picture mounted above the fireplace. It was a portrait of a stern-faced, middle-aged woman with haunted eyes and an old-fashioned black dress with cream-colored frills.

“I don’t love that, though,” Lewis said.

* * *

Eliza rose early the next morning, started a pot of coffee, and stepped onto the back porch. A gentle breeze, a cozy blanket, and a spellbinding book joined her as she settled into a sturdy rocking chair. Alone at last.

The bliss lasted for five minutes before Lewis yawned his way through the back door with a pair of steaming mugs. “Good morning,” he said, handing her one.

Eliza smiled her thanks and cradled the mug with both hands. It might be more difficult than she had thought to find time alone up here.

“Thanks for making coffee,” Lewis said.

“Yep,” Eliza said.

“And I noticed you lit that candle again.”

Eliza frowned. “What?”

“The one in the window that won’t shut,” Lewis said. “I put it out last night. You like the smell or something?”

“I didn’t do that,” Eliza said.

Lewis shrugged. “If you say so.” He sat in the chair next to hers and looked out over the lake, then grinned back at her. “Maybe it was a ghost.”

Eliza didn’t answer. She held her book open on her lap with one hand and sipped her coffee.

* * *

The nausea started around noon.

Eliza put a hand on her stomach as she poked through the kitchen’s hand-hewn cabinets. “What kind of coffee was that, babe?” she called out.

“You’re the one who made it,” Lewis called back from the living room.

“I thought you brought it,” Eliza said, but more softly, because it wasn’t worth another argument. She found the bag of coffee grounds and stuffed it deep into the pantry.

“Babe,” she said, planting one hand on the counter to steady herself, “do you think you could make lunch? I’m feeling a little ehh.”

Lewis appeared in the kitchen a moment later. “Sandwiches?” he asked.

“Sure,” Eliza said.

In the bathroom, she lifted her shirt and touched the bare skin of her stomach; it was soft, smoother than normal, just above her belly button. Strange.

Eliza rinsed her face with cold water and came back out to eat lunch. Soon the nausea was forgotten.

* * *

Eliza reclined on the couch, her head resting in the crook of Lewis’s arm. The only sound was the gentle crackling of the fireplace.

“This is nice,” Lewis said, and Eliza agreed. She nuzzled closer to Lewis, resting her forehead against his neck, and glanced up at the open window. The candle still burned there; it had barely melted since that morning.

Lewis stroked her hair, and Eliza closed her eyes. Maybe Lewis was right. Maybe this trip would be good for them. Maybe she would start enjoying his company again.

“Whoops,” Lewis whispered, and Eliza opened her eyes. He held a few strands of blonde hair in front of her face. She took them; they felt brittle between her fingers.

“I didn’t do it,” Lewis said. Eliza could sense the grin forming on his face, but she couldn’t shake her annoyance.

* * *

The nausea returned in the middle of the night. Eliza stumbled into the bathroom and almost reached the toilet before vomit spilled out onto the white tile. She leaned over the bowl and heaved out the rest before grabbing paper towels and lemon-scented spray to clean up the mess.

Eliza froze when she saw herself in the mirror. A tiny black spot sat on top of her head, right on the center part. She rubbed at her hair; the black didn’t come off, but a few hairs did, snapping like twigs as she scrubbed at the spot.

“I’m cursed,” Eliza said out loud. It was ridiculous, but it certainly felt true, standing in a bathroom in the woods at midnight with her hair falling out and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She lifted her shirt again. The slick sensation on her skin had spread across her abs, nearly reaching her chest.

* * *

Lewis made breakfast the next morning. Eliza sat on the porch with a mug of peppermint tea and an unopened book in her lap. She touched the top of her head again. It felt crumbly.

Lewis came out with a breakfast plate. He nearly dropped it when he saw her.

“Babe,” he said, “there’s something on your head.”

“I know,” Eliza said. “It’s like some head fungus or something. I don’t know. I washed it and everything. You probably shouldn’t touch me.”

Lewis set the plate down on the decorative tree-trunk table next to Eliza, then went back inside.

* * *

“It’s not cancer,” Lewis said from the couch. He’d been combing the Internet for an hour, researching Eliza’s symptoms while she hunched over at the kitchen table, head in hands.

“Oh good,” Eliza said. “That makes it better.”

“I’m trying to help,” Lewis shot back. Then he took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Eliza. I want to figure this out. I want to make things better.”

That’s the problem, Eliza thinks. You just don’t know how.

She glanced over at the candle again. A dozen droplets of melted wax dripped down the sides. Neither she nor Lewis bothered putting it out. It didn’t feel important.

“I’m sleeping on the couch,” Eliza said. Lewis just nodded.

* * *

Eliza writhed in her sleep, trying to find a position that eased the pressure in her stomach. She’d already thrown up twice tonight, just after dinner and just after brushing her teeth. Lewis offered to stay up with her, but she insisted that he sleep. She could suffer alone.

“Aauuugh,” she said, more from frustration than pain. She felt under her shirt. The clammy smoothness had spread all over her stomach, around to her back, and up through her chest to the base of her neck. Sweat soaked her hairline and ran in rivulets down her cheeks and over the bridge of her nose. Her legs felt weak.

Eliza rolled off of the couch and onto the soft gray carpet, squeezing tufts of polyester in clenched fists. “Lewis,” she whispered. Her throat was dry, and her voice hoarse.

She looked up, past the fireplace, to the painting that surveyed the sitting room. The woman’s eyes blazed, twin drops of flame reflected from the lone candle on the windowsill.

Eliza coughed. “Lewis,” she said again. She heard him stir beyond the closed bedroom door. She coughed a second time, then a third, retching up something from within her throat. It lodged behind her molars, and she prodded it with her tongue, which spasmed as if she’d drunk hot tea fresh from the kettle.

Bare feet pounded on the wood floor. The bedroom door shot open. Lewis emerged in his boxers and knelt beside her, shoving aside the tiny coffee table that sat in the middle of the rug.

“On your side,” he said, turning Eliza’s torso until she was facing the fireplace. He had always been this way; freaking out over the small things, yet eerily calm in emergencies. In that moment, Eliza was glad not to be alone.

Eliza stuck two fingers in her mouth. They found something hot and sticky wedged against the back of her jaw. The object seared her fingertips, and she screamed, the sound muffled by her fist stuck halfway past her lips. She yanked as hard as she could. The object tore loose from her jaw and fell to the carpet.

Eliza lay back against the couch, her chest heaving. Lewis rubbed her back in circles. They stared at the strange little mass that had emerged from Eliza’s throat. It was a ball, imperfectly shaped, with a smooth surface that gave easily when Lewis poked it with a tentative finger.

“It feels like wax,” Lewis said.

A gust of wind blew past the candle and washed over the sitting room. The flame was undisturbed. The candle had grown much shorter.

I WILL OFFER YOU A CHOICE.

“What was that?” Eliza asked.

“Just the wind,” Lewis said. “Don’t talk, babe. Breathe slowly, in and out, in…”

The candle’s flame flickered as the wax melted even faster.

“…and out…”

Why didn’t it go out?

YOU WANTED TO BE ALONE.

The voice came from all around Eliza, and she must have imagined it, or else Lewis pretended not to hear it.

“I don’t want to be alone,” Eliza whispered, and Lewis squeezed her shoulder gently.

“In…” he said.

The voice spoke again. I HEARD YOUR TRUTH. WHISPERED IN THE NIGHT.

“No,” Eliza said. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Breathe out,” Lewis said. His thumb pressed painfully into her collarbone as he rubbed her shoulders.

I CAN FULFILL YOUR WISH.

Eliza’s body jerked upward, and she found herself standing upright, feet spread. Lewis fell back against the carpet. Eliza held up her hands. Her fingertips dripped like putty down her palms.

“Eliza!” Lewis screamed.

Eliza opened her mouth, then brought her melting fingers to her face. She felt no lips, and she felt no teeth, just a smooth waxy finish. Her eyes glazed over, the clammy sensation rushing upwards to her forehead, but she could still see. Her hair fell in clumps around her, blonde locks tumbling to the floor. Her legs grew hard and stiff, and her arms fell limp, collapsing against her sides and sticking there as if glued. As if molded into shape.

The wind blew harder. The woman in the painting smiled. Her infernal eyes cast a hellish light on the sitting room, on the gasp frozen on Lewis’s face.

The wind drew Eliza back towards the window. It swirled around her, lifting her off the ground, carrying her above the windowsill and settling her on a brown ceramic plate, surrounded by a few flakes of wax.

I’m the candle, Eliza thought. The candle is me.

IF THIS IS WHAT YOU TRULY WANT, the voice hissed in her mind, YOU MAY WATCH.

So she did. Eliza watched Lewis scream her name. He searched the cabin, the yard, the overlook, the surrounding woods. He returned to the cabin just before dawn, still calling out in a weak voice.

“Eliza!…Eliza…”

She watched him call the police. They came inside and sat on the couch where she had been sleeping. Lewis told them what he’d seen, and he showed them the ball of wax, but they were clearly skeptical. They asked him to come down to the station to answer a few more questions.

She watched the police return two days later to gather her possessions. Someone found Lewis’s keys and took the car. They left the blankets piled up on the couch.

She watched for days. For weeks.

She watched the sky grow dark, and the forest, again and again, as winter supplanted autumn and the lake froze over in uneven patches.

She watched for seasons. Years. Decades.

She watched the cabin fall into disrepair, forgotten and abandoned by the outside world, until she knew that she was truly alone.

And still she watched.

When she had lost the notion of self, and her thoughts had faded into comfortable oblivion beneath the surface of the wax, the voice returned.

NOW I OFFER YOU THE CHOICE.

The world un-eroded. The seasons unraveled. The cabin turned back on itself, decay disappearing into dust, and with an agonizing heave Eliza was thrust back into the land of the living. She stood by the window, her nausea evaporated, her hair all in one place, her fingers intact. Lewis lay sprawled out on the carpet, staring in wide-eyed horror.

“Eliza!” he said, scrambling to his feet. “Are you okay?”

I WILL HAVE YOU, the voice said in her ear. OR I WILL HAVE THE BOY.

Lewis ran his hands over Eliza’s shoulders, her hips, her arms. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Go to the car. We’ll find a motel or something.”

He sprinted for the bedroom. Tears filled Eliza’s eyes as she realized the deepest desire of her heart. She’d whispered it into existence four nights ago, long after Lewis had fallen asleep.

I want to be alone.

“Him,” Eliza said. “Take him.”

Lewis turned around. Eliza had spoken more loudly than she thought.

“What?” Lewis asked. Then he doubled over and retched onto the carpet.

The voice spoke to Eliza once more.

YOUR CHOICE IS MADE.