by Mac Flynn
"My name's Agnes Arbuckle, and I'm the manager of this store," the woman introduced herself. She gestured with one hand to the man. "This is my father Abner. He's the owner."
Abner bowed his head to me. "Howdy," he greeted me.
"Hi. I was looking to get some supplies," I replied.
Agnes scrutinized my appearance. "You must be the girl who bought the part of the old Johnson place near the spring."
I sheepishly grinned and glanced down at myself. I wore a pair of old jeans and a simple blouse. "Do I look that city-folkish?" I asked her.
She smiled and shook her head. "Nope, but it's too late in the season for campers and you don't look the type that any of those snooty folks would be inviting to their big places. That, and Mr. Johnson also phoned and told us he'd sold it to a young girl and she'd be coming up soon."
"Snooty people?" I repeated.
The old man took a puff on his pipe and quickly blew a puff of smoke into the air. "Aye. The rich folk couldn't get a hold of the fine land down in the valley here so they bought up most of the forest on Wolf's Mountain."
I furrowed my brow. "Wolf's Mountain? Where's that?"
"That's what the locals call the mountain where your property is. You can tell how long someone's been here by what they call the mountain, Big Bear or Wolf, though there hasn't been a wolf seen up there in a coon's age," Agnes explained.
"Those city-folks put them big cabin houses where there used to be some find woods of trees," Abner continued. "Ruined a lot of good forests making their muddy driveways, too."
"It's their land, Dad," Agnes reminded him.
He sneered, opened the door to the belly, and emptied the contents of his pipe into the burning ashes and logs. "Don't mean they can come in here and put up their No Hunting signs like they've always owned the places. Damn interlopers, I say, and bah to them!" He refilled his pipe and clamped his teeth tight on the mouth.
"That attitude is why I'm running the place," Agnes reminded him. He merely turned away and crossed his arms over his chest. She rolled her eyes and turned back to me. "Though speaking of land, what do you plan on doing with the Johnson place?"
I shrugged. "Probably leave it like it is. I was here fifteen years ago with my folks and thought it was perfect then."
Agnes paused and gave me another look-over. "What did you say your name was again?"
"I didn't, but it's Christina Monet," I told her.
Her eyes widened, and so did her smile. "My gosh, are you that little girl that came here for those few weeks and named the pond up there Froggy Pond?"
I blushed and wished I could shrink into my clothes. "That would be me," I reluctantly confirmed.
Agnes slapped the counter and let out a guffaw. "I remember when you were knee-high to me, and now look at you! A pretty young woman and come back to take that pretty place for your own!" She turned to her father who had an eyebrow raised and gave me with the same careful gaze. "You remember her, dad, the young girl who you practically gave all our candy to."
His mouth slip into a wide grin and he nodded. "Yep, she was a sneaky one with them big brown eyes. Is that how you wrestled the property from old Johnson?"
I laughed. "No, but he was pretty glad to hear it was going to someone who liked it just the way it was. I think that's why he sold it to me."
"Well, you might want to do some changes to the house. It could use a little fixing last I saw it a few years ago," Agnes advised me.
I cringed. "That bad?"
She laughed and waved off my concerns. "Not so bad you can't live in it, but the roof is a little leaky and the place could use a woman's touch. Johnson mostly used it as a hunting lodge so it didn't get many women up there."
I turned around at the aisles of stuff. There was a full aisle of cleaning supplies. "So you're saying I need to buy all your cleaning supplies?" I teased.
"At least the basics, and maybe you need to find yourself a handyman for the roof. I know a good one around where you live," she added.
I looked back to her and shook my head. "I'm going to try to do as much as I can on my own and go from there. Otherwise how am I going to learn?"
"You're going to learn the hard way doing that," Agnes scolded me. "That is, unless you're one of the few young folks around who know how to fix up places. Swappers, or whatever they call them. You do stuff like that?"
"No, my line is more in the bullshit variety," I admitted.
She snorted. "You'll find plenty to do with that. Lots of folks still farm around here and there's a lot of selling and buying going on. Of course, there's always the trading of bullshit, but Dad's the one who would know more about that than me."
"You just don't know what's interesting," Abner argued.
"But anyway, if you need a handyman, I know where to find you one," Agnes continued.
I smiled. "If I find it's too much then I'll go see your handyman. Deal?"
Agnes leaned away from me and shook her head. "All right, but it's going to be tough. You'll need all the luck and all the supplies I have here, and then some because I don't carry any boards."
"Then I'll take all the nails you've got and a hammer, and start from there," I told her.
Agnes nodded at an aisle behind me. "Aisle Three, and you got enough food to last you a few weeks?" she asked me.
"Only about three days. I was going to buy more when I got closer to the house," I replied as I wandered to the hardware aisle.
She clacked her tongue. "You'll need at least two weeks. The power goes out up there at least once a year."
Abner chuckled. "And no amount of complaining from them fancy new folks has stopped the trees from falling on them lines."
"Dad, why don't you behave and go get a few boxes from the back for Miss Monet? She's going to need a lot of food," Agnes ordered him.
He stood and bowed his head, but the grin didn't slip from his face. "I'll be back in a jiffy," he promised, and tottered off around the counter and through the door behind the register.
Agnes stepped around the counter and joined me one aisle down in the foodstuff. There was the clank of cans as she took them off the shelf and set them on the ground. I hoped she didn't expect me to buy out the store on my little cash. "I hope you don't mind what Dad's been saying about the new folks," she spoke up.
"No. To be honest, I was kind of glad so little had changed along the highway," I admitted.
"And to be fair not much has changed on the mountain, but Dad doesn't like it that some of those houses stand on the best hunting ground and the owners won't allow anyone to even drive down their driveways without being invited," she explained.
"Well, you two are invited to Froggy Pond whenever you want, no appointment needed," I told her.
"You know, Froggy Pond wouldn't be a bad name for the new place. It's a sight more accurate than some of the other names for those driveways," she mused.
I paused in my nail-gathering and glanced over the shelving at her. "What are those?"
She smiled. "Oh, the usual. Grizzly Falls without a water or grizzly, or Fish Lake when it has neither. Those sorts of names."
I laughed. "Then maybe I should name it Froggy Lake."
She stood and playfully glared at me. "Don't you dare, Miss Monet."
"You can call me Chrissy, and I won't dare," I promised her.
Agnes gave a nod and a grin. "Good. Now let's get you packed and ready for your new home."
Abner returned from the back room with cardboard boxes, and we loaded them full of the nails, food, and my new hammer. Agnes rang me up, the price was right, and in a half hour I was back on the road with my two new friends receding in my rear-view mirror. The mountain and my new future lay ahead of me.
Chapter 3
The state highway ended three hundred yards behind the general store, and my little car bumped onto a well-used gravel-and-dirt road. The green, open meadows slipped and morphed into a thick forest of tall, old pines and firs. The trees stood like tall soldiers pr
otecting the secrets of the prickly brush and animals that made small trails through the undergrowth. They cast their shadows over the road and at times created a tunnel effect where all but the slimmest of sky lit up the road above me, but everywhere else was the thick, overreaching branches of the trees.
The road inclined and curved like a snake in front of me. There were no sudden drop-offs on either side, but there was the occasional gully created by a small culvert or natural spring with its ten-foot drop. Tall enough to ruin my day if I went over, but not likely to kill me. There was a little bit of washboard on the road and for most of the corners you couldn't see what was around the bend. I slowed my speed to a hare faster than a tortoise and kept the car to the extreme right side. Unfortunately, the road didn't widen with my efforts. Actually, it shrank to the width of a car and a half, or a large truck.
Doubly fortunately, I heard a large truck careen down the mountain just on the other side of the oncoming corner and there happened to be a driveway to my left. Judging by the crunch of its wheels it was big and I was small, and I'd end up looking like the bottom of a box of Captain Crunch cereal.
I stepped on the gas and crept into the driveway just as the truck bumped and ground past me. It was a large four-wheel drive truck with shiny red paint and a kid at the wheel barely able to shave, much less drive. He didn't look at me at all, but kept driving down the road and disappeared after a second.
I leaned on the wheel and set my head in my hand. My fingers trembled so bad they shook loose my brain. "Easy there, Chrissy. You're still alive," I murmured.
I straightened, took a deep breath, and slowly backed out. The road was clear and in a moment I was back on my way. I kept my eyes peeled for driveways and my ears for more maniacal neighbors out to give me a first and final greeting and farewell. Nothing happened, and my slow driving allowed me to see the houses of some of my neighbors.
Agnes hadn't kidded when she told me the houses took up a lot of the old hunting grounds. They were large, two-floor mansions with full basements and double-door garages. Lawns stretched out over wide, long decks that sometimes wrapped around the house, and sometimes were suspended ten feet above the ground. Pool water shimmered in the mid-afternoon sun and sprinklers watered the thick, luscious green lawns that would have put Martha Stewart to shame. Here and there were parked Ferrari's, side-by-sides, long, pointy speed boats, and even RVs. In the middle of the woods. Yeah, I know, I don't get it, either.
The farther upward I drove the fewer were the houses and driveways. Eventually the road flattened and turned a little muddy. The trees thinned and the area widened and straightened into a long corridor of natural grass and wildflowers. Potholes were now the norm and I dodged and bumped through them for another hundred yards on the straight road before I saw an old metal cattle gate, originally green but now brown from all the color rusted off. This was it. I'd reached my new home.
I parked the car a foot in front of the gate, got out and went over to the heavy lock on one side. With my trusty key the lock was vanquished and I opened the gate, or tried to. The gate swung out towards my car. I sighed, closed the gate, backed my car up, and tried it again. The gate swung out and my way was opened. I opted to lock the lock to the gate and leave the gate open. There wasn't another driveway within two miles and nobody knew I was there.
I walked back to my car and at the door I heard a snap. I froze and my eyes flitted about the area. Nothing came to sight, but plenty of images came to mind. Lots of possibilities of bears, cougars, and maybe even an escape circus lion. I listened for another terrifying crack of a branch, but there was nothing but the sound of-wait, there wasn't even the sound of birds chirping. The area was completely devoid of the beautiful songs of birds and the scampering of squirrels. It was almost as though the gate was a vortex into a lifeless patch of the world.
I had entered the Twilight Zone.
Then I remembered I was just plain old me in a plain old place, and plain old me needed to stop her stupid thoughts and get going before the sun set. There was about two hours left, give or take a tree or mountain top getting in the way of the last rays of light. I hopped into my car and bumped my way down the two ruts that made up the road. The trees crept closer again, and on either side of me was lush vegetation that grew from the marshy ground. Come spring mosquitoes were going to be a problem.
I drove fifty more yards and the road turned to the right. The way opened to a small, familiar meadow, and in front of me stood my own little, one-story cabin-house. The roughly-hewn clapboard siding was darkened with age, and the building had a single peaked roof made with metal sheeting. The foundation was made of cinder blocks, but there was new evidence of concrete to shore up the most cracked of the blocks. There was a small, covered porch with a railing that was reached from the front by five stairs. The front door was a sturdy piece of fir, and a pair of large, rectangular windows sat on either side of it and looked out on the road.
The road made a loop in front of the house and returned back the way it came. I parked the car and stepped out. It was much the same as I remembered, minus a few chips in the siding and the strained foundation. I glanced behind me at the spot opposite the cabin across the turnaround and saw Froggy Pond. It was a small pond three feet deep at its deepest and with a gurgling spring on its right bank that fed it year-around. On the left the gurgling spring left the pond and resumed its journey down the mountain. The constant flow meant the water was clean, and I looked forward to swimming in it.
I chill autumn wind swept past me and reminded me now wasn't the time for a bathing suit and tanning sun. There was also the eerie silence of the woods, and I hadn't seen any birds or tree-climbing rodents on my way down the driveway. I grabbed a box of food and hurried up to the cabin. The door was locked, but not for long. I swung open the portal and peeked inside. The front of the cabin-house was the living room on the left and the dining room and kitchen in front and on the right. There was also a large fireplace in the living room on the left wall, and a stone mantel over that. The far back of the house was closed off for the bedroom and bathroom. The floor was made of unfinished wood, the windows were single-pane, and one look at the ceiling told me there'd been some water damage in the near-past.
I noticed two switches beside me, touched my finger to one of them, and prayed. My finger flipped the switch and the dingy bulb on the porch lit up. Wrong switch. I tried the other and it flicked on the living room light. The decor of the house was second-hand furniture with early-pre-century hunting memorabilia on the wall. Bear and cougar heads glared back at me, and the deer looked frightened. I stuck my tongue at them, marched into the kitchen and plopped down the box. One down, a half dozen to go.
Chapter 4
I walked back outside and had one foot on the top step when I heard the soft turn of wheels on the rutted road. A slick red corvette appeared down the driveway and stopped just behind my car. At the wheel was a man in a thick white sweater and dark sunglasses. He had jet-black hair that was too dark to be anything but dyed, and he looked about fifty-five, but wanted people to believe he was forty. His passenger was a woman the same fake age in a white dress that worked as well in the woods as army gear at a dance studio. They stepped out and the woman showed off her matching high-heels. In her hand was a matching white purse in which she stuffed her own black sunglasses.
She flashed me a smile so white I was nearly blinded by the light shining off those pearly teeth. "Hello there. We saw you pass by and thought we'd see if someone had finally managed to wring this lovely pond land from that old man."
I raised an eyebrow. "You mean Mr. Johnson?" I guessed.
She waved her hand. "Yes, that man. Wasn't he atrocious? We read in the paper that he had put the land for sale, but he flatly refused to hear our offer."
The man walked around the car, put a hand on the woman's shoulder, and smiled at me. His smile wasn't so blinding. "You must excuse my wife. She's still disappointed we couldn't enlarge our property. You see
, we own the lower parcel and had hoped to join the lots," he explained. He walked up to me and held out his hand. "The name is Vandersnoot. I'm Mark, and this is my wife, Clara."
I took his hand and gave it a shake. "Christina Monet," I replied.
"What a lovely name!" Clara commented. She walked up, pushed aside her husband with her thin, pointy hips, and gave my hand a gentle squeeze. "I'm sure we'll be wonderful friends and neighbors. Unless, of course, you wish to sell us this beautiful land." She released me and swept her hand over Froggy Pond. "It's the source of most of the water for our lawn and well, and we so hoped to be able to funnel it through that nasty swamp and into our cistern."
"I don't think I'm ready to sell yet," I told her. Maybe in forty or fifty years.
Clara sighed and shrugged. "Oh well, you can't blame a woman for trying."
Mark stepped forward and wrapped an arm around his lovely wife's thin waist. "We aren't really here to make you an offer for the land. Why we really followed you was to offer you the usual greeting for a new neighbor, the Welcome Party at our house."
I cringed. More time spent in Clara's company was time I could never get back. "I don't know. I have all this unpacking and cleaning and-"
Clara laughed and waved away my concerns with her slender, well-manicured fingers. "Oh, we don't expect you to come down today. We need time to plan ourselves, but everything should be ready in three days."
"I really appreciate the gesture, but-"
"I won't take 'but' or 'no' for an answer, will we, Mark?" Clara insisted.
He smiled and shrugged. "If Miss Monet is busy we shouldn't-"
Clara scowled at him. "Now don't go ruining my fun. It's so dull around here that getting together with the neighbors is the only excitement I have."
