The Lost Chord

The rain came down like a grudge. Not the cleansing kind, not the kind that washes the dust off the road and makes the world smell like hope again. This was the kind of rain that found the crack in your collar and ran cold down your spine. The kind that turned the trail to mud soup and made the trees look like they were closing in.

I should have checked the forecast. I should have turned back two hours ago when the sky first went from gray to bruise-purple. But I kept thinking the next bend would show me the campsite, the next rise would reveal the ranger station I'd marked on my map. Stupid. Pride is just fear dressed up in a better coat.

My boots were full of water. My leather jacket hung off me like a dead animal. The guitar case on my back had become a sail, catching the wind and trying to spin me around. I'd wrapped it in a trash bag back at the trailhead, but that was three hours and a lifetime ago.

Then I saw the light.

Not a flashlight. Not a campfire. A window, square and yellow, floating in the dark like a lantern on a black sea. I didn't care who lived there. Could have been a serial killer with a collection of tourist bones. I was going to knock.

The cabin sat in a hollow between two hills, half-swallowed by moss and time. The roof sagged in the middle like an old horse. Smoke came from the chimney, thin and gray, barely visible against the rain. A porch wrapped around the front, the boards warped and splintered. Someone had planted flowers once. The rusted tin cans they'd used as pots were still there, filled with weeds and dead things.

I climbed the steps. The wood groaned under me. The door was heavy oak, scarred with knife marks and weather. I knocked three times.

Nothing.

I knocked again. Harder. The rain kept hammering. My hand was shaking. From cold, I told myself.

The door swung open.

The woman standing there was not what I expected. She was tall, lean, with dark hair tied back with a leather cord. Pale eyes that caught the lamplight and held it. She wore a traveler's coat over a simple linen shirt, and a wooden flute hung from her belt like a weapon. Her face was all sharp angles and quiet judgment.

"What do you want?" Her voice was low. Musical. Like she was already halfway through a song.

"Shelter." I tried to smile. It came out wrong. "Just for the night. I got caught in the storm. I'm soaked through."

She looked at me. Not at my face. At my hands, my boots, the case on my back. She was reading me like sheet music.

"You're a musician."

"Guilty."

She stepped aside. "Come in. But don't touch anything."

The cabin was warm. A fire crackled in a stone hearth, throwing shadows across the walls. There was a table with a half-empty bottle of whiskey. A bed in the corner, neatly made. Books stacked on the floor. A guitar leaned against the wall, old and battered, with a crack in the body held together by duct tape.

I dropped my pack by the door. My fingers were numb. I couldn't feel my toes.

"Thank you," I said. "I'm Bo."

"Lu."

She didn't offer her hand. She walked to the fire and poked at it with a iron rod. Sparks flew up. The flames ate them.

"You're lucky," she said without turning. "Most people don't find this place. The trail's been overgrown for years."

"I wasn't looking for it."

"That's how it works."

I peeled off my jacket. It hit the floor with a wet slap. My shirt was plastered to my chest. I could see her watching me in the reflection of the window glass. The way her eyes moved. Slow. Careful.

"Take off your boots," she said. "You'll ruin the floor."

I sat on the edge of the hearth and unlaced them. My feet were white and wrinkled. Dead-looking. I held them toward the fire and felt the heat bite into my skin.

Lu poured two glasses of whiskey. She handed me one. Her fingers brushed mine. Brief. Electric. She didn't flinch.

"Drink," she said. "You'll get sick if you don't warm up from the inside."

I drank. It burned. Good burn. The kind that reminded you you were still alive.

"Why do you live out here?" I asked.

She sat in the chair across from me. Crossed her legs. Took a sip of her whiskey. "Why do you wander?"

"Didn't answer my question."

"Didn't answer mine."

Fair. I shrugged. "I play music. I go where the road takes me. No reason to stay anywhere."

"No reason to stay, or no reason to leave?"

I didn't have an answer for that. She smiled. It wasn't warm. It was knowing. Like she'd already heard every excuse I'd ever made.

The fire popped. A log shifted. The rain kept falling.

"You can sleep on the floor," she said. "There's blankets in the chest. I'll wake you at dawn."

"That's generous."

"It's practical. I don't want to find your body in the morning."

She stood. Finished her whiskey in one swallow. Set the glass on the table.

"One rule," she said. "Don't touch my flute."

I looked at it. The wood was dark, polished smooth by years of handling. There were carvings on it, patterns I couldn't make out in the low light.

"What happens if I do?"

She stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell her. Woodsmoke. Rain. Something floral underneath.

"You won't like it."

She turned and walked to the bed. Lay down with her back to me. Within minutes, her breathing evened out.

I sat by the fire. Drank the rest of my whiskey. Stared at the flute on her belt. Wondered what kind of person lives alone in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, plays a wooden flute, and looks at a stranger like she already knows all his secrets.

The rain didn't stop. The fire didn't die. And I didn't sleep.