Rising Heat (58 page)

I’m not a party girl and I don’t drink, not because I’m a prude but because I just don’t like the taste. I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life, but don’t get me wrong. I have my vices and faults. To be honest, I’m a comfort eater. When I get stressed I even have a horrible habit of biting and picking at my fingernails, sometimes until they bleed. I’m not neurotic and I’m not anxiety-ridden, but like I said, I do have my faults.

As I pulled up in front of my house, I parked the truck and then turned off the engine, just staring at it. Wood sides constructed of wide, horizontal slate painted a light yellow. White trim around the nine-paned windows. A wooden porch. I still couldn’t believe it was mine.

All mine.

It was just the perfect size. Maybe, someday, if I ever managed to find the time to actually date or even get married, it would still be comfortable. It was the perfect size for a couple. A family home? Probably not.

I climbed out of the truck and then reached into the back to grab the box of supplies I purchased at the local office supply store. You know, the accoutrements of an online business; printing paper, ink, a couple of drawing tablets and colored pencils that I use to rough out potential website designs, stuff like that. Before you ask, yes, I do use a variety of software tools to design the websites I create, but I liked to roughly draw schematics out by hand first.

As I was carrying the box up the three long steps that lead from the driveway to the small porch, I noticed a flower on the doormat. Welcome! The doormat proclaimed. In fact, that had been one of my first purchases, that doormat. The flower was a yellow daisy. Around its long stem, a thin red ribbon had been tied. Attached to the other end of the ribbon was a business sized card. Balancing the box of supplies in one hand, I stooped down to pick up the flower, wondering who left it.

I turned over the card. It had been stamped with one of those stamps that you get at your local craft store. Red ink. An italicized message.

Just for you.

I was a little perplexed. I didn’t know anyone in Seneca and wasn’t currently dating at all. My last breakup had been quite a doozy and I was not at all anxious to jump into the dating game again. In fact, I don’t think I had been on a date for at least six months. So who would leave me a flower? One of the neighbors? I doubted it.

While I didn’t want to say that my neighbors were unfriendly, let me just say that out here in a rural farm lands and meadows of Vermont, people appreciated their solitude. Oh, they were friendly enough. The Sanderson’s down the road a bit had even invited me to a barbecue last weekend, but I had begged off, stating that I was behind on my work, which was true enough.

To be honest though, I’d felt a little uncomfortable. To say that I’m shy is not quite accurate. I just preferred to be alone. I get along well enough with people, don’t get me wrong. But I didn’t have much opportunity for social interaction and I rather liked it that way. Another drawback to being self-employed and working in such an isolated career.

I tucked the flower with the note card into the box and balanced it on my hip as I unlocked the front door and pushed it open. The unique smell of this old house barraged my senses. It wasn’t foul or musty, just… old and lived in. Once in a while when it rained, I caught the hint of damp wood. Sometimes, I even thought I smelled the hint of tobacco pipe smoke. I didn’t like to think that way, because those kind of thoughts lead to thoughts of ghosts and haunting.

And those thoughts make me shiver.

Yes, I believe in ghosts. I believe in things that go bump in the night although I don’t focus on it, at least I try not to. I don’t watch horror movies, especially by myself. I learned my lesson the hard way when, as a teenager, my older sister had convinced me to watch the Blair Witch Project all by myself on a — you guessed it — a dark and stormy night. She tricked me into it, telling me that it was a documentary. In fact, until I got about halfway through and had just about peed my pants, I realized it was only a pretend documentary.

My sister found the situation outrageously funny and never let me forget it, but I learned my lesson. Around Halloween, I had to be careful changing channels. I’d skim past scenes of The Shining, the Amityville Horror, and the bane of my existence, the Blair Witch Project.

Enough of those thoughts. Let’s go back to giving you a virtual tour of my Grandmother’s… no,
my…
home.

When you open the front door you step into a little square hallway. To the left was the living room. Besides the sparse furniture, lessened somewhat by the gorgeous floral rug I’d gotten for a discount at a carpet store — it was the floor model. A fireplace on the far side of the room was empty and clean, surrounded by New England stones. On the thick wood mantel, I placed some of my favorite photos of family, with my grandma taking center stage. Seemed appropriate.

To the right of the little hallway was the kitchen. Old-fashioned white appliances with black handles that looked like they’d come straight out of the 1950s. They probably did, but they worked, so I didn’t plan on renovating yet. Too expensive.

In the corner stood a breakfast nook, again, the old-fashioned kind, with a small table surrounded on three sides by dark green padded vinyl upholstery. Nine-paned windows met in a corner, offering me a gorgeous view of the front and the side of the house. White valence curtains hung over the windows, with white tiebacks with red ribbing.

Straight down the short hallway from the square hallway/foyer of the house stood a small room that could serve as a bedroom or den. Right now, it served as my office. I walked down the hallway, my footsteps echoing on the wood floor. I placed the box of supplies down on the floor inside the doorway of the office, glancing around at the mess. I definitely needed to organize. But before I did anything, I wanted to go upstairs and change.

Here’s another fault of mine: when I go out, most of the time at least, I managed to slip on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt or a sweater, whatever the weather demands. But when I’m in my house, working alone, I tend to be a little sloppy. Or maybe a lot. I’ll put on lounge pants, or I might even wear a pair of flannel pajama pants with a sweatshirt. Nobody sees me, right? It’s not that I don’t care about my appearance, because I do. I bathed regularly and got my haircut, or at least trimmed, every couple of months. Most of the time I just wore it up in a high ponytail. I didn’t tend to wear a lot of makeup. Drum roll… no reason to.

Geez, I sound like a hermit.

Which I kinda am.

You may wonder how I communicate with my online clients. I prefer chat or emails. I discouraged Skype. I didn’t like the idea of my clients seeing what I looked like, or what my home office looked like. And no, I don’t Facebook or Tweet or Instagram either. No time. Besides, who would I post, tweet, or upload photos to?

Hermit, remember?

I can spruce up pretty good if I go out on a date, meet a client, or have to go into town, but otherwise, who cares? I like to be comfortable when I’m working. Okay, maybe it’s an excuse to not deal realistically with the few extra pounds I carry around my middle, but it’s not extreme. I know I should exercise every day, eat better, but heck, when you live by yourself, you tend to let some of this stuff go. We won’t even talk about how often I shave my legs.

I headed back toward the front door. On one side of the hallway was a stairway that went up to the second floor. My bedroom was up there, the first door on the right, just over the kitchen. Most of the furniture that had been left upstairs in the house when I bought it was still there. My futon bed stood in one corner. A walnut end table and dresser that had belonged to my grandmother was still in the same spot she had put it. I had two windows in my bedroom too, offering the same views as the kitchen.

I stepped to the closet and opened the door, eyeing the stacked boxes and the mishmash of clothes hanging from hangers. I stripped out of my jeans and knit sweater and grabbed for my old university sweatshirt and a pair of lounge pants, completing my “work ensemble” with a pair of fuzzy-lined Ugg boots.

As I left my room, I glanced at the other two rooms upstairs. The doors were always closed because they weren’t used. I should turn one into a guestroom, maybe the other into a reading or craft room, not that I really had that much time. I just hated to see the space go to waste. Then again, I didn’t want to become a pack-rat either. After years of apartment living, it was a little difficult for me to want to fill up the space with stuff. While I had no intention of moving anytime soon, the thought of having to move big, heavy pieces of furniture was not much to my liking.

I headed downstairs and into the kitchen to fix myself a cup of tea. As I sat down at the kitchen table, I stared out the window waiting for the kettle of water to whistle. I wondered about the flower that had been left on my doormat. To say that I was perplexed was an understatement. Definitely curious. One of the neighborhood boys playing a practical joke? If not a prank, then who? As far as I knew, all of my neighbors were married and had families. Had I attracted the attention of someone in town? A librarian? The coffee shop barista? A gas station attendant? Who knew?

I could drive myself crazy trying to figure out who left the flower. Then, a sudden thought struck me. It couldn’t be Jeremy, my last boyfriend, could it? No. He probably didn’t even know I’d left Boston. I stood and moved to the stove, took the kettle off the burner and then reached into the cupboard for a mug and the box of Oolong tea bags. My thoughts distracted, I put the tea bag into the mug, filled it with hot water, and then reached into the cupboard for the honey. Two squirts. Now I was ready to get back to work.

I left the kitchen and turned down the hallway toward my office. I have three computers. Two for work, one for entertainment. By entertainment, I have to admit a weakness. I like to play games before I go to bed, not shoot-em-up games, but games like Bejeweled, hidden objects, you know, stuff that just helped me transition from work to sleep. I watched my share of TV as well.

I stood at the doorway of my office with a smile on my face. I had a good life. I wasn’t rich, but I wasn’t homeless. I now had a home to call my own, and while my office was still a work in progress, as was my career, I found myself growing increasingly comfortable with my solitary lifestyle. I sat down, turned on my computers, waited for them to boot up, and then dove into my work, the flower forgotten.

*

I was up just after dawn the following morning. I was an early riser. Long ago, I had discovered that I worked better in the morning and into the afternoon. I was definitely not a night person. To start my day, I tried to make an effort to go outside, get some fresh air, wake up my brain cells, and enjoy the smells and sounds of the Vermont landscape.

More often than not, early in the morning a thin layer of fog or mist hovered near the ground. In the distance, I often heard the sound of loons on the lake over the hill. I loved the sound of the hoot owls, the wind breezing gently through the trees, the sound of leaves rustling and blowing. Fall was on the way, bringing with it the crisp tang of leaves, birch and ash, and pine.

Once again I thanked God for my incredible fortune. I couldn’t ask for anything better. This morning, I decided to go for a brisk walk, maybe even jog a little. I was terribly out of shape, could stand to lose a few pounds, and maybe even work on my stamina and endurance. After all, I was too young to let myself go, even if I did work alone, rarely saw people, and preferred to avoid social interaction.

A couple of days after I started bringing my belongings up to the cottage, I found the deer trail that meandered from the backyard into the woods and down alongside a small, bubbling creek.

Sounds cliché, doesn’t it?

In the woods, I also found a low rock wall. The area was dotted with these rock walls, most which didn’t exceed over a couple of feet in height. Apparently, colonial farmers had taken the effort to dig the rocks out of their fields and make good use of them by building low walls that separated property lines. I found such history intriguing.

Alone on my morning walks, I often imagined myself living a century or even two centuries in the past. I wondered what it was like to have to hunt for your own food, to churn your own butter, to milk the cows, to grow your own vegetables in a garden, and raise sheep or cows for food. As I walked along, I imagined Indians traversing the same trail, following the deer along this very creek.

From what I understood, this territory had once belonged to the Iroquois nation. This area had seen its share of wars and battles between the Iroquois and other tribes fighting over hunting grounds, a history of French trappers, and later, the likes of Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys, the invasion of General Burgoyne, and then, during the Civil War, as one of the routes along the Underground Railroad.

To say I was growing to love it here would be an understatement.

Before I knew it, I had walked a mile or more from the house and decided that I’d better turn around and head back or I would never get any work done. In the distance, I heard the sharp snap of a branch and stopped, looking into the woods.

A deer?

I waited and listened, peering into the shadows between the trees, but I didn’t see or hear anything more. I chastised myself for being so jumpy and pathetic, then continued on my route back home.

Then, maybe thirty or forty yards further down the path, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. It was the oddest feeling. It felt like I was being watched. Again, I wondered if it was wildlife. Shit! Maybe even a bear? The freakin’ Blair Witch?

I quickened my pace, but didn’t feel a sense of outright fear, just caution and unease. After all, I was still relatively new to these parts. I wasn’t sure what kind of wildlife called these woods their home. I had just decided that it was a deer or a small animal when I heard another sound, this time closer. Like the brush of cloth against a tree branch. The rustle of leaves under shoes.