Narrator

We wanted that.

I'm self-employed and always on.

Nora was coming off a brutal stretch at work.

Eric and Maddie had both been living in apartments where you can hear your neighbors sneeze.

We wanted to go somewhere you could sit on a porch and hear nothing but wind, and maybe a creek.

We wanted to feel small in a good way.

The listing was a little too perfect.

Hand-hewn logs, cast iron stove, original spring house, historic property once used as a way station for early settlers and later a logging family.

Photos of a porch swing, a gravel driveway, mist hanging low over a ridge, a note in the rules, no pets, no exceptions.

That stood out because most cabins in that area advertised dog-friendly, like it's a religious doctrine.

The owner's name was Cal, and all communication went through short messages that sounded friendly but controlled.

If I asked a question, I got an answer that addressed exactly what I asked and nothing more.

Like a man who'd learned the hard way what happens when you volunteer extra information.

We drove in two vehicles because we had a week's worth of groceries, hiking gear, and Eric's borderline ridiculous enthusiasm about bringing a small telescope.

We left early to avoid weekend traffic, and the drive itself was normal.

Highways into state routes, state routes into narrower roads, narrow roads into roads with names that sounded like warnings.

The last half hour was gravel.

Not the nice, graded kind you see in subdivisions.

The kind with deep ruts and fist-sized stones that ping the underside of your car and make you question your choices.

The forest closed in, and the ridgelines kept stacking, one behind another, like you were driving into a layered photograph.