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As they ventured further into the countryside, Reiner was counting the ways that the ancient pickup Sasha was driving could fall apart. A loose bumper? The rusting side doors bursting open? The tires popping on the rugged terrain she was not taking any precautions in slowing down on as they rode up and down the slopes as if it were a rollercoaster? Sasha did not help matters by letting the vehicle swerve back and forth while she claimed she got the tires replaced recently.
Gabi and Kaya were seated in the back, squealing when the pickup descended. Sasha did nothing to stop it, acting as the ringleader. Kaya was trying to take some selfies of their adventure. Gabi seemed to be enjoying herself while drinking in the scenery around her. That’s all that mattered.
“Come on, do it again, sis!” Kaya begged.
“We’ll have to go to the amusement park next week if you want that. We’re almost there.”
Reiner had tried warning Sasha that if she wanted an idyllic weekend at her family’s cabin with two pre-teen girls, she wasn’t going to get it. But that didn’t bother her. She had a passion for
non-stop action. She had been like this since he met her in school when her family moved there when she was eleven. Well, there was that period she wouldn’t talk to anybody because she resented city slickers like them for developing over her countryside and got made fun of for her accent.
But she settled in well when she found her niche in the archery club and organizing the athletic fundraiser dinner. It’s not that Reiner and Sasha had been close friends in those days- more casual acquaintances than anything. But they kept in contact after graduation online, and this weekend, a few years after the fact, she invited him to her family’s cabin where she used to frequent more often before her father moved into his dream career as a social worker. She said it would be a great help having a second adult with them if something happened. He agreed, needing a break from working inside all day between semesters and missing out on summer as it passed by. Plus there was always Gabi to be concerned with.
“Alright, everyone. We’re here!” Sasha declared as they pulled up to a modest cabin elevated on a hillside next to a small lake. She tossed a silver key at Kaya. “Kaya, you go open the door and get yours and Gabi’s things unpacked, and get the alarm turned off. We don’t want the police department travelin’ out here for a false alarm.”
“Can we get the big bedroom that oversees the lake?” Gabi’s eyes widened. This was like a luxury resort getaway for her.
“I don’t know, hon. I was gonna let Reiner decide.”
“Nah, they can have it. They’re little princesses, so they need the best.”
“Reiner! I’m twelve! I’m too old for that!” Gabi crossed her arms and pouted. Kaya giggled. “But we’ll take it.” The girls dashed out of the car to unhitch the back of the pickup and slipped their bags out of the piles of supplies and groceries they would need for the weekend. The two raced to the door as Gabi bounced with glee. With her shouts of glee, she’d probably disturb the wildlife away.
Sasha and Reiner worked to unload the rest of the truck. They would have to cook using a wood stove, so they had brought some firewood to burn. Lifting whole bundles was easy for Reiner despite not having been on the powerlifting team for several years but sometimes lifting weights recreationally. Part of him missed the spectators’ attention on him, but part of him knew to not think about that. Sasha was not shocked by this feat of strength.
“Glad your aunt and uncle lightened up and let Gabi out.”
“She is too. They think wrapping her in bubble wrap and keeping her indoors all day will undo her trauma.”
“Just gotta let ‘em know the world’s got lots more to offer than the bad. Not everybody is a wolf prowlin’ the forest looking for a little girl to eat. You just have to know the trail and wildlife well.”
Reiner had been more of a brother than a cousin to Gabi since she was a baby. He’d sometimes lived with his aunt and uncle as his mother was in and out of mental health clinics growing up. He loved his baby cousin dearly and was sometimes jealous of her that she had both parents in the picture, but that was a good thing for her development, not having to work harder to impress her parents while keeping up the image of a perfect life with her classmates. She was a happy kid, very competitive, not too far off from his own childhood experience, and she loved him all the same despite their nearly eleven year age difference.
Sadly, that changed quickly one day about a year ago when she witnessed a hit and run while she was crossing the street to go to the park with her friends, Udo and Zofia, who died on the scene. Udo had pushed her out of the way, leaving her with survivor’s guilt.
Gabi later joined a therapy group for children who had witnessed death of a close family member or friend, and that is where she met Kaya, who saw her mother be murdered in a robbery attempt gone wrong when she was eight. It wasn’t easy for the girls to have distressing memories imprinted on them, but they became fast friends while navigating these difficult waters of why bad things happened to them for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And during this time, Sasha’s family, who had been caring for Kaya as a foster family, adopted her.
“So, what are we cooking tonight?” Reiner asked Sasha as they lugged supplies to the door. Sasha had a bag with some cereal and bacon in it, probably intended for breakfast. “If we have to stick to foraging for berries and nuts, I’ll give everyone food poisoning.” It was about all he knew about wilderness survival he remembered thanks to his brief stint in a scouting troop on a camping trip. He still didn’t forget the misery on the Galliard brothers’ faces after he made an attempt to prepare a meal. Needless to say, he didn’t earn a merit badge for that activity.
Sasha laughed. “Don’t worry! My parents were here in the spring and saved some leftover wild turkey from their hunt. It’s in the cabin icebox.”
“Icebox? Was your family pioneers before you came to the city?”
Sasha blushed. “Uh, fridge! Oh, I watched way too much Little House on the Prairie growing up. I thought Laura was just like me ‘cus of how much her family used the land they lived on. It’s funny. Some people thought I was using old words to sound smarter and some thought I was just being weird.”
At least this cabin had a mesh of tradition and modern conveniences. In the dead bolt, Kaya had abandoned the key. Hopefully nobody else lingered out here in hopes of becoming an unanticipated guest. Sasha held the grocery bags under her arms and twisted the knob. They entered into a homely space complete with sofas, two armchairs, and a large wood stove in lieu of a fireplace. The best view, however, was the large floor to ceiling window which displayed the picturesque lake below them.
“Kaya, hon! You gotta remember the key!” She shouted down a hallway as Reiner stacked the wood. Reiner could hear the girls chattering loudly over something, and that quickly turned into one of them screaming. Sasha dropped the grocery bags and dashed down the hall. Oh God, was this going to turn into a countryside murder mystery?
“It’s so gross!” Kaya cried.
“I’ll squish them for you!” exclaimed Gabi. “It’s no big deal! I kill ants with magnifying glasses all the time!”
Evidently, they hadn’t discovered a body in their closet. It turned out some cockroaches had made a nest and had reproduced substantially since Sasha’s parents were last here.
“Oh, umm… Thanks, Gabi, but I think it’s better if we get the roach spray so we can kill the eggs too. It’s in the hallway closet, Kaya.”
After the roach family was evicted by poisoning, Sasha and Reiner got the supplies unpacked, mostly Reiner following her instructions to not pillage her family’s sacred place. This cabin had been used many times partaking in the hunt of the season as evidenced by family photos of Sasha and her father proudly showing off deer, turkeys, rabbits, and once a bear. There was even a mounted stag’s head and what looked like either a muskrat or a weasel turned into taxidermy for posterity as proof of a mighty hunt.
“Are any of these your trophies?”
Sasha had dug out a carrot stick and munched on it. “Nah. We bought all these from friends or found ‘em at antique stores. Never liked wastin’ an animal by stuffin’ chemicals in it for show. Just get used ones. Nature can have the skin and bones back, and we get the meat.”
The girls were not being overly helpful. Gabi snapped pictures on her phone and texted them back to her parents. But Reiner couldn’t feel annoyed at them. He and Sasha were the adults here who got to take up responsibility, and they got to be the children whose innocence couldn’t be restored but at least recreated.
“Can we go swimming?” Kaya asked. Gabi eagerly nodded.
“Hang on now, we all just got here. We’ve gotta be well rested to have fun or we’ll crash. Why don’t we have some lunch first?”
Sasha Blouse, needing rest? That was unheard of. When watching football matches at school with their friends, Sasha would put the cheerleading squad to shame. Her friend Connie would have to pull her back from the edge of the bleachers so she wouldn’t topple over if she tried calling a foul for a foul. She swore she could detect movement better than the coaches, though she had to be reminded that people playing sports were not the same thing as wildlife trying to hide in the natural environment.
But it was no surprise that she needed to recharge with her ridiculous appetite. Lunch consisted of sandwiches and carrots, and it was informal. Everyone ate scattered throughout the living room as if they were some misfit little group of barbarians. Sasha’s idea of a sandwich was comical, something out of Scooby-Doo , and she’d still be hungry, taking a few pieces of beef jerky out of a bag.
“ ‘Kay I’m done,” Kaya declared. “Can we go now?”
Sasha shook her head. “Hon, let’s just rest first. If we do everything too fast, you won’t remember a thing about it. Why don’t you show Gabi around? Get a city girl acquainted with her surroundings.”
Kaya sighed and led Gabi away. Reiner proceeded to help clean up Gabi’s breadcrumbs scattered by her inattentiveness and excitement at the prospect of swimming. A simple little mess was not acceptable to his mom growing up. Everything had to be perfect, or else all order would fall apart. Not that they had much of an ordered life to begin with. Maybe she had intended to prevent him from repeating the mistakes she made when she had him as a single mother with a cheating husband who walked out on her, but it took a lot of therapy for both of them to even give them a relationship where they were on weekly phone calls and several visits per year.
“Sorry. Middle schoolers can be pigs,” Reiner apologized. Kaya was definitely a more girly girl than Gabi was.
“Oh don’t worry. I’ll vacuum on the last day we’re here. I still remember the time in Ms. Zoe’s science class when you and the other boys got into a contest to see who could get the best scream out of Mrs. Ral by planting the dissected piglets’ eyes around her room. Didn’t it take three weeks to find all of them?”
“Yeah, it did. Hard to believe, but what I remember most was that it felt good to be given detention. Got to feel what it was like to be a bit rebellious.”
Sasha chuckled. “Well, maybe that rebellion went a little too far. But you gotta learn how to balance yourself out sometime.” She checked a clock on the wall with painted birds on it. “Here, let’s get the sofa ready for you tonight.”
…
The girls were going to get antsier than an anthill laced with sugar if they had to wait a minute longer to go swimming. They darted down the wooden stairs carelessly, not worried about any forest debris in the way.
“Slow down!” Reiner warned. They were a long way away from an urgent care if they got sick or injured.
“They’re fine,” Sasha said, giving him a nudge. He almost tripped. “I got so many burrs and thorns and poison ivy on me that I practically know how to treat any plant-caused ailment. And I’ve got my certifications for first aid from job training.”
Training to be a park ranger was not an unexpected career move from Sasha. But Reiner thought park rangers had to be a bit more protective of the people they were there to educate. At least she had not been pressured to choose anything against her interests. It wasn’t easy picking up the pieces after switching majors from sports to behavioral science, and then having to drop to part time courses after Gabi’s trauma was inflicted on her. Hopefully two more semesters and he wouldn’t have to work in a warehouse anymore.
“Ow!” Gabi yelped.
“What? What’s wrong?” Reiner tensed up. This was his primary instinct.
“Why is the sand so hot?” Gabi tossed her towel out on the sandy strip and stepped on it to relieve the burning. “It’s like stepping on pavement!”
“It won’t be hot if you jump in the water,” Kaya tugged at her. “I bet you can’t catch a minnow with your bare hands!”
“I bet I can!” Gabi charged forward into the water. She shrieked. “Now it’s cold!” She shivered. Poor girl couldn’t catch a break or find that balance.
“You’ll warm up to it soon!”
The girls waded around for a while in search of minnows or some tadpoles to grab. Gabi caught a drowned dragonfly, which wasn’t exactly a mighty catch, but they did find some lovely pebbles they stored on the shore and a few vacant snail shells. Sasha promised they could make some art with those later. She took off her sandals and joined in to help look for more.
Reiner made himself comfortable on the beach in case one of them needed rescue. He was content watching some seagulls overhead scream at each other. Those were funny birds. He’d seen videos of them stealing hot dogs from unsuspecting tourists. Things could happen out of nowhere, far less comical than a bird with an appetite.
“Reiner, come in the water!” Gabi shouted. “It’s all warm now!”
“No thanks.”
“You’re boring!” she teased. “Sasha, can you get Reiner to come in the water?”
Sasha motioned him to play along with it. “You’re missing out. If you sit too long, the gulls will think yer food cookin’ in the sun for ‘em!” Kaya stood by her sister. The three of them formed a hivemind to try to control him.
He couldn’t let his anxiety hold him down. Just as long as he didn’t get too wild everything would be alright. They were here for fun, and if Gabi saw him like this, she’d become afraid too. They had to be brave for them in whatever life threw at them.
“Fine.”
And shortly after, they had him cornered and soaked from head to toe. Gabi was the first to face his retribution. She was easily dunked in a deeper end of the lake, squealing with laughter. She was lucky he was a gentle giant. Kaya was next. She was a little lady, so he was much kinder with her. If Gabi was the feisty one, she was the swan princess. Sasha was the last to go.
But suddenly this was feeling awkward. They were the adults here. Gabi and Kaya watched with bated breath for their beloved Sasha to get soaked. He didn’t want them getting silly ideas about this. Then before he could act, Sasha in an unbelievable effort of strength had pushed into him, and he fell backwards, but not without her toppling over on him.
Sasha didn’t need sunburn to turn the shade of a tomato. She laughed on through it though, flicking her long auburn hair out of her face after she sat up and helped Reiner up. It felt nice to have a smile on his face.
…
By the time they were done swimming, everyone was already wanting a wild turkey dinner. The girls resorted back to escape into the world of online content while Reiner and Sasha worked on preparing the dinner. Reiner stuffed some bits of old newspapers onto the bed and sandwiched some cardboard and kindling on top of it. These weren’t just from last week’s newspaper delivery. Some of these were almost ten years old with at least two presidential inauguration’s worth of front page pictures, some sports news, and one featuring a clipped out obituary section.
“Mom used to collect whole newspapers. Thought they would be given to museums in thirty years’ time. But Dad made her stop. Said there’s no point in stackin’ papers to turn yellow if everything goes digital.” She placed a pot with water on top of the stove filled with freshly sliced and skinned carrots. “Nobody uses a milkman anymore, but we all still get milk.”
“Do they only keep a few articles?”
“Oh yeah. The one obit section must have been when my great-uncle died. Not like he was a big name in this world, so stuff that’s more private’s fine to store in a family scrapbook.”
“Not everyone can own a cow nowadays either, I guess, let alone a whole news archive.”
“Sometimes I wish I could. But I’d miss out on my own callin’ to help teach others about the fall’n but pretty world we’re in. Least that’s what my dad always says.”
Reiner nodded. Most of his knowledge of anything spiritual was archived in his brain from high school world history class and in Johnny Cash albums he pirated in high school when he was in a dark and edgy adolescent mood. Sasha would probably like that music about tensions between man and a higher power akin to something that was asking to be chased by a man while the man had a beartrap around his leg.
There was plenty of kindling in the stove. It was time to add the logs and light the fire. This wasn’t going to make an entire holiday meal, but he had enough trust in Sasha knowing the ways of every forest animal to ever walk and every herb under the sun to make something edible. She’d probably be able to dig up a root in the forest and combine it with rabbit meat and call it a meal.
They passed the time with the girls by digging out some card games which the girls took a liking to despite not being flashy. He let Gabi win a few rounds on her own but felt safe enough letting her have a few minor losses.
Dinner was more formal than their improvised lunch. The wood stove had done optimally without any concern for food poisoning. It was hearty, yet Gabi and Kaya were still energized enough to ask for their next activity.
“Can we watch the stars come out, sis? Gabi’s never seen the stars before like this without city lights in the way.”
They settled on the lakeshore once more. It took at least another hour before the darkness sunk over the land, but it was worth the wait. Gabi was awestruck by the natural phenomenon that canvased the night sky and the surface of the lake. Sasha happily explained to her what constellation was which and how to differentiate between a planet and a star.
“Are you sure? I can see dots but nothing else.”
“Silly goose. You gotta use your imagination.”
“Mmm. Okay. I think it looks like a winter storm up there. The stars are snowflakes because they’re white, and the blackness is the sky.”
“Come on, be more creative than that, Gabi,” Reiner playfully teased.
“Then what do you see?”
“Well, that one vaguely looks like a horse.”
“Oh!” Sasha interjected. “That one is actually Leo. The lion. Not that it means much, but it’s my star sign. Just made it by having a late July birthday.”
“I think it would be mine too,” said Reiner. “Early August.”
“My friend Louise loves zodiac signs,” Kaya said. “Let’s see, she’s the bull one. That’s a pretty stubborn one. She never stops until she gets what she wants. Lions are both pretty courageous and love to protect the people they love. I think Leo describes you well, big sis.”
Sasha snuggled up to her little sister. “Aww, thanks, hon.”
“I think it does for you too, Reiner. I wish I could be more like you.” Gabi rested her head on his arm.
Well, damn it. He wasn’t expecting to get over emotional on a weekend in the countryside. He eyed Sasha as she stared toward the moon reflecting in the lake. She was holding back her tears too.
…
Kaya and Gabi were exhausted after a long day of traveling and little adventures. Tomorrow they were planning a hike on a deer trail, so they were sent to bed. Sasha had to quiet them after hearing them giggle over things only pre-teen girls would giggle about. She looked amused at whatever they spoke of in secret.
“Reiner and I are going to sit outside a while longer.”
“Sis, can you sit at the front of the cabin? I don’t want to get scared.”
“Of course, hon.”
Kaya sometimes had trouble falling asleep if she didn’t know where everybody was and if they were in an unfamiliar location, so the two were happy to adapt to that. The Leo constellation could be seen from the front entrance anyways, though there were other things that they got talking about over some light drinking.
“Ya think I love country music ‘cuz I grew up there?” Sasha laughed.
“Sorry. Thought you might have liked it.”
“Nah, it’s fine. There’s a few I grew up listening to. But I’m more of a classic rock fan, sometimes a bit of folk music. You know Heart?”
“A bit.” Reiner did not want to go into accounting the time his friend Bertholdt wanted to ask a classmate, Annie, out to a school dance. He had enlisted Reiner’s help to set up a scene and a song to play when he asked her. He had chosen ‘Dreamboat Annie’, which he thought would be fun to have a song with her name in it, but upon hearing it and the lyrics about ‘walking alone’, she became very red and ran out of the room, but not before calling both of them assholes and kicking Reiner in the shin. That was one thing to keep in mind: never impress anybody by using self-referential soundtracks.
Sasha sighed contently. “They’re so blissful. They really helped me through when I first moved to the city. Just needed something to escape from moving away from all I knew, returning to what I knew. I’d have to imagine an entire garden when we went to the grocery store to buy all our produce instead of growin’ it just to feel happy. But then Dad would remind me about the fall of the milkmen. But it never hurts to dream of a world you think would be better, wouldn’t it?”
“No. You just have to remember you can’t destroy everything bad that stands in the way and you’re going to face hardships. I thought Gabi was just lucky she never had to go through any real hardships like I did if I just taught her along with her parents. Well, it turns out anybody can draw the short end of the stick.”
“But you’ve done your best you can. I think learnin’ from mistakes the world makes will put things right one day. Maybe tomorrow we’ll have a fallen tree on the path or some rain. But we’ll figure it out together for ‘em.”
They would. They would protect them from the wolves that lurked in the dark corners that wished to bring harm upon them. They were safe with them as their protectors.
And in the sky, Leo the lion seemed to shine brighter.