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Patience Turner is going to spend the rest of her life in this forest. Whether the rest of her life lasts only a few more hours or days, she’s going to die here. She’s screwed. But, on the off chance she doesn’t die, she will absolutely kill Ronson for ever convincing her to come on this “super fun spring break backpacking trip”.
“I don’t do nature,” Patience had said.
“It’s fine,” Ronson had assured her, “I’m not that great at this stuff either, but my parents are, and you’re going to love meeting my cousins! You’ll have so much fun, and who knows when we’ll have time to do this when college starts! Trust me!”
Famous last words. Patience had tagged along to this trip to the Oregon wilderness with Ronson and her family, and… okay, she did have fun. She got to feel like she was part of a family for the first time since her mother died so many years ago. She saw beautiful landscapes, taught Ronson’s little brother how to braid hair, even roasted marshmallows on sticks over an open fire.
Ugh, marshmallows. What she wouldn’t give…
Some say when you get lost in the woods it’s best to stay where you are, wait to be found. Well, she tried that. After she realized she’d gotten separated from everyone, she’d stayed put for nearly an entire day. Calling out for help occasionally, checking her phone to see if it had magically gotten a signal since the last time she looked. Sleeping in snatches of time before some noise woke her in a fit of absolute terror. Ronson's father had given a Patience a hunting knife for emergencies. She holds it for comfort. A lot.
Eventually Patience had decided that if her group was going to find her they would have by now, and she started walking. That was another two days ago. Now Patience is out of food, out of water, and her phone battery is long dead. She has stumbled and staggered through the forest, maybe going in circles for all she knows. It all looks the same.
Her pack is feeling heavier and heavier, even after she got rid of some of the contents. Sneakers, her calculus textbook she brought to study during downtime, pajamas, the backpacking chair her father got her for the trip, a pot-kettle thing. The pot she regrets leaving behind. If she actually finds water she’ll have nothing to boil it in.
She feels sore, tired, afraid, and worst of all, she feels gross. Sweat, dirt, little scratches on her arms from when she tripped and fell in some sort of bramble bush.
She’s going to die out here, alone, afraid. Her body will never be found. Her father will lose yet another family member. Grandma Missouri will never see the pillow Patience was embroidering for her. Poor Ronson will never forgive herself, she’s such a good and sensitive person. Patience will… will… is that a flower garden?
Patience trips over her own feet at the sight of what looks to be grass and colorful flowers, through the seemingly never ending mass of trees. Her heart stutters. She walks a little faster. There’s no way she walked all the way back to town in two days, right? A building comes into view, maybe a ranger station, or… no, it’s a house.
Hell, it’s a cabin, or maybe a chalet.
Maybe this is a mirage, like when people lost in the desert think they see an oasis just in the distance. But no, the image doesn’t waver, even as Patience gets closer.
Soon, Patience finds herself in a circular clearing. Not too large, though big enough for this two story house and ample yard space all around. The grass is green and lush, like a somewhat overgrown lawn. The nearest trees all seem to bend and curve toward the house, as if it has some sort of magnetic pull. There are tulips everywhere. Most of them are red or white, but there’s also purple, orange, yellow, and pink. No real rhyme or reason to the way they’re planted or spaced out.
It’s beautiful. It makes Patience tear up to see it. Her mother loved tulips. As a child, Patience had put a giant bundle of tulips on her mother’s coffin before it was lowered into the ground.
It makes no sense for this one house to be here. There are no other houses or clearings that Patience can see; just forest, forest, and more forest. No power lines, no cars. She would think the place was abandoned, but no, it’s too well cared for. The windows are pristine. There are piles of lumber near the porch, partially covered by a tarp. Recently emptied paint cans next to garbage bags on the porch. Someone lives here, or is planning to.
Hopefully, it’s nobody that shoots trespassers on sight. Patience is wary, but stumbling on this house feels like a miracle. Surely this is a sanctuary, surely it’s safe. Frankly, she’s too hungry and thirsty to really care.
Carefully, trying not to disturb the tulips, Patience makes her way up to the front door, peering in the window on her way. There’s an open bag of potato chips sitting on a sofa inside. Food. She knocks hard, already wondering if she’s willing to break the window to get at those chips. Wait, the door. Patience should see if it’s unlocked before—
“There you are!”
Patience turns abruptly, expecting to see Ronson’s father or uncle, but instead it’s two strangers. Men, about her dad’s age, maybe younger. One is dressed a little like a lumberjack, the other a little like a cardinal. Red robe… a cassock, Patience thinks. He’s not wearing shoes, though. What a strange pair the two of them make.
“We’ve been looking for you,” the priest says as they come closer. Patience takes a step back, alarmed.
“Way to sound creepy, Cas,” the lumberjack says. He gives an apologetic smile to Patience. “We heard there was a lost hiker nearby, we were trying to find you.”
“Heard from who?” Patience croaks. The sound of her dry, damaged voice surprises her.
“One of the deer spotted you and tol—” the priest stops as the lumberjack elbows him in the side.
“We heard on our radio scanner. Man, you look like you’ve been through it. I’m Dean, this weirdo is Castiel. What’s your name?”
“Patience. Patience Turner.” Patience lets her pack fall off her shoulders. As it thumps onto the porch, an animal darts out from behind the trash bags and runs toward the side of the house. It’s cream colored, a cat maybe. It peeks around the corner of the house immediately. Oh, that’s not a cat, it’s… “What the hell is that?” she can’t help but say.
“That’s Squirt,” Castiel says, “she’s a raccoon.”
“She?” Dean says incredulously, all his attention on the man at his side.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“That raccoon has seriously been a girl this whole time? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Your kind’s hang ups around gender can be difficult to navigate.”
Patience is so confused. “Your kind?”
“He means middle-aged white men,” Dean offers.
“I don’t think you’re quite middle-aged yet,” Castiel says.
These men are weird, but at least they don’t seem dangerous.
“Look at us, yakking away while you’re probably starving,” Dean says. He approaches the porch, giving Patience a wide berth as he opens the front door.
Fine, they can murder her. As long as they give her some food first.
*
“Sorry we don’t have anything your size.”
Patience is seated on the couch, tearing her way through sandwich number three. She can’t believe she’s still hungry.
Castiel sets a folded garment on the coffee table. From the look of it, it’s another cassock. Deep, royal purple. “There are towels in the upstairs bathroom. Soap too.”
“Just be careful. There are gaps where the floor isn’t finished. We’re used to it, but it might be tricky for exhausted teenagers,” Dean says.
Patience nods enthusiastically, mouth too full to answer. She grabs the cassock and heads towards the stairs Dean points at.
“Thank you,” she tries to say after a few chews, but it comes out more like, “fhrankoo.”
Upstairs is far more rough looking than downstairs. There are planks and visible studs but few complete walls. The floors are indeed uneven and unfinished, and two of the rooms she passes don’t even have doors. Patience had thought maybe they were building the house from the ground up, but judging by the state of those rooms, this is actually a massive renovation project. She just doesn’t understand why it’s all the way out here. Are these guys doomsday preppers? Dean sort of looks like one, and Castiel does wear religious garb… then again they’re also so clearly in a relationship. No one has ever looked at Patience the way Dean and Castiel look at each other.
Maybe they left their lives behind because their homophobic families would never understand. Dean was probably in construction, or a plumber… Castiel the local priest. They chose love over societal convention. Ohh, how romantic.
Patience blushes and shakes her head. Probably not the time to spin romantic tales and daydreams about two strangers.
The shower is simultaneously unremarkable and the best shower of Patience’s life. It feels incredible to wash days of dirt, fear, and stink away. It’s big, and everything in the bathroom looks fairly new, which Patience understands. If she was redoing a house a functioning bathroom would be a must .
It’s also weird, though. Patience knows there were no power lines outside. No signs of a generator from the angle she approached from. And those things are loud, she would have noticed one big enough to power a house. Surely. How is there electricity? There’s probably a well for water, but how is it hot ?
Maybe this is a fever dream. Maybe Patience is still in the forest, dying, and her brain conjured but all of this as a hallucination. Then again if she was going to conjure a forest oasis with two men, at least one of those men would be Michael B. Jordan.
Still, Patience reaches a hand up and pinches her own collarbone as hard as she can, just in case it’s a dream.
“Ow. ”
*
Fully showered and besmocked, Patience makes her way back downstairs. The living room is empty, but she can hear noise outside. Her pack is next to the couch, so Patience stuffs her filthy crusty clothes inside. She’s probably going to just throw the shirt away when she gets home. Those pit stains will never come out. There’s another sandwich waiting for her on the coffee table, and after deciding yes she does want a fourth one, Patience picks it up and starts heading toward the porch.
Dean is there, going to town on a plank with some sandpaper. He startles a little when he hears the door open, but he gives Patience a big smile.
“Hey, kid. Cas is off looking for signs of the rest of your group.”
“Alone?” Patience says, glancing at the treeline. He’s braver than she is. She’s pretty sure she’s never going into the forest again after this.
“Oh don’t worry, Cas knows these woods well. He’s fast too, shouldn’t be gone more than an hour or two.”
Patience can’t imagine how Castiel can even hope to find Ronson and the others in such a short amount of time, but somehow she believes Dean.
“So,” Patience says, sitting on the steps. The cassock she’s wearing is big, it feels like she’s swimming in it. It’s strange, though. Something about it makes her feel… better. Safe. At peace. She felt it the second she pulled it on in the bathroom.
“So?” Dean says, eyebrows raised.
“Sooo, you and Castiel,” Patience says slowly. It’s overfamiliar but she can’t help herself.
Dean’s cheeks start to turn red almost instantly. “Yeah, yeah, me and Cas. Love of my life and all that,” he mutters.
“Did you two run away from home after he was excommunicated for being gay?” Patience says with a grin.
Dean rolls his eyes. “Cas is not a priest, he just likes those stupid robe things. I think he looks like a guy in an old-timey nightshirt most of the time. And we didn’t run away from home, gonna have the family over when this place is good and presentable.”
Patience is almost disappointed. “Where’d you meet?”
The softest, realest smile spreads over Dean’s face. “At a dusty old carnival in Colorado, ‘bout a year ago.”
“And you’re already living together?” Patience is getting too comfortable, her father would absolutely scold her for asking such personal questions.
“Hell, we were living together by the end of that week.” Dean suddenly changes his expression, like he’s trying not to smile. “But uh, we’re much older than you. You know, stay in school, don’t move in with strange men you just met.” All that’s missing is a stern finger waggle.
“Well you two seem really in love. And I’m so glad you guys were out here in the middle of nowhere. I really don’t know how much longer I had in me. I’m glad nothing ate me.”
“You must have gotten really turned around. You know you’re over five miles from the nearest road? And assuming you came from the hiking trail, you’re about… twenty-five miles out, I’d say. How long were you out there again?”
“Three days. But for the first day I just stayed put and waited for my group.”
“Damn, twenty-five miles in two days? In the woods? That’s impressive.”
“Not if you’re wandering lost in the wrong direction.”
“Well no, not then. Still. This place ain’t easy to find. Even by accident. Far as I can tell you’re only the second person to wander out here in a good thirty years.”
“Fate, then? Or am I just lucky.”
Dean shrugs. “Maybe you got someone watching over you, and they guided you to where you needed to be.” A sigh. “God, I’m starting to sound like Cas.”
*
After an hour of idle chit-chat, the exhaustion of the past couple days finally catches up to Patience. Dean sets her up on the sofa with a bed pillow and what looks like an old picnic blanket. Dean jokingly asks if she wants a bedtime story, then heads back out to the porch.
*
She wakes once. A little chilly, but safe. She’s being held in a princess carry, and for a moment she thinks maybe her dad is carrying her off to bed like he did when she was a little girl.
It’s night time, and when she opens her eyes, Patience can see stars all around her, the full moon glowing in the sky. She’s flying, two great black wings backlit by the moon, borne by an angel. No, not an angel. Castiel. Surely Castiel doesn’t have wings. The ground is far beneath them, a great blue-black blur whizzing by.
“Is this a dream?” Patience mutters. She’s not afraid.
Castiel looks down at her. His eyes seem to glow. His smile is so kind.
“I think you know the answer.”
“Were you watching over me, when I was lost in the woods?”
“No. If I’d seen you I would have saved you sooner. I sense something around you, though. A spirit, I think. Perhaps it guided you to safety. Kept you company. Some leftover remnant of a person who loved you very, very much.”
Patience closes her eyes, satisfied with the response.
*
“Patience? PATIENCE! OH MY GOD DAD! MOM! MOOOOOOOMMMMM!! LOOK!”
Patience wakes with a start, incredibly disoriented. She’s not on the sofa, or in Castiel’s arms. No, she’s in the back of the SUV she rode in with Ronson and her parents. Her pack is by her side.
The side door rolls open and Ronson’s crying face comes into view. “I am so sorry. I don’t even— I thought we’d never find you!” Before Patience can even respond Ronson is diving into the SUV for a hug.
For a moment she thinks it was a dream. The house, the tulips, those two strange lovers. But no, she’s still wearing Castiel’s purple cassock. Maybe even the wings were real.
The rest of Ronson’s extended family comes running over.
“We looked so hard, but we were running out of supplies, and… well we were going to come back and get water and food and set back out. Dad decided it was time to get back to civilization so we could call the rangers for help.” Ronson hugs Patience even tighter. “I thought I was letting you down, leaving the forest…”
“Hey, it’s okay. You found me,” Patience says gently. Her mind is still racing. “I was lost, but here I am.”
Ronson nods and finally pulls away. Her face is a teary, snotty mess, poor thing. “You really must have an angel watching over you, Patience.”
Patience looks down, startled to notice the woven garland of yellow tulip bulbs around her neck. “I think you must be right.”