There is a certain beauty in driving with the windows rolled down, when the temperature is cool and lively and you're able to find that sweet spot where the wind doesn't drown out your music. Had this been any other day, I probably would have wanted to drive forever, my arm dangling out the driver's side, Darius Rucker on the radio, and nothing but a winding mountain road in front of me and blue sky above.

As it was, however, I continuously fought down the sick feeling in my stomach, convincing myself each mile not to turn around and head home.

It had been a long ride. A really long ride. I didn't really feel tired though - or rather, I didn't feel tired from the drive. I constantly felt like I could fall asleep and would be fin never waking up, but the numbness had taken over now. As I passed the welcome sign for Matewan, West Virginia, a small spark of anxiety pushed through the numbness. What was I hoping to find here?

Matewan was a small town, and as I rolled slowly down Main Street - passing the Coal Miner's Den Motel, the Mingo Bingo Parlor and Devil Anse's Grill and Bar - I wondered how exactly I found myself here all the way from Brooklyn. But the pain in my chest returned, as I thought of the answer.

Simply put, I was driving all this way because my parents were dead.

Two months earlier, I had been walking out of my junior year English lit class - American Lit before 1900 - in Chapel Hill, North Carolina when I got a phone call. My parents were supposed to be driving down from Brooklyn to meet me, and the three of us were going to spend the following week in Charleston, South Carolina. My parent's always wanted to spend my breaks with me, and I, frankly, would have rather been with them than getting hammered with the co-eds at Myrtle Beach. So, when I saw my dad's number on my phone, I answered with a smile and a promise to be packed and ready to go by the time they arrived.

Unfortunately, it wasn't my father on the other end of the line, but a doctor at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. My parents had been in a car crash, he said, hit by an eighteen-wheeler driven by some poor schmuck on a twenty hour shift who had fallen asleep at the wheel. There was a ten car pile up on the expressway - Mom and Dad had been pinned in their car. Mom had been killed instantly, Dad was apparently still alive when the gas tank caught fire.

By the time I had made it to the medical center, the autopsies were underway and I was asked to make a number of decisions that to this day I don't know how I managed to answer without completely collapsing. My aunt and uncle, Jeremy and Ronnie, met me there, offering any support they could. They weren't really my aunt and uncle, but rather my parent's oldest friends. Between the three of us we were able to make arrangements and soon enough I was on my way back to Brooklyn, on compassionate leave from UNC for the remainder of the semester.

Going through their things over the course of the next few weeks was a mixture of sadness and guilt. I flipped through their numerous photo albums wishing I could have told them I was going to Spring Break with friends instead - anything was worth them not making that fateful drive. The one thing that kept me sane during that time was knowing how happy they had been when they were alive, how much they loved and were loved.

They met when they were both at NYU for school – Mom was an exchange student from Ireland and Dad was the radio show host who refused to play her requests until she went out with him. They got married right after college, getting jobs and settling in Brooklyn. Dad was a music teacher at the local high school. Mom managed one of the best locally owned bookstores in the city. They also were in a folk band called Swinging Gypsies, with the aforementioned Jeremy - Ronnie joined on as a groupie early on in their career before winning Jeremy's heart.

My parents couldn't have kids on their own, and so adopted me when I was just two weeks old, having been left off at the fire state next to Dad's school. It was just the three of us from then on out. Mom hated to cook, but could bake like a champ. Dad was determined that I love 70's rock as much as he did. We took trips every other year to visit Mom's family in Cork, and to see my dad's only surviving family in Seattle on the alternating years. We didn't have a TV in the house, but we had more than enough record players, books and instruments to keep up entertained. Lee and Nora Anderson were good people, who died far too young, but still made their mark on the world.

The outpouring of love at the funeral was proof of that. And as I looked at family, friends, former and current students, and just patrons from around the neighborhood, I suddenly felt even more alone than I had when they were first gone. My parents had done so much, given so much, and had such a community around them. Whereas I could count my friends on one hand, and had moved into a single dorm room as soon as possible. How many would come to my funeral, if I died young and tragically? What would people say about me, about the impact I had on them?

Maybe that was why I replied to the letter that came three weeks after their funeral. A chance to connect with something who was reaching out to me. I had heard of Florence Anderson before - Crazy Aunt Flo as Dad called her - but had never met her.

She was, according to family legend, over 90 years old. No one knew for sure just how old, nor just how she was related to Dad. She had always been around, on the periphery of his family. When my paternal grandparents had been alive they had mentioned her a few times – how she was a bit of recluse in the mountains and rarely saw anyone. I think my grandfather saw her one time in 1962 at some family reunion or something. I didn't know why she was considered crazy, or even that she existed until my 10th birthday, when I received a birthday card and $100 from her. $100 for a ten year old was a huge amount, so I of course declared Flo to be my favorite relative. Dad had been completely confused – he had never gotten anything from her. I rubbed it in his face then and every year after as, without fail, I received another card and another $100. I also got cards for my high school graduation and when I won the local talent show with my singing and guitar playing.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to get a condolence card from her, but I certainly wasn't expecting her invitation to come visit her in West Virginia. This was never something that had been offered before - in fact, I had the distinct feeling that no one knew for sure where she lived or how to find her, as her return address was just a PO Box in Matewan. We had never even spoken to each other, only written letters, and even then I knew next to nothing about her.

And now she was asking me to come out to her home for the summer.

But after all the packing and crying struggling to figure out what I was going to do, I felt like I might be going crazy. So, I did what any crazy person would do, and took her up on her offer.

It was late April now, and I was almost to her place. I figured I would stay for a bit, play it by ear depending on how much of a nutcase she was/how bored I got, and then maybe just keep heading west. I had some cousins in Seattle, and one of my closer friends from high school was at school in Chicago. There were things I could do, even if that meant running further and further from the East Cost. Brooklyn was too much to handle, and Chapel Hill wasn't enough of a distraction. Hanging out with an old lady in the middle of nowhere didn't seem like the most exciting thing in the world, but it was certainly something different. And for some reason I always like the idea of West Virginia…or at least the mountains. I knew Dad's family was from there way back when, but we had never been. I'd grown up in the city all my life, though I did go to camp a few times. The great outdoors was always appealing.

"Turn left here," the GPS commanded. "Destination on right in 3.2 miles."

After the three minute drive through downtown Matewan, I turned onto the dusty dirt road that wound along the bank of a river, the hills rising up on either side, the air fresh with the smell of evergreens and wild flowers. It really was beautiful here, and it seemed Aunt Flo lived pretty far off the beaten path. The untouched beauty of my surroundings was incredibly refreshing.

"You have arrived at your destination."

Peaking over one final hill, I rolled car slowly down the dusty drive and into a small valley, surrounded in three sides by towering pine trees, and by a creek on the other. In the middle of the valley was a white farmhouse, complete with the picket fence and chickens clucking about the yard. There was a rose garden and a garage, a tall oak tree providing shade to the wrap-around porch - it was so idyllic, almost like something out of a novel.

I loved it immediately.

As if the scene could have been any more picturesque, a woman I believed to be old Florence Anderson was sitting on a rocking chair on the porch, knitting.

I parked the car in the shade of the an old oak tree and wandered toward her. If she had noticed me pull up - which she must have, I created the biggest cloud of dust - she didn't look up to acknowledge me, only continued to rock slowly back and forth, a small smile on her wrinkled face. The only acknowledgment I received as I ascended the porch steps was from a black cat lounging lazily in the last remnants of the dying sun. It meowed at me as I can to a stop in front of them.

"Aunt Florence?" I asked gently, not wanting to Startle her. "Florence Anderson?"

She looked up from her sewing, taking me in with crystal blue eyes. Her skin was white and wrinkled, her hair silver and pulled back into a bun. She was small and fragile looking, but that was to be expected when you're coming up on 100 years old.

"Oh hello, Emmaline, dear," she said with a sweet smile. "I been expectin' you."

"I'm surprised you recognized me," I admitted, wringing my hands a bit awkwardly. "I think the last picture we sent was a Christmas card in 2007."

"You look exactly like I 'member you," she said, looking back to her knitting. "Welcome to Mate Creek."

"Is that the name of the river?" I asked, looking down the lawn.

"No, that's the Tug," she replied, as though I should have known that. "Mate Creek is the town."

"Oh," I replied, nodding. "I thought it was Matewan."

Flo waved her hand dismissively. "That's the new name. But it was Mate Creek long before that." She went back to her knitting and Started humming softly to herself. I stood there awkwardly for a moment, waiting for her to say something. She didn't.

"Cute cat," I offered, getting a feeling that Aunt Flo thought we were a lot more acquainted than we actually were. "What's its name?"

"Don't have no name," she replied. "But he's good luck." Right.

"You have a beautiful house," I tried one last time.

"Darlin'," she said, putting down her knitting, southern accent coming through fully. "Are you gonna stand there and try to chit-chat 'bout things that don't matter none, or are you gon' get your things and get settled?" I blinked at her. "Your bed's made up already. Second floor, first door on the right."

The room Florence had prepared for me was something Jane Austen herself may have stayed in - straight out of time capsule. The rod iron bed had the softest looking quilt draped across it and an antique brass mirror was leaning against one of the walls. There was a wooden desk and wicker chair, phenotype photos and dried flowers decorating the space, and at the foot of the bed was a large black chest. I looked at the clasp - the dirtied gold plate was inscribed with "F.A." A ladybug crawled across the top of it.

As I unpacked, I decided that I might stick around for a bit. I hadn't really thought about the timeline of things - according to one of my old psychology textbooks, I was in the 'bargaining' stage of grief, and maybe it was worth getting to know my reclusive relative. Maybe this change of scenery would be good for me.

It had been over a month by this point, and while I wasn't happy and missed missed my parents terribly, I had accepted the fact that they were gone. But being around their friends in New York or at school in North Carolina just kept reminding me that they were gone. I didn't want to think about it anymore.

This was a place where I live a completely different life, if only for a little while.

Florence Anderson lived a pretty simple life. As I explored her home, it seemed like she didn't have anything newer than the 1970's, and most was much older than that. The black white photos all throughout the farmhouse dated back even to the Civil War period. At first, I was a bit frustrated with the lack of wifi, Netflix and oh, I don't know, air conditioning, but after a couple of days it became the norm.

I spent my time wandering the house, exploring all the historical artifact dotted in hidden places, flipping through family albums and wandering the grounds. Flo was pretty easy to please - I made her tea in the morning and tea in the evening, sometimes shooed the nameless cat out of the house, and that was about it.

Eventually, I started heading into town as well. At first, it was necessity - I was craving Domino's - but soon I realized that there was actually some interesting things downtown. The one bar on Main Street was usually host to a number of biker gangs, which I observed from the coffee shop across the street. The Miner's Museum was actually pretty cool; they let you go down into a real coal mine! And the Matewan Historical Society had some of the same pictures I saw scattered around Flo's house.

One evening, I found Flo in the old study at the back of the house, and as I brought her her tea, I saw some familiar pictures hanging on the wall.

"Aunt Florence," I Started, "can I ask you about some of these pictures?" I glanced up at the portraits above the fireplace.

"You want to know about the Hatfields and the McCoys," she said, and it wasn't a question. She pulled a leather album out of the hat box and held it out to me. "Go on, open it."

I did and squinted in the dim lighting at the figures in the pictures. I recognized them from the Historical Society and from some of the pictures in my bedroom.

"Who are they?" I asked.

"That's Anderson Hatfield," Flo said, pointed to the man in the middle of a group photo. He had a short beard, a black hat and rifle across his lap. He didn't look like he smiled much.

"That guy from the bar in town?"

"He's the head of the Hatfield clan. Named after my own Pa, he is."

"Oh, okay," I replied, trying to do the calculations in my head. Florence was old, but certainly not that old, right?

"You're Daddy never did tell you much about West Virginia, did he?" she tutted, clearly disappointed in me. "The Hatfields and the McCoys were two families who lived in these hills, on either side of the river. This here is Hatfield land. Devil Anse and ol' Randall McCoy Started a feud that near destroyed them and their kin."

"Devil Anse?"

"You best just call him Mr. Hatfield, dear. Got to pay respect where respect is due."

Flo sat down an aging sofa and beckoned me to join her. Rain began to fall lightly outside.

"So, the Hatfields and the McCoys," she began, Starting at the beginning of the album. "Ol' Randall and Devil Anse were friends, you know," she said, looking at me as if I knew these men personally. She certainly acted like she did.

"And that apparently ended?" I offered.

"After the War," Flo nodded. "McCoy never forgave Devil Anse for desertin' the Army, or the fact that Anse's Uncle Jim Vance murdered his brother Harmon. Then there was the whole pig incident which I won't get into."

"Sounds like a complicated relationship."

"Didn't help much that the families had intermarried in different ways. Meant a lot of people had to choose sides. This here is Levicy Hatfield," she said, pointing to a new picture of a woman holding a young child. She was quite beautiful, with strong features and cool, but not unkind eyes. "Wonderful woman and mother. Loves her children somethin' fierce. Some say she's the only one can control her husband."

I was a bit worried that maybe Flo shouldn't have been spending so much time alone in the house. She was Starting to make friends with the pictures of her long dead ancestors.

"Who are they, Aunt Flo?" I asked, pointing to two young men, trying to show my interest.

"Ah, I was wonderin' when you'd notice them boys." Flo looked at me, an odd, almost knowing smile on her face. "That there is Johnse Hatfield," she said, pointing to the taller of the two. "Bit of a fool, if you ask me, but he's a good heart. And there, well, that's his brother, Cap. He's about your age, I reckon."

"And they are Devil Anse's – sorry, Mr. Hatfield's – sons?"

"Two oldest, at least."

I leaned in, looking at the picture a bit more closely. They were both fairly attractive…for antebellum hillbillies.

"What happened to his eye? Or is that just something on the photo?"

"Timber yard, accident," Flo replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Best shooter in the territory, though."

Suddenly, Flo shut the album and put it to the side. A clap of thunder sounded outside and I heard the cat meow from outside, asking to come in.

"That's a really interesting story, Aunt Florence."

"Oh, it ain't over, dear."

I didn't know how to respond to that.

"But I daresay I don't have time to tell you everythin', so might as well just let you learn it for yourself. Now, why don't you head to town, I think we done run outta milk."

There was a clap of thunder outside and I raised my eyebrows at her. " now?"

"Ain't no time like the present, Emmaline," Florence said, standing and heading out of the study. "I reckon I'll be sleepin' when you get back."

I sat there for a moment, listening to the rain and Starting to understand why she was referred to as Crazy Aunt Flo. With a resigned sigh, I stood and headed out into the storm.

An hour later, I turned back onto Flo's muddied drive, the wheels of my Jeep sinking into the ground as I rolled slowing along. It was pitch black out, and between the wind and rain, it was hard to see more than ten feet in front of me. The store had been closed when I had arrived - the storm had cut the power to most of the town - so my mission ended in failure. Florence would have to take her morning tea black.

Just as I started up the final hill, the wheels began to spin.

"No, no, no," I muttered, urging the car forward. "Please don't do this." But, against all my hopes, the Jeep stuck in the mud, wheels kicking back splatter. I'd have to walk the rest of the way.

The umbrella I had was useless, the wind turning it inside out within seconds of me stepping outside the car. I tried not to think about the likelihood of the power being out when I made it to the house. All I wanted was a hot shower. The cold rain pelted my face, and the lightening streaking across the sky as I trekked up the hill, finally reaching the peak. I still couldn't see far ahead of me, using my cellphone flashlight, but there was sure no sign of any lights shining from the dark. The unseen farmhouse was powerless.

"Damn," I muttered, slipping slightly as I worked my way down the hill. I worked my way over to the side of the road, closer to the trees, where the grass would offer more grip.

Ten more yards and I was soaked through, carefully sliding myself down the last bit of the hill. Then, something dark shot across the ground in front of me. My heart leapt to my throat and I let out a yell, stumbling backwards. My foot caught a rock, my phone flew from my hand, and I landed flat on my back, head cracking against a fallen log. It felt like my skull had split open and my eyes filled with tears. The last thing I saw before everything went dark was a black cat skirting away into the trees.