Disclaimer: Don't own them, But I sure do enjoy borrowing them!

Chapter Four

Days passed without a telephone, or Television. And Olivia settled into a routine that was all her own making.

Olivia got up early made breakfast and snuggled up in the old overstuffed sofa chair next to the small whitewashed brick fireplace in the cottage living room with a book.

She ran on the beach at mid-day because it was warmer and sometimes the sun was out, peeking from behind the clouds so that Olivia could chase her shadow as she ran, trying to catch it but never quite succeeding.

And because Olivia wanted a life of solitude and quiet reflection but she didn't want to be a hermit She drove into town and visited the dinner for coffee and to see the local news every evening, sometimes she had dinner with Mrs. Paten, talking about the cottage and her late husband, they never talked about Olivia and Mrs. Paten seemed to know instinctively not to ask. Several days a week she visited the used book store in town having re-discovered her love of reading. Olivia wasted many hours reading paperback novels she acquired for a dollar, classics and new favorites, she'd return them the following week for 50 cents and pick out some new ones, it was a small price to pay for something she found so much joy in.

When she was lost in a good book or pounding her way down the beach she didn't have to think about herself; or what she had left behind. The days passed without having much meaning or sense of time to Olivia. The woman who had once been ruled by alarm clocks and deadlines and the beck-and-call of a pager and cellphone now answered to no one.

Days turned to weeks, and slowly Olivia realized the weeks had changed to months; the surf and the wind started to change. Now when she took her runs it was earlier in the morning, and the sun was almost always out; unless there was a light rain that day; and even then the rain no longer pelted her tiny retreat and felt like ice but pattered against her skin when she ran, running down her face and hair in warm rivulets. Instead of driving into town she jogged in for her morning coffee grabbed a paper and jogged back the mile or two to the cottage.

With the calmer days so too did Olivia's mind begin to calm, there was still turmoil and uncertainty in her when she thought about life back in Boston; but instead of feeling as if someone had ripped a hole in her chest; the pain had been reduced to a dull ache.

Sometime around April; or it might have been May Olivia never looked at the date on her papers really a grey cat started sulking around her door. And it wasn't long before Olivia was driving into town to bring back some cat crunchies and a small bowl.

Not long after that Gus moved inside and spent the summer laying in the window sunbeams that traveled across the weathered floor of the cottage from early morning to mid-day. He was an excellent companion who didn't mind reading lots of books, or that his human seemed to enjoy running up and down the beach for no apparent reason whatsoever and would wait for her at the rickety picket fence, flipping his tail and sometimes batting at the long weeds that cropped up along the dunes. Olivia had never really had time for pets since she was a child, her former life hardly lending itself to a pet-friendly environment and she was pleasantly surprised that other then the fish breath Gus was exceptionally good company and incredibly clean and easy to get along with.

Olivia might have continued on with this routine forever, paying no mind to the passing of the days or weeks, or months; and that peace of mind that had been so lacking in her previous life may have been what started it all. Or it may have been something completely outside of her control; Olivia had never known if her life was controlled by her own decisions or someone else's; and more often then not when she had been in Boston in Fringe Division she had felt like her life was not under her own control; like she was simply a passenger along for a rollercoaster ride that someone was expecting her to steer, but that no one had bothered to give her the manual too.

When the days started to shorten again, and Olivia could just start to detect the change in the barometric pressure outside her door she noticed the first issue with the lights.

Olivia was standing at the sink rinsing dishes, Gus was asleep in the armchair on top of the book she was planning to read in a minute when the kitchen light flickered almost like a power surge. This was unusual because all through the wicked winter and one or two harsh summer swells Olivia had never experienced any problems with the lights or electricity. Olivia stopped scrubbing the inside of her tea cup and turned to stare at the overhead light. A few moments later it stopped and Olivia resumed her nightly activities without another thought spared toward the light.

By the time the wind had really begun to pick back up around the little cottage and the sky had turned a harsh and roving sea of endless grey clouds Olivia was starting to suspect there might be a problem with the cottage's wiring. Mrs. Paten had an electrician come out to check everything and when he had found nothing Olivia had called out two more at her own expense to check things out again. Nothing. There was nothing wrong with the cottage's power flow, or breakers, or wiring or light fixtures, they all suggested she should try different bulbs.

And the lights continued to flicker.

More to come in the next week, I will be on vacation but I hear were going to get snowed in…lol so I might be getting a lot more done a lot sooner, I'll keep you updated as always on my profile page; just check under the 'Updates' and 'New Stories' Section to know what's going on! And as always, feel free to drop me a line by review or email! -KEC