Cleaning the cabin was our first task.
We rarely went during the summer, due to the fact that we rented it out to other people then. Mom said it was a nice source of income, and she didn't mind sending people up here to clean up after the guests. Few visited during September though. Everyone was too busy with school, and the weather wasn't the best. So it never got cleaned.
Mom and I went through with our dusters and wash cloths, wiping up layers of dust. She took out the vacuum, while I was busy cleaning the kitchen. It wasn't fun, but it was nice to do something after sitting for almost seven hours. That, and after we were done I knew that I could rely on my mom to make some of her amazing salsa, and we would sit down on the couch eating chips and watching a movie.
So I chugged on through the work. I hummed a few clips of tunes. Pieces of Disney movies featured greatly in the songs I chose. I'd watched those movies from the cradle, and it was arguable that they were some of my favorite movies ever. Beauty and the Beast comes to mind as an all time favorite. Sure, I used to be a little scared of the wolves, but who wasn't? I began to hum "Be Our Guest" just as I began to mop the kitchen floor.
Taking a deep breath in between jobs, I pulled my hair back into a pony tail. My hair made me overheat all the time, not to mention that I had so much of it that it got annoying. I had a hair tie on hand at all times. I would just cut it back down it my shoulders, but I liked how it looked when it was long. It required care, but hey.
Finally we were done. Thank goodness for that too, because mother and I both looked red in the face. I may be a dancer, but I'm pretty much terrible at all other physical activities. Besides, we had worked hard to make sure this place was spic and span clean.
Feeling proud of ourselves, we sat in the kitchen. I was perched on a counter while Mom chopped up vegetables. Conversation was easy. I talked about what was going on at school, and she talked about work. My mother and I had a surprisingly good relationship. I mean, she was gone a lot of the time, but we could talk about things. I considered my mom to be one of my best friends.
The conversation ran its course though, and there was soon nothing but the sound of Mom chopping peppers. It was that awkward silence in which both people are trying to think of something new to say.
"Hey, Grace?"
"Yeah, Mom?" I noticed that she looked like she was about to confess something strange. She sighed and shook her head.
"Why don't you go grab a movie for us to watch?" I could tell that what she had said wasn't actually what she had wanted to say. But I wouldn't push her to tell me. Besides, it probably had just been one of those things where you couldn't remember what it was that you had wanted to say.
Grinning to myself, I went into the living room, and began to drag my fingers across the few movies we kept here. Biting my lip, I knew that the movie I wanted to watch was Beauty and the Beast. But we didn't keep the kid's movies here. Those remained in my room.
I got the tiny room upstairs, and although it was small, I loved that room. The adventures a child could have in that room were great, because it felt like a small attic. I used to pretend that I was a tragic princess, trapped in that room by the dragon who loved the taste of knight with mayonnaise on top. (I was quite a strange child. I liked mayonnaise on French fries, and thought ketchup was gross.)
Even now it was nice to have a small space and have it be all mine. When we rented out this cabin, this was the only room that remained locked. It was nice to know that no one else was going to be using my room.
Jumping up the stairs two at a time, I headed to the little room at the end of the hall and opened the door. My bags were already dumped on the bed, which was covered in a green blanket. Green was my favorite color. I went from loving pink to loving green when I was eight. A wild color change, Mom always says, because one moment pink was it, and then pink was horrible and everything had to be green.
Now the walls were green as well; a soothing mint color. Tranquility was something that I could achieve in this room with just my iPod and pajamas. Perhaps that was why I loved that cabin. It gave me a place for absolute silence in a life that was normally hectic and loud.
My movies, books, and other important knick knacks were kept on a shelf affixed next to my bed. I knelt, skimming through the movie titles. Spotting my movie of choice, I reached, shifting my weight from my left foot to my right. The board below me squeaked and shifted. Glancing down at the board, I frowned. 'What the hell?' I thought, before applying weight on the board yet again. It reacted the same way.
Moving myself, I sat down next to the mysterious floor board. How had I managed to miss this for all these years? Sure, I could be ignorant, but this was just ridiculous. Sticking my fingers underneath the board, it was easily lifted away. Inside a small space lay a book and a shoe box.
What was this stuff doing here?
I scooped up the book first, and smirked at the pink sparkly cover. So this book had probably been mine at one point or another – clearly before the era of 'no pink allowed'. Gingerly, I opened the cover, and was met with the wild scrawling of an eight year old. I had never been much of a writer, mostly because my hand writing was terrible.
The first few entries were had to read. But thankfully I was an inconsistent writer. I quickly found that I was skipping through the book to my tenth year, when I was complaining about how mother had told me to throw away the rose. The entries ended there, though, which was odd. I mean, it's pretty hard to forget that your diary is below the floor boards next to your bed.
As puzzling as it was, I soon found myself bored by all the petty and silly things I'd said as a little girl, and more interested as to what a little girl would put in a shoe box. Lifting it out of the hole, I dusted off the cover. Nothing on the outside clued me in to what might stored inside. So I lifted the lid off, ignoring the thoughts that screamed that there might be something disgusting in there.
There was nothing of the sort. A teddy bear – a bear I identified as Luther – sat inside. Squealing, I hugged the worn little bear to me, disregarding the fact that he smelled a little musty. Luther had been a gift from my father, and I had sobbed when I thought I'd lost it when I was ten. That bear was the closest thing to Dad I had, and I was thrilled to have it back. But a flash of red in the corner of my eye caught my attention. Putting the bear down, I stared down into the box.
There lay a pristine red rose.
Luther forgotten, I reached in for the flower, and smiled at it. The proof. The proof that I thought had been lost years ago. Touching the petals carefully, I smiled. They were as soft as ever. I wanted to know how it had managed to stay in such a condition for twelve years now, eight of which it had now spent without water. It must have been some kind of fake rose. It felt so real, though.
I had to wonder how they had made it look and feel so real. Standing up, I decided to show it to Mom. Perhaps she would have the answer. I also picked up Luther, so that I could show her that she'd been wrong to yell at me about it ten years ago. Perhaps we could even celebrate his discovery together.
"Are you going to spend all day up there or what?" Mom called up to me as I descended the stairs.
Smiling, I held Luther up to Mom. "Look what I found!" I exclaimed, bouncing with pride. Mom smiled widely at me.
"Luther… I remember when you lost that bear. You were in such a panic. It's great to know you found him again!"
"I know, right?" I pirouetted in joy. When I'd completed the turn, I noticed that my mother looked pale.
"Gracie… what is it you have in your other hand?" Glancing at the rose, I sighed.
"I found this to… I wanted to know why… it… was still…" My jaw dropped. Slowly, the rose was unfurling in front of our eyes. It reached full bloom, and thorns poked out from the stem. Impossibly, it was maturing. I dropped it as a thorn poked my palm. Glaring at wound, my mother merely stared at the plant.
Silence hung in the air, and finally Mom said urgently, "Gracie? I need you to run out to the car. Take the keys, turn on the car, and drive away. Don't wait for me."
"Why should I – "
"Just do it, Grace!" I rarely heard my mother snap at me like that, and something in me became scared. The dream came fluttering into memory, and I panicked. I could guess who was coming next. I turned to run into the kitchen where the keys lay. There he was.
Leaning in the doorway was the golden boy from the woods, exactly as he had been in my dream. I screeched in surprise, I felt Mom grab my shoulders and pull me behind her.
"Ladies, ladies," the man said, an easy smile on his face. "I've merely come to collect what we're owed." He paused as if savoring the moment. "Now, Grace. Let's go."