No neighbors within 5 miles, no school, no church, no society, just wind and grass and mountains that watched indifferently as humans struggled against the land's relentless demands. "It's honest," Norah said finally. Exactly what you described. A place for someone who wants to be left alone. Or someone who needed to leave and never found a reason to come back, Silas replied.
She glanced at him. Are you talking about you or me? Maybe both. They drove down into the valley as the sun started its long slide toward the western peaks. By the time they reached the cabin, shadows stretched long and purple across the grass.
Silas helped Norah down from the wagon. Or rather she climbed down herself before he could figure out how to help someone who didn't need it, and together they unloaded her trunks onto the porch. The cabin door stood open as he'd left it. Silas gestured toward it awkwardly. It's not much, one room mostly.
I built a small addition last year, so there's a separate space for sleeping. But Norah ducked, literally ducked, through the doorway. At 6 ft tall, she was too large for the frame Silas had built to his own proportions. Inside, she looked around at the space that had seemed adequate for one small man, and now appeared almost comically insufficient for her presence. There was a table with one chair, a narrow bed in the alcove, a cast iron stove, shelves holding canned goods, and a few books, a single window looking west toward the mountains.
Everything was clean but spare, functional but colorless. The home of someone who'd stopped seeing it years ago. Norah turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. When she spoke, her voice was gentle. It's not made for company.
Neither was I, Silas admitted. She smiled at that, and for the first time since stepping off the train, it reached her eyes. Well, Mr. Boon, it seems we're both about to learn some new skills. That night, they maintained a careful distance, moving around each other like planets in separate orbits. Norah insisted on cooking.
If I'm to live here, I might as well make myself useful. And produced from her trunk ingredients Silas hadn't seen in years. Real butter, dried fruit, spices that made the cabin smell like something other than loneliness and coffee. She made flapjacks, thick and golden, and scrambled eggs with what appeared to be actual herbs. When she tried to stand up straight while flipping a flapjack, she cracked her head on one of the low beams.
A solid thunk that made Silas wince. But instead of cursing or crying, Norah laughed. A real laugh deep and genuine that started in her belly and rolled out like thunder across a valley. "Well," she said, rubbing her head. "I guess I know where all the obstacles are now."
Silas found himself grinning despite everything. Might want to catalog them. There's a few more. They ate at the small table, Norah standing. There was only one chair and Silas sitting.