Page 9 of Out of the Cold

She drifted off to sleep on thoughts of home, but woke up with a start at every new sound—the eerie hoot of an owl, the wind whistling along the eaves of the house. Thank God for Hildegard, who slept on her doggy bed right on the floor at her side. Never had she appreciated her more than she did now, alone on the mountain at night.

Or not precisely alone. Having Gabriel within calling distance was comforting, even if he wasn’t what she’d been expecting.

When she finally woke for good in the morning, the sun had made its way over the mountain and down into the little clearing. Her eyes were gritty and her mind muzzy from fractured sleep, but she was too restless to stay in bed.

Stumbling into the big living room, she went into a mudroom that led to a side door. There were pegs next to the door and a bench where you could sit to take your shoes off.

Opening the outer door, she let Hilde out and stepped outside herself to breathe the air. She was used to pleasant mornings in San Francisco, but this was something different altogether. The smell—pine trees and earth and warming grass—lit up every sense. Hilde must be ecstatic.

She called the dog in after a few minutes and poured kibble into her bowl, then started the coffee. She dropped a bagel into the toaster, pulled out her laptop, and opened her manuscript draft. By the time she’d finished her second cup, she was back in the world of her heroine, Maggie, a nineteen-year-old woman in early twentieth-century Chicago, struggling to become a doctor.

Maggie followed Mrs. McIntyre down the hallway, nearly running into her when the older woman stopped to open a door. Someone trod heavily in the apartment above, and the smell of boiled cabbage permeated the walls. She tried to clear her face of all expression. Despite the fact that she’d be paying a small fee to cover the cost of her meals, the McIntyres were doing her a kindness. She was lucky to have this place.

Mrs. McIntyre stood aside, motioning for her to enter.

It was a small room, the walls a dim white. A bed, made up in faded yellow sheets, stood against one wall, a flat pillow and two rough wool blankets folded neatly on top. According to her mother, who’d known Mrs. McIntyre as a child, her children were grown and married now, but she had never before taken in boarders.

“It’s a bit chilly being at the back of the house, but if you keep the door open, you’ll get heat from the kitchen.” Mrs. McIntyre twisted her hands together as if anxious for Maggie’s approval. “I had Mr. McIntyre move that little table from the front hall. I thought you might be needing a place to do your studies.”

The table was cherry, lightly scarred but polished. A prized possession, no doubt, and now it was in her room.

“It’s lovely,” she said, running a hand along the smooth grain.

Mrs. McIntyre beamed, her face flushing with pleasure. “Imagine. A doctor in my own house. It’s brave you are, going to school with all those men. I could never.”

She’d been writing for about an hour when she became aware of how cold it was. With growing trepidation she went to the stove, opened the top hatch, and stared down into its cold black belly.

She should have added more wood this morning when she woke up. A stupid, foolish mistake, because now she was going to have to get a fire going. If only she hadn’t been so obstinate and prideful when Gabriel had asked if she knew how to light a fire.

Sitting down at her laptop, she searched “how to start a fire in a woodstove” and found nearly a dozen YouTube instructional videos. None of them were as thorough as she needed, because none of them assumed the viewer was both terrified of doing it and also completely ignorant. Still, after watching a few—all of them recordings of earnest men who seemed really into their woodstoves, God bless them—she got the gist of it.

Carrying her laptop, she knelt on the floor and followed along with her favorite video, which featured a kind grandfatherly type who would never judge anyone for not knowing how to build a fire.

Paper and twigs first, then a lit match touched to the paper. Wait for the twigs to catch and add bigger sticks. She threw in some bark that had fallen from the bin for good measure. Next she added a small log, pleased with herself. She was practically an Eagle Scout.

She shut the door and looked at Hilde. “This isn’t so hard. I don’t know why I was so nervous.”

Then the lid on top puffed open on a blast of smoke and slammed back down. Again and again smoke blasted through the door, as if the pressure was too great for it to stay inside. Within minutes, smoke hung thick in the room, acrid and gray, and more was pouring out.

Then the smoke detector went off.

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