Page 6 of The Woman By the Lake

I drew in a breath and took in everything around me, including turning to gaze at the back of the cabin.

This view was as adorable as the front.

I heard nothing but the wind rustling the trees, a faraway bird call.

I closed my eyes and felt a gentle breeze touch my skin.

It might have been my state of mind, but that didn’t negate the strong, eerie, yet peaceful sense of something saying, Welcome home.

Regardless of the eerie part, the anxiety that clogged my decision to move out here for a year drifted away.

Because this was perfect.

Absolutely perfect.

I’d made the right decision.

I could be here…

And I could figure it all out.

I opened my eyes and headed inside to put away the rest of the groceries, unpack, heat up taco meat…

And settle into my new home.

TWO

Doc

Nadia

I woke from a dead sleep feeling creeped out and confused.

It was dark. A kind of dark-dark I’d never experienced. There was moonlight coming in the windows, but not much, and everything I could see was shrouded in shadows.

For a second, I didn’t know where I was.

Then I remembered I’d moved into Weaver Cabin outside Misted Pines, Washington, that very afternoon.

I started to relax, thinking that was why I’d woken. I was in an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar feel.

And then I heard it.

What woke me.

It sounded like scratching on the window.

Not the brush of pine needles.

Something like…

Fingernails.

Full-body pinpricks of fear and adrenaline assaulted me as I lay perfectly still, listening to that sound.

It kept going.

The last of the sleep left me as I listened, and as such, the sense of vulnerability of being recently unconscious also faded away.

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