The roads were clear, and where the plows had not been, the snow was only a few inches deep. The storm had slid south, after all. They drove two hours, arriving at the camp in darkness. Huge drifts lined the long drive, eight miles in from the main road and following the river. The camp had been closed for three years, but the owners had left a caretaker—the same man, Joe supposed, who had plowed the drive and left the truck for them at the station. A dozen cabins sat on the lake, their windows shuttered and boarded up. Beyond them, the main lodge was a dark, uninviting bulk. It was all theirs, and the land besides, two hundred acres along the river and lake; he had purchased it all, virtually sight unseen, for forty thousand dollars.
At the end of the drive Joe parked the truck and turned off the engine. In the sudden silence they sat without speaking, amazed at what they’d done. So many months of planning; now they were here.
He took his wife’s hand. “Let’s get inside.”
The air in the lodge was musty and still, and smelled vaguely of animals. Joe tried the lights but nothing happened. A fuse had blown, or maybe some wires had been nibbled away by mice. The heat was out as well; their breath clouded thickly around them.
“Did something die in here?” Amy whispered.
“I can’t see a goddamn thing.” Joe stepped forward with his arms held protectively before his face. At once his right knee banged into something solid and sharp: the edge of a table. “Shit, shit, shit!” He tried to back away but his right foot tangled with the table’s leg. Something heavy and made of glass thudded to the floor. It rolled away unbroken, but then found a set of steps—steps? he thought; what steps?—and bounced down and away, picking up speed before shattering into pieces somewhere below them.
Behind him, Amy started to laugh.
“It’s not funny!”
“Okay,” Amy said, still laughing, “it’s not.”
“There’s probably a flashlight or candles in the kitchen,” he said. “Stay put.”
“Try not to break anything else on the way there,” she said.
By now his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness; at least he could make out the more obvious obstacles. He made his way into the main room, through the dining area, then farther back, through a pair of swinging doors into the kitchen. The smell of animals had grown richer, muskier. Where would the candles be? In the cabinets? In the pantry somewhere? But then he noticed, on the sideboard, a dark shape he recognized as a kerosene lantern. He took the lamp in his hands and shook it: a slosh of fuel. Not much, perhaps an hour’s worth, but enough to get them settled for the night.
“Joe? Joe, where are you?”
“Just a minute! I’ve found something!”
He took his lighter from his pocket and lit the lamp. A small brass wheel adjusted the wick. He turned it down to conserve what little fuel he had, then held the lamp aloft, bathing the kitchen in a flickering glow. Cabinets and shelves, a stove and sink, a wide plank table: all just as he remembered it, from ten years ago. A bag of flour was spilled on the floor, its contents strewn in a wide path that ran to one of the lower cabinets, which stood open. The flour was dotted with animal tracks; pelletlike droppings littered the area around it.
“Joe? It’s dark out here, you know!”
He followed Amy’s voice back to the lodge’s main room—a kind of sitting area, with a sofa and chairs, forming a U around a huge stone hearth. The furniture was draped with white cloths. The check-in desk was positioned by the entrance, and on the wall above it, a calendar, frozen in time: April 1943. By the fireplace, wood lay neatly stacked in a wrought-iron holder.
“We can sleep here tonight,” Joe said. “Let’s get the baby down. We can figure everything else out in the morning.”
They found that the stove was working; at least the propane tanks were full, as promised. The cabinets contained no food at all, but in the pantry Joe found some tins of sardines and, in a tightly sealed jar, cubes of dried boullion. With no running water—the pipes were drained—they melted snow in a battered pot to make the broth, and heated some canned milk for the baby. While Amy laid out the couch cushions on the floor for the night, Joe retrieved their suitcases