Rebecca Frost

Perfect Days is a thriller by Brazilian author Raphael Montes. I know this because we have a copy in the lodge library, and I read it last month. It’s definitely not an Agatha Christie, which is more my style. It’s creepy as hell, a stalker novel, and at one point the main character holds his kidnap victim in a cabin, outside of cell service, keeping her captive in all but plain sight.

So. You know. That hasn’t been bothering me all day.

It doesn’t line up. I haven’t wanted to go up and grab the book and double-check, because Percy could walk in at any moment, asking for another drink—which of course I’m capable of making, but most guests make their own—and then see that no, his little private joke wasn’t so private, after all.

It was an odd sentence. Strange wording. I think Henry caught something, but not enough. Not the whole reference.

What is it with me thinking guys don’t catch references?

I’m sitting here with Evil Under the Sun open in front of me, on alert for either door or the sound of footsteps, trying to remember exactly how Teo pulled it off in the book. I know he drives in and installs Clarice in the cabin without anyone seeing her, but Percy couldn’t do that here. Residents agree that they won’t have their own cars, because then it’s too tempting for them to leave and come back when they should commit to staying for the whole month. You don’t come here unless you need to get away for the whole month.

Jonathon picks them up from the airport, so he must have seen Mary. Presumably she wasn’t bound and gagged, or drugged senseless, when she got off the plane or during the ride.

Okay my brain kicks into overdrive because maybe there’s not an excuse for handcuffs, but have Jonathan and Lydia ever had guests with terminal illnesses? Could Percy have passed it off as that kind of drugged? There’s a lot of trust going on here with residents. We assume that they’ll adhere to the NDA. That they’ll follow the rules.

That they won’t use the Meyers’ discretion to help them kidnap the objects of their obsession.

Okay, slow down. It’s only July 3. Last month we had a resident I never saw until the final week because she requested all her meals to be left on her back stoop and holed herself up to finish writing something. I don’t know what she was working on, because she wasn’t anyone I recognized. I wouldn’t ever be able to tell someone if I did, but that’s what she said when she emerged, glowing and bouncing and clearly doing just fine: It’s done. I finished it before the deadline. Where’s the champagne?

So there’s precedent for that. For someone coming here to seriously retreat, introversion to the max, no phone calls and no knocking. Plus, if you look at it, Mary Shelley’s in a better position than last month’s Virginia Woolf. Virginia was alone in there, so if something had happened, it was all on her to hit the 911 button on her phone. At least if Mary collapses, Percy’s there to notice and raise the alarm.

Unless she collapses and he’s the reason for it.

I need to stop reading Agatha Christie.

It’s pasta tonight, various kinds with different sauces, so the takeaway boxes have a stack of foil squares next to them. Lydia always seems to put things out when I’m not looking. She moves quietly, and it’s kind of a miracle she let Jonathan talk her into getting her face on the website, because she’s really not a people person. She’s a kitchen person, happy as a clam if she can make food that disappears. When the paperwork comes back from the next month’s residents, she’s absolutely gleeful, color-coding and cross-referencing and planning out meals and shopping lists and her daily schedule. The reason food gets put out instead of ordered isn’t because this keeps the residents from being tied to the dining room. It’s so she can slip away unnoticed and do something more important than let them look at her.

She’s plain, but not ugly. She has limp brown hair, but she won’t hear of using a different shampoo. She’s thin, usually wearing an apron, and the veins stand out on the backs of her hands like she maybe lifts weights half the time no one’s looking. I’ve never seen Lydia in anything other than a long-sleeve mock turtleneck and elastic-waisted pants in various color combinations under her apron. Most of the residents simply don’t see her at all.

Okay, and Perfect Days is in the lodge library, but I’m not worried that Jonathan’s holding her captive or something. I haven’t seen much of Lydia, but I have at least seen her.

And I’m so not saying Percy’s got Mary there, drugged or tied up or otherwise restrained. She’d have to be gagged, too. There are the screening trees, but all the cabins are really close to each other. I can’t get all suspicious just because of a single weird statement. All the same, it’s my job to be attentive to the residents. That means looking up as they come in and watching to see if, once more, Percy arrives, fills two containers—one with salad and the other with no vegetables whatsoever—and takes an Evian and some beer out the door.

It doesn’t mean he forces Mary to eat the salad and keeps the rest for himself. Maybe he puts both containers on the table between them and they pick what they want, so the hot food doesn’t melt the lettuce. He could even share out the beer. There’s no way of knowing what goes on in the Shelly cabin.

Truman hitches up his board shorts to sit on the edge of the desk, polishing an apple on his long-sleeved SPF 50 shirt. It’s a low-chemical alternative to sunscreen. “I didn’t think Percy was your type.” This is the man who’s basically the opposite of Percy in every way: definitely a country mouse, skin tanned and hair lightened by the sun, and wouldn’t be caught dead in an outfit that requires a belt.

The fact that my face instantly sets itself on fire really doesn’t help my case. “Have you seen his wife?”

“Why? Is she hot?” He bites into the apple.

I shake my head. “I haven’t seen her.”

Truman frowns and drags the back of his hand over his mouth. Maybe that’s more environmentally friendly than using a napkin. “So she doesn’t eat? She’s a, what do you call it, breatharian?”

“Truman, I have no idea if that’s what you call it. But either he’s a selfish ass who eats double portions, or he brings it back to her.” Or like. She’s dead.

That’s one of the concerns at a place like this: nobody back home really expects to hear from them for an entire month. They can write letters, and Jonathan prints off the emails that have the right subject to make it through, but the only calls get screened at the lodge and the only way to email back is to give Jonathan a message to type up the next time he goes into town. That’s a lot of trust to put in the Meyers, and in Truman and me, simply because the Meyers hired us.

Truman leans over, apple stuck in his teeth, to flick the black cover of my book, but he needs to hold the apple again before he can tease me. “This isn’t one of the crime queen’s hotels, you know.”

Okay except for the fact that it still fits the bill of a bunch of people who ostensibly have never met before, brought together in an eclectic mix, and stuck here for a length of time unable to determine each other’s bona fides. It’s totally the Calais carriage of the Orient Express, except we don’t have a dead body.

Unless we do, and just don’t know it yet.

“Alyssa Roberta,” he sighs, because when Truman’s exasperated with me, he assigns me a middle name. “What have I told you about making fanfiction about the guests?”

“Share every juicy detail,” I recite along with him. “Percy’s totally killed Mary and he’s using the rest of the month to get rid of her body so it’ll never be found and he gets away with murder.”

He laughs and holds out a fist for me to bump. “That’s the best one so far! Did you eat?”

And, just like that, my dramatic theory’s dismissed. “Not yet.”

“Grab a plate.” He gestures for me to move, because I don’t pop right up like an obedient Jack-in-the-box. “Take it on the porch. You don’t get nearly enough fresh air.” Truman and I disagree about how much fresh air a person really needs, but a break’s a break, so I get up, and grab my book, and ignore his laughter.

---

Cold Comfort: Thursday, July 4, 2024 – Henry, coming July 10

Dear Diary,

I had lunch with Emily and Jane today, completely by accident. I waited for them to leave the lodge (spying, guilty) so I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone, especially because it’s always so damn obvious when I’ve been crying, but I have to pass Dickinson on the way back to Christie and I heard someone call my name.

Well. My July name.

“We’re having a picnic!” Emily told me, giggling like maybe there was alcohol involved. “Join us!”

She’s got enormous blue eyes, and she knows how to use eye liner to make them look even bigger. Her lips are painted the perfect shade of pink, even out here, and there I am, in old baggy clothes and no makeup and my hair falling out of a ponytail, and I said yes.

She caught me off guard. Seriously off guard. Emily is clearly a popular girl. Jane looks like a ballet girl, tiny and delicate, but Emily’s a popular girl. I’m a nothing sort of girl, especially lately, so washed-out I’ve started to disappear, but Emily asked me to eat lunch with them.

And I did.

Jane was out in front of the cabin. I think that’s the front. She was on the lake side, anyway, in the shade, on a red gingham tablecloth. Is there one of those in the closet in my cabin? Did they ask Alyssa for one? Or did Emily bring a picnic blanket along with her?

Life is full of unanswerable questions.

They had beer, bottles of stuff I’ve never heard of. Apparently you can only get it in Wisconsin, so I’m not sure if one of them’s from Wisconsin, but I accepted the offer. Alcohol’s a depressant, but I’m not on any meds right now, so at least whatever I feel is an honest reaction. Plus I only had the one bottle, so it’s not like girls gone wild. I’ve barely had anything since entering hell, so hey, I might as well drink as I wander around here, right?

It’s hard to talk when you’re not going to talk about yourself. Emily giggled about Edgar and Jane helped her list off all his recent roles and awards and stuff, but for some reason I haven’t paid much attention to the entertainment industry lately. You get accused of a few things … you get separated from the man you love … who cares who’s got what fake beef with whom over supporting actor whatevers?

“Okay, Agatha’s actually obeying the rules,” Emily finally said with a smile. I couldn’t tell if she was teasing me like a mean girl or like a friend. “Subject change. Maybe we have some hobbies in common.”

Jane snorted into her beer. “Henry knits.”

“Oh, God, I saw that.” Emily rolled those big blue eyes again, and this laugh was definitely mean girl. “You didn’t ask him about it, did you?”

Jane shook her head, her own brown eyes wide but not nearly as big. Seriously, everything about her is tiny. “I am not approaching him. There’s something weird about him.”

“There’s something weird about all of us.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud.

Jane nodded first and then shook her head. “I think the weird thing about him is that there isn’t something weird about him,” she tried to clarify. “Or it’s not the right weird.”

It sounded like nonsense, but then we were all nodding.

They got into it a bit more, and I did some more nodding, but it’s true: you don’t come here because everything’s perfect and normal. It’s a retreat, which means you’re retreating from something. Something’s driven you here, so you’ve run away in the hopes that it won’t find you. Jonathan goes out of his way to make sure it won’t find you.

“There is no weight on that man’s shoulders,” Jane declared, pointing her small finger very dramatically down toward the Longfellow cabin.

“Yeah? What’s the weight on yours?” Emily asked, the sort of challenge that meant her face changed half a second later and she slouched a little. “Sorry. I didn’t … sorry.”

I think that’s the entire point of me writing this right now: it came out of nowhere, and it hit her, and she’s this total Amazon woman with blonde hair and makeup and strappy sandals and a complete Look. She’s gorgeous with perfect skin and basically seems like a Barbie doll brought to life, and she still got completely blindsided by her own heavy thing.

It’s not just me. How weird and wonderful and awful is that? It’s not just me.

Maybe it’s because it hasn’t hit him the same. God, my own private diary and I’m going to burn it and I don’t even want to name him here. What, just in case someone breaks into my cabin and finds this book and reads it? I don’t want to write about what I did, the things I did for us, and how he reacted to those things, and how somehow the solution to our problems is me being away from him now, and how I’ve been walking through hell alone.

But the question, the thing I really need to ponder, is if I do actually want to tell anyone here. I might want to tell Jane, maybe, because she’s so elfin and not nearly as intimidating as an Amazon warrior, but that doesn’t really seem fair. If I’m going to share, it should be with both, and they can’t tell, anyway. They’re not allowed. I don’t need to name names, but I could just tell them about love, and the things we do for love, and the way men sometimes just don’t understand how much we love them. I could at least tell them that.

---

Cold Comfort: Wednesday, July 3, 2024 – Alyssa

Yesterday didn’t work. Henry sat on the porch knitting until lunch, when he made himself a plate with a sandwich and some chips. He picked up a book from the library for the afternoon; went for a swim after Mr. Popular got out of the water, thanks, but damn it was cold; and showered before dinner. That was mistimed because he was on his way in when Jane and Emily were on their way out, boxes in hands and heads together, so that was a lost cause. He ate dinner alone, took a little stroll to see if anyone was out afterward, and then went to bed.

It didn’t work, but he couldn’t just switch things up and make it obvious that it didn’t work. If he set up a routine, then maybe he was more approachable, or at least it didn’t look like he was doing any of it just to be seen. Even if he totally was.

Thirty-one days sounded like a long time, but midnight tonight meant ten percent of his month was gone. This venture was coming out of his own pocket, and those pockets were about empty. It wasn’t time to change his approach, but to double down. He had coffee in his cabin in the morning, check, even though there was no one to see him. It helped to get him in the right mindset, maybe: sitting in the strange chair, next to the strange fireplace, drinking the familiar coffee from the strange pot, and just spending time with himself the way everyone else was.

Well. The Shelleys and the Meyers came in pairs. He didn’t think Edgar had any playboy rumors, though, so all the other cabins likely held one person and one person only, all of them with their coffee or tea or whatever else they had in the thing that was advertised as a kitchenette. If that was a kitchenette, then he was a prince of England.

Okay maybe he should’ve spent more time looking at the promotional material instead of hustling to put his money down. He’d figured it was only a month, so he could survive anything, and it was heated and there was electricity and indoor plumbing and all.

Man, he was bored. He hadn’t finished his coffee yet, and he was already so. Freaking. Bored.

Henry packed a sweater knit in sock yarn because he figured he’d need something to last the month, and it was a very simple pattern because he’d imagined holding a conversation while knitting. At this rate, he’d have the sweater done by the fifteenth and zero conversations. This was turning into one damn expensive sweater.

That was defeatist thinking. Reporting took time and leg work. Staking out someone’s house was just as boring as this, and then he was stuck in a car with no hope of a conversation. That was waiting with a camera and a voice recorder, eating fast food and hoping he’d have time at the gym later, or that the cute brunette from the bar would call him back, as long as it wasn’t when something finally happened.

He’d gotten a couple good shots of Aaron Gladieux in and around his house, but the man always got into his car in the attached garage, and there was a gate over the end of his driveway. As far as Henry had been able to tell, Gladieux now lived alone. The hot tub was gone, though. Henry couldn’t be sure about the girlfriend, but he knew the hot tub was gone.

He checked his watch and decided he might as well head up to the lodge. It was hard to look into the dining room from the porch, because the glass was treated with the same stuff they put on the cabin windows, but at least the others who came for breakfast could get used to seeing him. Clearly the knitting hadn’t worked to lure anyone in, at least at first glance, but maybe if he kept at it, proving it was more than just for show, someone would bite. He sat in the same rocking chair as yesterday, bag at his feet—just like yesterday—and rocked a little as he knit. Just like yesterday.

Unlike yesterday, the guy called Truman was back, and he went down to the dock in step with Edgar, the two of them talking animatedly as they got out kayaks and paddles and generally ignored the rest of the world because of their boating bro bonding. Neither of them looked up to wave at Henry before they got into their kayaks and headed toward the island out in the lake, which was big enough for a bunch of pine trees but otherwise looked like nothing but rock.

Henry hadn’t even considered the idea of boat bonding, but it wasn’t a bro he was after. He kept knitting. Rocking and knitting.

The sun reflected off the water and started giving him a headache, but he kept knitting. He’d stay here until lunch, and maybe time things better and make his sandwich when he wasn’t alone in the room, but there were footsteps, and maybe …

Henry made sure his Damn it didn’t show on his face. It was Percy, laughing over his shoulder as he came out, surveyed the porch, and decided to leave one rocking chair empty between the two of them. He nodded at Henry’s hands. “Did your grandma teach you?”

It was teasing, so Henry took it seriously. “No. My mom.”

Percy’s smile widened by a couple teeth. A couple very white teeth. “She wanted a daughter instead?”

“My parents wanted a lot of children, yeah, but she kept having miscarriages,” he answered evenly.

This pause was longer, but Percy’s smile didn’t change. He was very clearly trying to figure out if Henry was trying to provoke him or simply stupid. “Sorry to hear that.”

Henry shrugged. “I mean, they’re still together. Half my friends’ parents were divorced by third grade.”

“Ah.” Percy cleared his throat and looked out at the water, starting to sling one ankle up over the opposite knee, but the arms of the rocking chair got in the way and he almost lost one of his loafers. Loafers, no socks, khaki shorts, and a salmon-colored dress shirt. Why, Percy?

“You’re married?” Henry asked, just to throw the man a bone.

“Ah, yeah. Yes.” Percy nodded once deeply. “We’re married. It’s good. Well.” He started to chew his lower lip, then clearly forced himself to stop. “Life is good. Back home, you know. But sometimes you just have to get away.”

Henry nodded because clearly he’d also opted for the month away.

“But. I mean, with … Mary.” He hesitated over his wife’s name and then looked up when the door opened and Alyssa came out holding a piña colada. “Thank you. But, with Mary …” He smiled a little strangely. “These are perfect days.” Percy took a drink and nodded. “Thanks, Alyssa.” It was clearly a dismissal, so she retreated and the men fell silent, one sipping, one knitting, and Henry started calculating exactly how long he’d have to keep sitting here until it was time for lunch.

---

Cold Comfort: Wednesday, July 3, 2024 – Agatha

Edgar walks in wearing cheap plastic flip-flops and swim trunks, a towel around his neck and a T-shirt sticking to his chest. There aren’t any droplets in his curls, but those are damp, too, despite the towel and the afternoon sun. His smile is almost shy, and I guess I get why so many people my age go to pieces over him even with the age gap, but I’m not one of them. I won’t tell him I know he’s almost my dad’s age, but I don’t have to remember Lydia’s lecture on not sleeping with the residents. They’re allowed to sleep with each other if they’d like to, but I’m staff. I’m supposed to be professional.

“You’ve been here a while, right?” he asks, crossing his arms on the high counter and resting his chin on top of them. “Had a month already?”

I nod, wondering which question’s coming next. Do you ever stop looking for your cell phone? Eventually, but after my “weekends” I keep reaching for it again. Does the water ever warm up? Define warm. Do you think there’s a God? Dodge and weave.

Edgar fixes his eyes on mine. “Can you identify birds by their calls?”

A laugh bursts out of me, mostly because I don’t want to get into a deep philosophical discussion with anyone just now, thanks. “I’m not the one to ask. Truman’s back tomorrow. He’s your guy.”

“Yeah?” His eyes sparkle.

“He’ll tell you what it is, how it’ll taste, and what he’d forage to go with it.” Wait, am I over-sharing?

Edgar grins without straightening up. “I don’t want to eat it. I just want to know what it is.”

Apparently I’m not over-sharing. “Well, you might be able to get him to stop there.”

“Because he’ll want to eat it.” He raises a challenging eyebrow.

I snort. “I’m pretty sure Truman just walks into the woods barefoot on his days off and lives on whatever he can find.”

He frowns a little. “Raw?”

Seriously, he’s cute when he wrinkles his nose, no matter how old he is. “No, he’s got to try out some new survival way to start a fire.”

He clucks his tongue. “That doesn’t sound very back-to-nature to me.”

“Oh, he’ll lecture you. Heating food causes it to undergo a chemical change that means we can digest it more easily, so it actually creates less waste.” I grimace. “Uh. Less of all kinds of waste.”

Edgar laughs, a guffaw that leans him back so he grabs the countertop to keep from falling over. “You know, I can’t say that’s something I’ve ever really considered.”

Despite the fact that one of his best-known roles involves surviving the apocalypse. “Truman has.”

“Is that …?” But he stops, cocking his head. “I was going to ask if that’s his first or last name.”

I shake my head. “I don’t even know if it’s after Harry S. or Capote.” Or if he’s the one who picked it, or it’s the name his parents chose.

“Ahhh.” He nods deeply. “Capote. That makes sense, with the rest of us. And maybe the, uh. The killing.”

“I don’t think he’s going to be shooting any bird around here with a shotgun.” Homemade bow and arrow is more likely.

Edgar winks, but I can’t tell if it’s because he’s pleased that I know In Cold Blood or because he doesn’t entirely get the reference. “I figured you’re named after Alyssa Orlen, the greatest children’s author of all time.”

My mom loved those books. She was also about Edgar’s generation.

I just smile, which probably doesn’t look all that knowing and mysterious, but at least he laughs again and holds up his hands. “Fair, fair. I should know better than to keep asking questions. Well.” He holds up a finger. “Personal questions. Because I do have another one.” The finger points toward the chalkboard that has the dinner menu. “How’s Lydia at chicken and waffles? Because I’m starving, but I’ll wait for the right chicken.”

“She’s great at both. We didn’t have them together last month.” That must be your request. I clamp down on it, because that feels too much like a personal assumption.

Edgar nods, rubbing at his chin and that recognizable scruffy beard. “All right. I can wait, as long as I get what I want in the end.”

I nod once sagely. “Margaret Thatcher would be proud of you.”

He laughs and does the wink again, and I’m still not sure if that means he caught my reference or if I missed the mark. At least he leaves with a smile, so that’s really the best I can ask for when it comes to customer service. And hey, let’s face it: my expectations for myself are pretty low these days. I’m in bare minimum survival mode where just getting through is worth a gold star.

---

Cold Comfort: Wednesday, July 3, 2024 – Henry

Dear Diary,

I didn’t sleep well last night. I mean, it’s been a long time since I slept well, but I really didn’t sleep well. First night in a new place, and the irony. Ugh. I like using the forest sounds on my white noise machine, so I thought I’d try just listening to the forest, but that didn’t work, so I plugged in the machine, but then I had to keep turning it up louder to drown out the real forest, and that got me worried I wouldn’t hear a bear coming up to the cabin and trying to eat me, so I had to dial it down again.

The sun was up at 6, so I figured I might as well be, too. The schedule in the binder says Lydia doesn’t start hot breakfast until 8, but anything in the fridge or on the table is up for grabs, so I headed over to the lodge. Jonathan was behind the desk, but I just nodded at him and went on into the dining room to see what was up.

It’s weird, right? You’re not making or even buying your own food. I filled out page after page of things I like and things I don’t like, things I eat daily or a couple times a week or only occasionally, and there’s coffee and granola bars in my kitchenette but for the rest of it I have to walk to the lodge. Not that it’s far. None of the cabins are far. I’m the middle cabin to the right, when you’re looking at the lake, and it wouldn’t be a hard walk in the middle of the night or anything, but I ended up bringing some things back for my little fridge all the same.

It’s nowhere near the fridge case they have there in the dining room, with milk and juice and yogurt and cheese and lunch meat and stuff there for the taking, though. I could go in and look for my favorite yogurt and grab an apple from the fresh fruit, and there’s a Keurig, so I took my little breakfast to a table by the window and ate it and zoned out for a bit. If anyone called me on it I could’ve pretended I was taking in nature, I guess, but that wasn’t it. I just drifted again.

I’m not supposed to get mad at myself for wasting time like that. I’m supposed to remind myself that that’s a very capitalist mindset, and I’m working through a lot of trauma, and progress isn’t linear, and all the rest. But nobody called me on it, and the reason I came out of it was because someone walked up onto that long back porch (or maybe it’s a front porch) to sit on one of the rocking chairs and start knitting.

Henry. Hot blond dude with the broad shoulders and chiseled jaw and sensual lips. That guy knits. If it were one of the other women, I would’ve gone out there and started a conversation. Asked about her knitting and how she learned. But when a guy knits … when a guy who looks like that knits … his entire point is getting you to ask. He has his answer prepared, and you’re supposed to ooh and ahh over whatever he makes, even if his tension’s off and he hasn’t used anything but Red Heart.

Stop it, Agatha. You can insult Henry without being a yarn snob.

My feelings are valid. I can’t just get out my own knitting and sit there and knit next to him, because of all the stereotypes and my worry that he’ll get all offended because he’s not special.

Look at how beautifully I worded that: my worry that. Not the assumption that he would in fact act that way.

Diary, I did not give him the chance to prove me wrong. I picked up my garbage, threw that away, and picked one of the reusable bags that were in a neat stack on the corner of the serving table so I could take some more food back to my cabin.

I was late enough that Alyssa was behind the desk. She caught sight of me and laid her book down flat, but I recognized the cover, because there’s a whole shelf of those in the lodge’s library: an Agatha Christie. I don’t know which one, because they all look alike, but that’s what it was. And I had to sidestep Jane on my way out, so I think she saw how I was looking at Alyssa, because she seemed startled.

I sat on my own porch for a while with my own knitting until I got cold, and then I came back in here and made some more coffee and wrapped a blanket around my legs and wrote all this. But now I have to figure out what to do with the rest of my day, because I agreed to come to a place with so few distractions. Joy. Maybe I’ll go try to drown myself in the lake.

---

Cold Comfort: Tuesday, July 2, 2024 – Alyssa

It was nice to sit in the main room of his cabin with a hot cup of coffee at his elbow and one of the windows cracked just enough to let in some early morning air, but not enough for that air to blow his papers around. He’d debated even bringing them, but the security measures in the cabin were the deciding factor. Even then he’d made sure the papers were in his carry-on and that Jonathan didn’t get ahold of them.

There wasn’t much use to being an undercover reporter if you blew your own cover before you’d even identified your quarry, much less gotten the confession. He’d be hit with all kinds of suits and things when—if—it got out that he made his recordings here, but fuck it. He’d take that risk. Someone like Annabeth Deschain didn’t deserve a refuge.

Henry had his files on her, and some fuzzy photographs, but he didn’t really know what she looked like. Average height, average weight, in her early twenties, but she could have cut her hair, or dyed it, or purchased a wig. There was fake tanner and makeup for contouring or skewing apparent age. She could change her clothes to hide or accent her build, or even binge or starve herself to change that build and then throw the clothes on top of it. There simply weren’t any known photographs of Annabeth Deschain to begin with and, now that she was here, she could be anyone.

Henry sipped his coffee and perused the known facts, which were few.

Annabeth Deschain worked as a nanny for Aaron Gladieux. He had three older children with his late wife, who didn’t matter, and a three-year-old with his hot new girlfriend, who did. The three-year-old was Danielle Jacqueline, known to her doting parents and in headlines everywhere as Dani Jay. To put it bluntly, Dani Jay was found dead in her father’s hot tub in late spring 2023. Early in 2024, Aaron Gladieux was informed that there was not enough evidence to proceed with charging Annabeth Deschain for Dani Jay’s murder.

Like most of the rest of the country, Henry was convinced that Annabeth Deschain was guilty. There was one other fact that Henry jealously guarded: Aaron Gladieux booked a cabin at Loon Lake Refuge for the month of July. It had been hell to get that information, and he’d paid through the nose, first for the record and then for his own cabin. The thing was, Henry didn’t think Aaron Gladieux was using the cabin for himself.

Although Annabeth Deschain managed to keep her face from becoming public knowledge, her private diary was another story. Legally or illegally—it didn’t matter to Henry—entries were leaked, and he wasn’t the only one who knew that Annabeth Deschain had spicy daydreams about her employer. That was as much as could be concluded from the entries: that it was pure fantasy, a young woman lusting after a good-looking older man. Henry was here because he was betting a month of his life and a huge chunk of his bank account on it being reciprocated.

There were four women here this summer, and two men other than Henry himself. He’d already seen Edgar and clearly identified him as someone other than Gladieux, so he was out. He hadn’t seen Percy yet, but Percy was in a double cabin that necessitated author names of a married couple, and the most secret of Henry’s documents, the one in a safe deposit box back home and not in his file folder, indicated a single occupancy. He doubted he was looking for Mary Shelly, but that left Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, and Agatha Christie in his sights.

He hadn’t seen Emily yet, and Agatha only from a distance, but Jane was next door. The cabins were positioned so that their front windows looked out over the lake and not toward another cabin, and there were screening trees between them, so he wasn’t going to be able to spy on Jane that way, and any attempt would be obvious. Obvious, suspicious, and possibly the sort of behavior that would get him kicked out.

The website had a map of the grounds, so even though he hadn’t known for sure which cabin would be his, he’d been aware of the setup. He’d found out in time to snag a cabin for himself for July, and in time to make his plan. As soon as he’d finished his coffee, Henry figured he’d head on up to the lodge and pick one of the rocking chairs they had on the long porch.

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Cold Comfort: Tuesday, July 2, 2024 – Agatha

I’m not as nervous this time because at least I’ve already been through it once. Loon Lake opens in June, since there’s usually still snow up here in May, and even the people who hard-core need to get away from the news for a while aren’t ready to do it in snow boots. The cabins are heated, and have fireplaces for more than decoration, but then Jonathan grumbles about the residents who set the thermostat too high or go through too much wood.

He’s off picking up a late arrival, but most of the others trickle in for dinner. In June Truman was here to tell me they’re more scared of me than I am of them, but he’s off today. This group seems a lot like the last as far as that goes, though: the timid wildlife.

Edgar’s first, with the curls and the smile most people would know anywhere, and he opts for the takeaway containers so he can pile things in, grab a drink—nonalcoholic—and skedaddle out the door before anyone else comes in. Valid. It’s easy enough to assume that he of all people came here to get away from being seen, so I smile when he glances my way but don’t come out from behind the desk.

They really shouldn’t need me much right now. It’s easy to see where the dining room is, with enough chairs for everyone around various small tables in case they want to stay, but also that option of takeaway container over plate because they certainly don’t have to. Lydia cooks things off their lists of likes and dislikes—seriously, she has a whole spreadsheet—and there are the freezers with frozen meals if anyone wants one of those instead, plus the microwave here, and in the kitchenette parts of the cabins.

My cabin looks exactly like one of the resident cabins, except I’m on the woods side of the path instead of the lake side. I’ve got my coffee pot and my little fridge and single cupboard, just like they do. The lodge is even open around the clock in case they realize at midnight that they want a frozen burrito. Someone’s always at the desk or taking the radio if they have to go out to a cabin. I don’t think Lydia needs more than two hours of sleep a night.

Henry and Jane come in together, talking cautiously about the weather probably because they came out of their cabins at the same time and it would have been more awkward to walk in silence. Jane grabs a takeaway container first, and either Henry was already planning on it or he decides to go with the flow because he does, too. Unlike Edgar, they each examine the beverages in the alcohol cooler and help themselves rather than sticking to pop. Then they’re gone, but not before I see the way Henry—tall, blonde, casually fit—looks at petite, dark-haired Jane,

Agatha opens the door like a rabbit sniffing for predators and doesn’t smile back when I smile first. My dad would say she’s got Spanish eyes, and she looks like she’s sulking not just in her face but the way she moves. One takeaway container for Agatha, check, and she practically glares at Percy when he opens the door, realizes she’s on her way out, and holds it for her.

Percy’s half of our only pair this month, but Mary isn’t with him. He’s dressed so out-of-place for the region: khakis, loafers, even a tie around his neck, and I don’t know how expensive his haircut is, but it’s possible he paid even more than Edgar. He grins at me with some very white teeth and comes to the desk instead of heading to the dining room, leaning on the high edge. “My wife, uh. Mary.” He chuckles to show how ridiculous the whole pseudonym thing is. “She’s not feeling well. Wondering if you have a heating pad.”

I tuck my bookmark into my book and get up. “We’ve got heating pads and hot water bottles.”

“Heating pad would be great. It’s the, uh.” His smile loses a little of its sparkle. “PMS, you know.”

I nod and go to one of the closets where there are three heating pads, neatly stacked. At least we’ve got electricity here. Imagine trying to make it through a whole summer with candles and all the mod cons circa 1850. “Do you want a bag? If you’re taking dinner back, too.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah.” He starts like maybe he wasn’t planning on grabbing food, even though it’s all laid out and everything.

It’s the first day. Everything’s new and weird, and I don’t think he’s from anywhere around here. We don’t ask, and even if he told me something, I wouldn’t necessarily believe it, but the Shelleys feel big city to me.

I tuck the heating pad into a reusable shopping bag and try not to watch him as he goes into the dining room, but he’s focused on making one large leafy salad and one meat-and-potatoes, so it’s not like he’s going to complain. He puts the boxes in his bag, making sure they’re mostly level, before adding napkins and silverware and pausing at the drinks before selecting one large bottle of Evian and a six-pack of beer. He even nods at me on his way out.

We’ve only got one other guest coming and nobody’s asked me for anything but the heating pad, so I go ahead and make myself a plate. Lydia’s a good cook. It’s a turkey dinner tonight, not a full Thanksgiving spread but plenty of options all the same, so I make myself a side salad instead of Percy’s enormous dinner salad and go for white meat, mashed potatoes, and cornbread. I take it back to the desk instead of to one of the tables so I don’t have to run for the phone in case anyone calls, even though the dining area has the view of the lake. It’s still beautiful, even after almost six weeks, but I’m on call. I’m not a guest.

Really, I lucked out. I couldn’t have afforded this place. The prices are justified, since it’s room and board with everyone at your beck and call, plus the upkeep, and the propane, and the generators. Lydia has a whole list of people to call if anyone backs out or decides to go home early. No matter how desperately I needed to get away, I couldn’t have rustled up the funds. I’m lucky Lydia saw my application and accepted it, and being on-call for long hours is worth it because I get what the rest of them do: a break from the headlines. A place where only a select few can reach me.

Except, unlike the residents, I get weekends. Not real weekends. Truman has Mondays and Tuesdays off, and I have Thursdays and Fridays. Plus I’m never on call overnight. It’s just 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for me, when I’m awake, anyway, and all that means is I have to be here in the lodge, where the food and books are. Thank God there haven’t been any emergencies, and the last group kept mainly to themselves, doing the whole communing with nature while going through cell phone withdrawal thing.

Honestly, I thought it would be worse: more drinking and more fights, maybe. Loon Lake isn’t billed as a screen detox facility, but that’s basically how it functions. When you agree to come up here, you’re saying you’ll leave your cell phone behind. You know there isn’t any signal up here, anyway, and no Internet. I guess I thought more residents would have trouble with it, but I also didn’t really expect the sorts of people Lydia and Jonathan attract.

The people who come here aren’t screen addicts being forced to break their habit because of familial concern. They’re all people who just want to freaking get away from the world for a while.

I know exactly how they feel.

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Cold Comfort: Tuesday, July 2, 2024 – Henry,

Dear Diary,

Look you’d think they’d at least give you a choice between three names rather than just assigning you one. It’s not supposed to connect back to your real life, blah blah blah, but come on. Agatha? Freaking Agatha? I’m going to have to train myself to answer to it. To turn my head when someone says “Oh, Agatha!”

This was never going to be good. I knew that. But it could’ve been better is all I’m saying.

My therapist suggested journaling, but this is going to be burned before I leave here, because it’s going to be about here, and we’re not supposed to carry anything like that out with us. If it’s fiction, that’s different (there’s one of those reviews by someone claiming they wrote a novel while they were here, but it’s probably not any good, because they didn’t actually say it’s been published) but anything about the people we meet, yada yada yada, is illegal.

We all had to sign that stupid form with our legal names, and now we’re here and somebody else, and just make that make sense.

Okay Agatha that’s not the point of journaling. Or of being here. The point is avoiding headlines, avoiding doom scrolling, practicing meditation and mindfulness and dear lord I’m going to die of boredom. Why did I let them talk me into this?

Deep breath. Okay. Worst year of my life and all. God, I almost wrote “worst year of my life so far” and here we go. Doom spiraling again.

I can’t just think it’s the worst year ever because that’s entirely unrealistic. I’m young. Unless I die suddenly in some sort of catastrophic event, there will, someday, be worse years. And that’s not doom thinking. That’s just a fact. I’m still alive and I’m here at this stupid retreat living some people’s dream, and come on, I’m not even the only person doing it. There’s a waiting list, so all the cabins are full. Plus it’s not just the Meyers. They’ve got a couple other people working and living here, and they stay the whole season.

I am here to get away from, and recover from, the things that have happened to me that should have been private but are far too public.

There. That. To live in the moment and not repeat all the awful things and the worst night of my life and the fact that everyone, everywhere, around the world thinks they know what happened, and what I should’ve done, and why it all happened, and just all that shit that I was supposed to leave behind when I got off that dinky airplane and saw Jonathan standing there.

No name cards or anything. It’s just him, the same face as the promotional material, and he waits for your bags and you load them up and if the guy in 3 isn’t the one in my favorite show then it’s his identical twin.

Okay and did anyone ever think of that? I’m never going to be able to say I met him. That we talked. Not about ourselves, no, but come on. It’s the sort of name that makes young women everywhere scream and faint and claim their ovaries exploded, which is both gross and ow, but I’m cursed. He offered me a hand to get down from the van and I can’t ever tell anyone about it.

And yes, Dr. Weber, I’m concentrating on that because it means I don’t have to think about why I’m here. The shit I’m running away from, except Dr. Weber wants me to think of it more proactively, so the shit I’m learning to deal with by being here.

Okay was it really wise to agree to this when being cut off for a month means no therapy appointments, either? It’s almost time for dinner. Guess I might as well see what they do with all our requests.

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Cold Comfort: Monday, July 1, 2024 – Alyssa

Henry thought the nondisclosure agreement for this place was ridiculous right up until he saw the man coming out of the Poe cabin and knew, without a doubt, that his first name wasn’t Edgar. They weren’t supposed to take photographs of anything that happened in the compound, and especially not of fellow residents, even though this one particular fellow resident happened to regularly trade on his face. And his name, which, Henry reflected as he nodded in passing, was followed all too frequently these days by the word fatigue. He tore his eyes away from the award-winning actor and focused back on the pine needle path that led further into the woods, following Jonathan Meyer.

That was his real name. Jonathan and Lydia Meyer owned the place, and it was their names and faces, and only theirs, on the website. Everyone else went by assigned names, and they passed Cabin 2 (Austen) and reached his own: Longfellow. Hence, he was Henry, at least for the month of July.

“Here we are,” Jonathan announced, unloading the suitcases from the handcart to the small back stoop. He was tall and thin, and even in his dickies and work shirt there was something about him that made Henry think of butlers in dark suits. Jonathan used his thumb to open the lock on the back door and confidently punched a few buttons before stepping aside and gesturing for Henry to use his own.

He did, using his left hand and waiting for the beep and the green light.

Jonathan nodded. “I’ll follow you through to the front and get that one, but then it’s all yours.”

The front of the cabin wasn’t on the path but on the lake, and it wasn’t Lake Superior, even though it was large enough to have an island that also featured on the retreat’s website. Henry went on ahead into the cabin, not looking around curiously because he’d also seen photos of the interior, and through the short hallway to the big front room that was everything but bathroom and bedroom. They repeated the ritual on the front door.

Henry used his right thumb on this one. If Jonathan noticed, he didn’t comment, but then, the whole point of Loon Lake Retreat was not noticing. See, for example, this year’s SAG Award winner heading out of Cabin 3 in swim trunks and with a towel over his shoulder, nary a paparazzo in sight.

Jonathan pointed to a table in the great room that held a three-ring binder next to an odd-looking telephone. It only had two buttons, the white one labeled LODGE and the red one 911. “You can call or come up at any time,” he explained, even though this, too, was in all the literature. “Someone’s always on duty. If you don’t need anything before then, dinner’s ready at six.” Then he waited, but this wasn’t a big-city hotel, and he wasn’t a bellboy whose silence reminded Henry that he needed to tip. Henry nodded, Jonathan nodded back, and then Henry was alone.

Well. Alone in his cabin, but not alone on the compound. There were six guest cabins, although some of them could hold couples, and Jonathan and Lydia, and probably some more staff members, too. There were four vehicles in the staff parking lot, at any rate, and there had to be enough people to keep the lodge manned at all hours, but the staff wasn’t listed on the website, either. Maybe they got to pick their own names.

Henry propped the door and maneuvered the two large suitcases inside. It felt like he’d overpacked, but the email accepting him as a resident for the month of July—after his money had arrived, of course—included a long to-bring list that cautioned Upper Peninsula summers weren’t always as summery as they might like. Loon Lake was up here in the Keweenaw Peninsula, about as far north as anyone could get in the state of Michigan, and guests would want jeans and sweatshirts and wool socks, just in case. They could always request purchases from Jonathan, and have those things added to their tab, but Henry packed as directed and dealt with the baggage fees.

Now this meant he had to unpack, but the bedroom had a wardrobe with hangers and two dressers, like maybe this was one of the cabins that could host a couple instead of a singleton. The bed was a queen, at any rate, and though he could pick up clean sheets from the lodge at any time, if he wanted someone to change the bed for him, he’d have to let them in. There was no maid’s key at this place, even if there was someone who’d act as a maid if he wanted her to.

Henry figured most of the people who forked over the cash for a month here were protective of whatever happened inside their temporary dwelling places. He’d carry his laundry up to the lodge himself, thanks, and put the new sheets on with his own two hands. He didn’t need anyone else poking around, even if it was just his bedroom and he kept his papers and his notebooks in the main room.

That was, of course, the point of Loon Lake Retreat. He’d never refer to the man in Cabin 3 as anything but Edgar, and if any personal questions slipped out, the other residents could dodge or lie as they liked. Henry certainly wasn’t going to be giving any truthful answers of his own, and it remained to be seen exactly how social anyone else would be. Yes, dinner was scheduled to be served in the lodge at six, but it could always be picked up or, if he hit one of the buttons on his phone, delivered to his back stoop with no human contact.

Henry’s problem was going to be juggling contact.

The online forms didn’t ask why you wanted to spend a month somewhere without your cell phone or a Wi-Fi connection. It just asked you for a pass phrase for any loved ones or privileged parties trying to contact you through the lodge’s landline or their catch-all email, checked at minimum every 48 hours. It didn’t ask why you wanted to limit your communication. You could leave at any time before your month was up, but you didn’t get any money back and, once Jonathan drove you out of here, you didn’t return, no matter how many days were left. Everything was very clear: these are the limitations, and you’re choosing them for your own reasons, but nothing asked for those reasons.

Not that Henry would have minded lying if an answer were required. He wasn’t about to say I’m an undercover reporter who learned that you’ve already accepted a murderer for the month of July and will attempt to secure a confession. It didn’t need to be legal. He just needed to get those important words on the record.

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Cold Comfort: Monday, July 1, 2024 – Agatha