Chapter Text
The mist was thick and the more she moved, the more moisture accumulated on her sleeves. She picked up her wood splitting axe from its place resting against a tree and held it on both hands. Then in one fluid motion she rotated it behind her back, then whipped it over her head and down into the cut log on her splitting stump. The split wood tumbled off of the stump, joining dozens of other split pieces of wood.
She’d been at it for a while and her arms were starting to fatigue. That was when wood splitting started to get dangerous so she dropped her axehead onto the ground and tossed the handle of it so it lent against a nearby tree.
As she gathered the wood into the firewood rack that pressed up against her cabin, she heard boots crunching under the gravel driveway leading from the road to her secluded cabin.
She looked up, ready to tell Kara to go home when she saw who was actually there.
Maggie Sawyer, a woman she hadn’t seen in two years was standing in the driveway. She had a puzzled look on her face.
They just looked at each other for a moment before Alex resumed gathering split wood. “Did Kara send you?”
“I don’t know who sent me,” Maggie turned her palms up that were inside of her jacket, causing it to flare at both sides. “I got a case that there was some non-terrestrial activity out here and the locals keep telling me the only gossip is about the creepy lady in the rental cabin outside of town.” Maggie seemed annoyed.
“I’m terrestrial,” Alex answered. She was having conflicting feelings. She was surprisingly happy to see Maggie in person, but she was in a gloom of self-isolation. She wanted to be left alone.
Maggie could sense Alex’s agitation and it only served to spike her own. “Great. I’ll start over.” She turned around and strode back down the driveway.
Alex opened her mouth to stop Maggie and offer to help or to ask her to stay for a coffee, but there was something that was still beating Alex down from the inside that sought to punish her so she remained silent.
Once her evening fire was built and she had made something to eat, Alex sat in the worn living room of the cabin. Maggie’s momentary appearance in her driveway felt like a hallucination. She had no proof it actually happened and the only proof her brain had captured was one glance of Maggie walking away, her long black coat and hair swaying with her hurried steps.
She could pick up her phone and ask Kara if she sent Maggie, but Maggie isn’t one to lie about her sister covertly sending her ex-fiancee to check on her.
If she didn’t think about it too much she could pretend it was a dream. She got down a half drunk bottle of whiskey. Maybe if she drank enough about it, she could forget that dream too.