X-Marks: Hiding Shadows

Misfortunes

"Don't we need a key?" Evee shouted from the porch blanketed with snow.

"I think the locks frozen," Ocean said and lifted her head from the lock.

Mat pushed his weight into the already cracked door.

"How do we even know it's the right house!" he huffed and pushed the door with his shoulder once more.

It was a good question. This was the only home we'd seen for miles, but that didn't mean much. There had to be something. Something to let us know it was here for people like us, stranded travelers in need of cover.

I followed Evee around the front yard of the home. There wasn't much to this decayed cabin. It was made of frayed wooden logs that were wrapped in icy thorns and had a tall roof with two round windows.

"Maybe, Mat's right," I said and stuffed my hands into my pockets, "Maybe this isn't the right house."

"Mat's never right," Evee laughed and entwined her arm with mine, "You should know that by now."

I laughed with her, though it was thin. I wanted to find humor in this right now, but I could only think of all our misfortunes. It wouldn't be the first time we were stranded, and I wasn't sure it would be our last.

Evee pulled her hands from under her coat sleeves and asked for the tracker.

"Buggy," she said and winched at his name, "He had to give this to you for a reason. We should use it."

She was onto something, once again.

Evee fumbled, as we all did, with the rubbery button of the tracker until the blue light flashed below onto the stark white snow. She traveled the light first over the roof, then the porch as she paced around the sides of the home.

"Maybe we should just go," I said and rocked on my numb toes, "We might not have time to keep walking without a tent."

I continued to talk, but only to the air. Evee was more interested in the bushes that covered the home. Her head was tangled in a thicket of thorns.

"You see something?" I asked from behind her, but no answer came.

I walked closer to her and parted the thorns around her some more. There I saw for myself the glowing etch of the flame on the side of the house.

The flame. This was it for sure.

"Let's go back and find a key for the door," I said and turned away.

"Hold on," Evee said and dusted the snow from the vines and wood of the home.

There beneath the snow was the knob of a hidden door. Evee turned the knob and made long strips of ice fall as the door shook open.

The blue light of the tracker although bright, reflected nothing back from the darkness behind the door. Evee, always braver than I could ever be, dangled her foot into the pitch-black space and stepped below.

"Anything?" I whispered.

Evee's knees knocked together as she lowered into the opening of the door.

"I think, - I think I feel stairs," she said and unwrapped the strap of my bag from her shoulder and gave it back to me.

With the tracker still in her hand, Evee walked down into the darkness and into the strange home.

"Wait!" I said, but she was already gone.

I waited in the cold open air with my thoughts that rushed through me all at once. The cold felt, colder. My stomach felt, emptier and my eyes felt heavier. I couldn't wait any longer.

I slid on the ice of the threshold, and stepped onto what felt like stone steps. The crack of a stiff twig snapped behind me.

"You were supposed to find another way to get in," Mat said, "Not, take a nap!"

I turned from the empty door to see Mat's face and the rounded toe of Ocean's shoes through the thorns.

"If you'd just wait for one -" I said and tried to explain before a head of curls sprouted from the door.

"And would look at that, we did find it!" Evee said from the door with cans and bags cradled in her arms.

"Well you two could have said something sooner, again," Mat said and stepped into the tunnel of thorns, "I think you want us to freeze out here."

"You definitely," Evee said and stuck out her tongue as she turned from the door to let Mat pass by her.

I held my laughter in my clenched lips. I was still under Mat's disapproving glare, but a sense of warmth washed over me.

We had found the first home.