Goldilocks Read Free Page B

long gear shift sticking up out of the floor between them.
    Hannah grabbed the door handle as he shook the gear shift gently, revving the engine as he slid it into first gear. They jerked forward roughly, thrown into the dash as ‘Big Red’ immediately coughed, sputtered and died. Hannah giggled as she looked at her father, his shaggy blond hair mused as he ran his hand through it in frustration. Determined to get the hang of it, they inched forward through two more failed attempts, before finally pulling back onto the asphalt of the road they’d come in on.
    With the map Sam had given him, spread out across the dash, Paul drove slowly past the cluster of buildings that was considered ‘town’ and out towards nothingness. Once again they were surrounded by nothing but trees and hills, the mountains in front of them, tall and proud. Around the loop they circled slowly for what seemed like a good twenty minutes, before Paul suddenly spotted a dirt road on their right. There were no markers, and no signs, but it had been the only one they’d seen for miles, and according to the path Sam had drawn on the map, this was it.
    “It might get bumpy,” Paul muttered out loud, even though Hannah’s grip had barely released its hold on the door since pulling away from the one stop shop.
    Bumpy wasn’t the word for the road that wasn’t really a road at all. Trees grew where they grew ‘the road’ winding around them, and almost disappearing in some spots, only to appear again a few yards ahead. Despite it being only midday, the beaming sun now only shown down on them in thin piercing rays through the lush tree tops overheard, darkening their surroundings, and casting the forest they were driving through into shadows.
    “Are you sure this is the right…?” Hannah started and then snapped her mouth closed as her father suddenly stopped where the road they were on ended, and another one veered sharply down into a small cove.
    “I think that’s a cabin,” he pointed through the windshield of the jeep towards the top of a structure she hadn’t seen for the crowd of trees all around them.
    “Dad…”
    “Hannah…” he sighed, shifting roughly so that the jeep lurched forward onto what could have been considered more of a nature trail than a driveway.
    She swallowed her complaint, staring straight ahead at what was to be their new home. Old man Jacobs’ place was a log cabin in its truest form, thick dark mahogany logs staggered and stacked so they formed a quaint little box like shape. It sat in the tiniest of clearings, the ground around it surprisingly clear of the plant life that seemed to carpet the forest around them. It didn’t look like the place had been abandoned for as long as Sam had said it was. A complex stack of firewood took up most of the covered porch that graced the front of the structure, an old ax still stuck in a sawed off stump just to the right of it. The moss green grass seemed as if had been recently cut, the blades as soft as new carpeting when Hannah slid from the jeep onto her feet.
    “It’s not so bad, kind of charming actually,” Paul pointed to the tiny square windows on the side of the house, and then up to the brick chimney jutting up from the top. “My parents used to have a wood stove when I was younger. Nothing like that smell in the winter to let you know you were truly home,” he smiled sadly, looking to Hannah who met his gaze from the other side of the car.
    It was their first day in their new house, and she didn’t want to ruin it by arguing with him. She tried for a smile, which felt more like a grimace and so she turned away, flipping her long blonde hair over her shoulder as she reached into the back seat of the jeep for one of her bags.
    “If you want me to look for something closer to town…” Paul started, but was surprised when Hannah shook her head.
    “You said it was free right, a perk of the job and all that…”
    “Well yeah, but I didn’t expect…”