Chapter 8 The Cabin’s Secret

Back inside, the silence felt heavy, pregnant with the weight of the water-damaged room. Clara spent the next hour mopping, pushing the frigid water out the door. Her arms ached, her back protested, and her hands were numb. The thought of her ergonomic desk chair, her dual monitors, her automated coffee maker, seemed like a distant, unattainable luxury. This was a different world, one where the raw, elemental forces of nature dictated everything, and Aunt Beatrice had lived, and died, at its capricious mercy.

Just as the first tentative streaks of dawn painted the eastern sky in hues of rose and violet, a battered pickup truck pulled up at the gate. The driver hopped out, opened the gate, and then rumbled through it and up the lane to a spot beside her Outback. A burly man with a salt-and-pepper beard and kind, crinkled eyes emerged from the truck and reached into its bed for his toolbox.

Clara met him on the porch.

“Jerry Miller,” he announced, his voice surprisingly gentle. “Deputy Miller sent me.”

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said, moving aside to allow him to pass.

He surveyed the kitchen with a practiced eye, nodding slowly. “Yep, looks like a burst pipe, alright.” He knelt, examining the water damage near the stove. “Gonna have to pull up some of these floorboards, ma’am. Likely under here.”

Clara watched, exhausted but relieved, as Jerry set to work. The rhythmic creak and groan of the crowbar against the wood, the sharp crack as nails relinquished their hold, filled the quiet kitchen. He was methodical, careful, placing each removed board neatly against the wall. The exposed subfloor was a damp, dark mess of wood and insulation.

He worked for nearly an hour, his movements precise and unhurried. Clara sat on a dry chair, nursing a mug of coffee, trying to ignore the gnawing dread that had subtly replaced her initial frustration. There was something more to this cabin, something heavier than the weight of her aunt’s legacy. It was the feeling of a secret, pressing on the very walls.

Suddenly, Jerry paused. He was kneeling, his hand hovering over a section of the subfloor, right beneath where the stove had stood. “Huh,” he grunted, probing something with the tip of his crowbar. The sound was metal on metal. He looked up, his brow furrowed. “Ms. Vance,” he called, his voice now laced with a curious note. “You should probably come look at this.”

Clara pushed herself up, her legs stiff. She moved closer, peering over his shoulder. The section he was pointing to was different. While the other floorboards were firmly nailed down, this one seemed… loose. It wasn’t attached, just pressed down, held in place by the pressure of the surrounding planks.

With a firm grip, Jerry loosened the board, which, with a soft pop, lifted free, revealing not the expected damp dirt and pipes, but a shallow, recessed cavity. Inside was a heavy metal box. Jerry hauled it out and carried it to the kitchen table. “If you’re lucky, that’s packed full of hundred-dollar bills,” he chuckled.

As curious as to what was in the box as Clara, Jerry watched as she opened it. Inside, nestled snugly and protected from the elements, was a tightly bound stack of leather-bound journals, identical to the cryptic ones she’d already found, but these were thicker, newer-looking. And tucked beneath them, folded and refolded until it was almost square, was a crude, hand-drawn map.

“So, much for striking it rich,” Jerry mused, turning back to his work, his curiosity satisfied.

Her hands trembled as she reached down, her fingers brushing against the aged leather. Maybe these journals were more precise than the others. The code for deciphering the pieces of the jumble puzzle, jumbled she’d run across several times while going through her aunt’s journals.

She pulled out the journal on top, feeling its unexpected weight. She opened it. There was a recent entry, no more than a week before her aunt’s passing. Its familiar, spidery script was less ornate, more urgent than the others. She scanned the lines, her eyes widening, her breath catching in her throat.

No more cryptic botanical metaphors. No more veiled warnings. The words leaped off the page, stark and terrifyingly clear:

They’re getting closer. The water quality tests are undeniable. Increased heavy metals, unusual pH shifts in Obsidian Creek. And the seismic activity… too localized, too frequent. It’s not geological. Not natural.

Obsidian Creek Holdings. The name keeps appearing on the permits for ‘exploratory drilling’ downstream. But what are they exploring? It’s not oil, not gas. No, it’s far more insidious.

They think I don’t see them. The unmarked vehicles, the drones. But I’ve documented everything. The GPS coordinates of their test sites, the environmental impact assessments I’ve run myself, contradict their fabricated reports. They’re poisoning this land, draining it of something vital. And it’s right here, on the edge of my property.

Clara looked up from the journal, her gaze sweeping across her water-damaged kitchen, then out the window to the majestic, imposing mountains. The same mountains Beatrice had loved, had fought for. The same mountains that now held a dark, corporate secret.

She unfolded the crude map in her trembling hands. It showed not just her property lines, but also faint, red crosses and circles. Several were marked “Test Site Alpha,” “Site Beta,” and one, ominously, “Impact Zone.” All clustered unnervingly close to the cabin. And one symbol, a jagged, stylized ‘O’ with a slash through it, marked a sprawling complex labeled simply: Obsidian Creek Holdings.

The initial flood of frustration, the exhaustion, the desire to escape, all dissolved into a chilling realization. This wasn’t just a burst pipe. This wasn’t just a cabin conspiring against her. This was the cabin revealing its true secret, revealing Beatrice’s legacy, a desperate, final warning.

Beatrice hadn’t just been collecting evidence about “something cryptic.” She had been collecting evidence about them. And now, she was holding all the raw data. The chilling truth, no longer cryptic, spread through her like the cold water that had flooded her kitchen. Her two-week extension had just become an indefinite, perilous stay.