Part 4
Snow covered Russell’s tire tracks by morning. It filled the shallow steps, softened the real-estate sign, and pressed against the cabin doors until the building seemed to withdraw from the yard.
For several weeks, the torn bag of food was enough. Clover nosed pellets from beneath the gazebo bench and licked snow when the water dish froze. The chickadee found the scattered crumbs and returned every day, taking one at a time while Clover watched from the felt bed.
Hunger changed the rules between them. Clover no longer sprang when the bird came close. The chickadee no longer flew at every movement. They shared the same wind, the same empty property, and whatever the boards still held.
By Christmas, the food was gone.
Clover learned where mice tunneled beside the foundation and how long she could wait without moving. Some nights she caught enough to quiet the pain beneath her ribs. Other nights she spent her strength digging through crusted snow and returned to the gazebo with ice clotted between her toes.
The surrounding cabins stayed dark. A county plow cleared the main road after storms, but no one opened the private lane to Pineglass Lake. Once, a snowmobile passed beyond the trees. Clover dragged herself to the gate and called until the engine faded, her voice swallowed by the drifts.
January narrowed her world to heat and effort. She slept inside the felt cave with the wool blanket pulled around it, waking whenever the wind shifted. Frost formed along the fabric where her breath escaped. Her coat matted against her sides, hiding how little of her remained.
The chickadee continued to visit. It pecked at the gazebo floor, then fluttered to the roof beam and called down into the gray opening of the bed. Sometimes Clover opened her eyes. Sometimes she did not.
On the first Monday in March, Ben Holloway and his wife, Rachel, signed the final papers for the Pineglass Lake cabin in a title office outside Green Bay. They had saved for years for a place north of the city, and Russell’s asking price had been low enough to make them suspicious. The winter inspection showed no foundation trouble, no failed roof, and no hidden lien. Russell explained the rush with two sentences about his wife’s stroke and the cost of long-term rehabilitation.
Ben believed him until he opened the key envelope.
Inside were three keys, a gate code that no longer applied, and a folded scrap of paper in Russell’s handwriting.
Gray cat may still be around. Belonged to Anna. Don’t let her into the house.
Ben read it twice. “What does ‘may still be around’ mean?”
The closing agent looked uncomfortable. “I wasn’t told there was an animal on the property.”
Russell had already left. Ben called the number on the sale documents from the parking lot. Russell answered on the fourth ring.
“The note about the cat,” Ben said. “When did you last see her?”
A pause. Wind pushed dry salt across the pavement around Ben’s boots.
“Before Thanksgiving, maybe.”
Ben lowered the phone and checked the date on the dashboard display as if it might correct what he had heard. March 3.
“You left a house cat at an unheated cabin for more than three months?”
“My wife was hospitalized. I had priorities.”
“Did anyone feed her?”
“I left food. She had shelter. Look, the property is yours now.” Russell’s patience thinned with each word. “If she’s there, do whatever you think is appropriate.”
The call ended.
Rachel was already pulling up weather reports on her phone. “The private road won’t be cleared.”
“I’ve got snowshoes in the garage.”
“I’m coming.”
Ben looked at the brace on her right ankle, a souvenir from slipping on courthouse steps two weeks earlier. “You’re calling the emergency clinic and meeting me at the highway. If I find her, we don’t lose time figuring out where to go.”
Rachel hated the plan, which was different from thinking it was wrong. By noon, they had driven north through low gray clouds. At the turnoff to Pineglass Lake, the plowed pavement ended beneath a ridge of hard-packed snow.
Ben strapped on his old aluminum snowshoes. Rachel loaded his backpack with a carrier, towels, hand warmers, bottled water, and a thermos he forgot to drink from. Before he left, she put both hands around his face and said, “Alive or not, bring her out of there.”
The walk took more than an hour. Wind had erased the lane, leaving only the dark verticals of trees and the occasional corner of a buried fence. Ben checked lot numbers on his phone until the battery warning flashed, then tucked it inside his coat to keep it warm.
He found the Whitaker property by the real-estate sign leaning sideways in a drift. The brass padlock was crusted with ice. He chipped it free with the handle of a small shovel, opened the gate, and pushed through snow that reached above his knees where the wind had piled it.
No tracks crossed the yard except those of birds and mice. Ben searched the porch, tried each door, looked beneath the steps, and pressed his face to the windows. The cabin was empty; near the back wall, snow covered a plastic dish and the corner of a faded cat toy.
“Kitty,” he called, hating how useless the word sounded in the open air. “Come on. I’m not leaving without you.”
A chickadee dropped from a birch tree and landed on the roof of the screened gazebo. It flicked snow from the shingles, hopped to a gap beside the warped door, and disappeared inside. Ben followed.
The door resisted until he drove his shoulder against it. Cold, sour air rolled out. He saw the empty food bag first, then the gray felt bed stiff with frost. A wool blanket lay bunched on the bench, its center raised by a shape too small to be safe.
Ben removed one glove and reached beneath the frozen edge. The fur under his fingers felt colder than the air. He closed his eyes, pressed two fingertips near the cat’s ribs, and waited. The blanket moved once…
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇