The Cabin

The cold hits me the moment I step outside. Minus thirty-something. I don't need to measure it. After eight months you just know.

I stand on the doorstep, letting it bite. Filling my lungs with air that feels like ground glass. Then I move.

The morning routine is automatic now. Check the snares first. Close ones, within half a kilometre. Two rabbits. Small, half-frozen. I reset the snares and keep walking.

The forest is quiet. Same as every morning. Snow crunching under my boots. Breath clouding in front of me. The trees stand like sentries, branches heavy with white. Beautiful, if you stop to look. I stopped stopping a while ago.

I walk the perimeter without thinking about it. Old habit from the early days, when every shadow was a threat. Now it's just part of the morning. Like brushing your teeth, except there are no teeth to brush and no brush to do it with.

Nothing. No tracks. No disturbance. Same as yesterday. Same as the day before.

Quiet. Good.

Back at the cabin, I hang the rabbits by the door and go inside.

Zoe's awake. She's at the piano.

She doesn't look up when I come in. Her fingers move across the keys, picking out something slow. Classical, probably. She'd tell me the name if I asked. I never ask.

I strip off layers. The ritual. Outer jacket first, hung by the door. Then the boots, laces frozen stiff, fingers fumbling. Rifle unloaded, bolt open, leaned against the wall. The routine is so ingrained I could do it in the dark. I nearly have, some mornings.

"You're back early," she says without stopping.

"Nothing out there."

"Good nothing or bad nothing?"

"Just nothing."

She nods. The piece continues. Something with a lot of minor chords. Fits the day.

I stand behind her for a moment, watching her hands. She's good. Has been playing since she was young. Lessons as a girl, kept it up through university. The piano was here when I arrived. Zoe's cabin. Zoe's piano. She never explained how it ended up out here and I never asked. It's hers. That's enough.

"Tea?" I ask.

"There's barely enough for one cup."

"So you have it."

She smiles without looking up. "You're a terrible influence."

I put the kettle on the woodstove. It's dented, blackened, older than either of us. We found it in a shed two kilometres north, hauled it back on the sled. That was a good day. The first day this place felt like it might actually work.

While the water heats, I start on the rabbits. Skin, gut, joint. I do it on the workbench by the window, using the light. The movements are clean, practised. No waste. Even the offal goes into the scrap bucket. Bait for snares, or the occasional fox that wanders too close.

Zoe finishes the piece. Starts another. Faster this time.

"Is that a new one?"

"Old one I couldn't remember before. Came back to me this morning."

"You were playing it in your sleep. Heard you humming."

"Was I?" She sounds pleased. "Must be stuck in there somewhere."

The kettle whistles. I make her a cup. The tea is weak, reused twice already. Tastes like brown water. I bring it over anyway.

She takes it without stopping, one hand on the keys, the other wrapped around the mug. Steam rises between us.

"You know what I miss?" she says. "Proper tea. Yorkshire, none of that own-brand rubbish. The stuff that actually tastes like something."

Next supply run. Check the shops.

"Miss hot chocolate more."

"Hot chocolate." She shakes her head. "You and your hot chocolate. At least tea has the decency to be practical."

Another life.

I take my seat by the fire. The woodstove crackles. The piano fills the cabin. Outside, the snow keeps falling. Same as every day.

This is the part I don't think about. The part where I'm sitting in a warm room with music in my ears and nothing trying to kill me. The part that could almost be normal. If I think about it too hard, I remember it isn't. So I don't think about it.

"You're doing it again," Zoe says.

"Doing what?"

"That thing where you stare at the fire and go somewhere else."

"I'm right here."

"Your body's here. The rest of you is somewhere else." She keeps playing. "It's alright. I do it too sometimes."

Neither of us says anything for a while. The piano carries the silence.

---

Afternoon. The light is already going. In January, the light never really arrives. It just hovers at grey for a few hours, then gives up.

I'm on the roof. Again. The patch over the east corner is leaking, same as last week. Same as the week before that. I keep fixing it. It keeps leaking. One day I'll fix it properly, when the weather breaks. If the weather breaks.

The cold up here is different. Wind off the loch, cutting through my jacket like it isn't there. My fingers go numb within minutes. I work fast, not because I'm good at this, because I have to be fast before my hands stop working.

Zoe appears at the door below. Looks up.

"How's it looking?"

"Same as last week."

"Same patch?"

"Same patch."

"Want me to hand you up the tar?"

"Please."

She goes back inside. Comes out with the bucket. I climb down halfway, grab it, climb back up. We've done this enough times that we don't need to coordinate. She knows where I need things. I know where she'll be standing.

The tar is half-frozen. I work it into the gap with a scrap of wood. Ugly, rough. Functional. Keeps the wind out. Keeps the heat in. Good enough.

From up here I can see the loch. Grey water under grey sky. The mountains on the far side are just shapes, half-hidden in cloud. Beautiful country. Cold enough to kill you in twenty minutes if you're not prepared.

Eight months. Eight months and it still doesn't feel real.

I climb down. Zoe's waiting at the door with a towel.

"You're freezing," she says. "Get inside."

"I'm fine."

"Your lips are blue. Get inside."

I get inside.

She hands me the towel. I rub my hands until the feeling comes back. That sharp, stinging rush of blood. I hiss through my teeth every time. Never get used to it.

"Soup's on," she says.

"Rabbit?"

"Rabbit. With the last of the dried peas. Living the dream."

The soup is thin. Everything is thin these days. I eat it anyway. So does she. We don't complain about the food anymore. There was a month where we complained about everything. Then the month where we stopped talking altogether. Then we found a rhythm. Work, eat, sleep. Piano when there's energy for it. Silence when there isn't.

The silence used to bother me. Now I prefer it. Words are dangerous. They lead to conversations. Conversations lead to memories. Memories lead to places neither of us want to go.

So we sit in the warm cabin, eating thin soup, listening to the fire and the wind and the creak of the building settling against the cold. It's enough. For now.

---

Evening. The fire's low. Zoe's at the piano again. Different piece. Slower. Something that sounds like it has a story in it.

I'm in the chair. The same chair, always the same chair. The one by the window where I can see the door and the treeline and the approach. I don't think about why I always sit there. Don't need to.

"Jamie."

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever think about what happens if the winter doesn't end?"

The question lands in the room and sits there.

"No," I say. Which is a lie. I think about it every day.

"Me neither," she says. Which is also a lie.

The piece continues. The fire crackles. Outside, the snow keeps falling.

We don't talk about it again. There's nothing to say. Either the winter ends or it doesn't. Either we survive or we don't. Worrying about it changes nothing.

One day at a time. That's all there is.

Zoe finishes the piece. Lets her hands rest on the keys. The firelight catches her face.

"Goodnight, Jamie."

"Goodnight."

She goes to bed. I stay in the chair a while longer. Watching the fire die down. Listening to the wind against the walls. Counting the sounds I can hear.

The cabin creaks. The snow shifts on the roof. Somewhere distant, a branch falls.

No footsteps. No voices. No movement in the treeline.

Just the two of us. The cabin. The cold.

I bank the fire and go to bed. Sleep comes easy tonight. Tomorrow I'll check the snares, walk the perimeter, fix something that's broken. Same as today. Same as every day.

It's a small life. It's enough.