Chapter 1

Chloe swung the axe up and around, it struck solid, splitting the log straight down the center. She bent and picked up another, set it into place, and repeated the process again. And again. Sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades. Her muscles burned, but in a good way, as she swung the axe.

When she had a good pile of split wood, she set the axe aside and began gathering the wood, taking it to stack near the shed several yards from the back door of her cabin. She finished, pressed a fist into the small of her back, and rubbed out the ache that had settled there with a sigh. The sun was beginning its decent in the western horizon. She’d gotten a decent amount of work done today.

She shaded her eyes when she heard a car approaching. It couldn’t get near the cabin; there was no road up this high. The only one who would dare make the trip up here would be the captain of the police substation on the mountain. With a small sigh, she walked around to the front of the cabin and dropped down onto the top step, sitting to wait. Her shotgun sat beside her, just in case it wasn’t the captain.

Captain James Collin came striding out of the trees several minutes later. Six foot two, former army officer, Collin knew his job. He came up here to check on her at least once a month, whether she wanted him to or not. He stopped in front of the steps, grinning at her, hands on his belt at his hips. “Morning Chloe, how are you this afternoon?”

“Fine Captain.”

He rocked back on his heels, dropped his hands from his belt, and looked around the clearing that surrounded her little cabin. “Anything doing up here?”

“Captain, you know nothing is “doing”, I keep telling you that you don’t need to come up here to check on me. I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it since I was twelve.”

He grimaced at her. “You don’t think I know that.”

She shrugged and stood, ignoring the undertone of anger she heard in his voice. He wasn’t exactly angry with her, not really, he was angry because she was up here all alone. She wasn’t about to explain the reasons why to him. “Doesn’t matter what you know, I don’t need, nor do I want a babysitter, Captain. I live up here by myself for a reason.”

“A reason you won’t share with anyone,” he grumbled.

“Yes sir, now you have a good afternoon.” She turned and headed inside the cabin, shutting the door softly behind her. She didn’t bother to peek out the window to see if he had left, she knew he would go on his own. They’d had this argument many times before.

She lowered her chin to her chest. From the minute James Collin had taken over as Captain, he’d made it his personal mission to poke his nose into her life. The man didn’t seem to know how to mind his own damn business. For nearly nine years now, she’d lived up on this mountain, and for the past six of those years he’d pestered her, though he’d done it in a good natured, friendly way. More in the manner of a nosey, overprotective big brother, than that of a law officer.

That was the only reason she didn’t chase him off with the business end of her shotgun.

Shaking her head, she shoved her body away from the door and stalked across the single room of the cabin. It wasn’t large, her home, but it was comfortable. A large open living room, a kitchen, at the back of the room, separated from it by a low breakfast bar with stools in front of it. In the corner was her bedroom, separated by a curtain. The room was warmed by a large fireplace that took up most of the wall to the right of the door.

When she’d first run from home and come up here, she’d lived in a tent she’d taken from the garage at home. The winters had been bitterly cold and she’d barley survived. If it hadn’t been for the camping trips she’d taken with her father every year as a kid, she probably would have had no survival skills at all. It was only due to those trips that she’d managed to make it through those first few years up here.

She glanced around the cabin once more before moving behind the curtain to her bed, where she dropped heavily down, falling back to stare up at the ceiling. Memories of the past assailed her, pressing in heavily on her mind until she could avoid them no more and let them flow in through her mind and take over.

 

She looked over her shoulder warily; her mother was still in the kitchen, talking on the phone as she prepared dinner. If she hurried maybe, she could turn on the TV and find the program the other kids had been talking about and see it for herself. If she touched the button to turn it on really fast maybe, it wouldn’t get hurt.

Creeping up in front of the television Chloe stabbed one stubby little finger at the power button. Nothing happened. She crunched up her little five-year-old face and punched at the button again. Still nothing. Worriedly she glanced at the kitchen door again. She could hear her mother’s voice. She knew what would happen if she’d hurt the television, her mama would yell at her.

She moved away from the TV and went to play with her dolls instead; she couldn’t hurt those ’cause they didn’t use eleticidy, that’s what her daddy had told her. He said it was the eleticidy that was the problem. She didn’t know what that word meant, but she knew that her mama had told her daddy that if she broke one more TV she was in big trouble.

Her lower lip trembled at the thought of getting into trouble. She didn’t like getting into trouble. Her daddy always said it wasn’t her fault when she hurt the things that used the eleticidy, but her mama would make a snorting noise and stomp out of the room.

“Chloe, what are you doing?”

“Nuffin’ Mama. Pwaying dollies.” She held up a doll to show her mama.

“Good. Your dad should be home soon.” Her mother came into the room and sat down on the couch, picked up the remote for the television, and tried to turn it on. When nothing happened, she didn’t look confused or try to punch the power button repeatedly, she turned a glare on her daughter. “Chloe, did you touch the television?”

Chloe’s lower lip trembled and she kept her eyes down on her dolls. “No Mama, you told me not to ever touch it.”

“Do not lie to me!” her mother screamed.

She felt tears slip from the corners of her eyes as she hugged one of her dolls to her chest. “I just wanted to see"”

“NO! I don’t want to hear your excuses! You know you are not allowed to touch the television! This makes what, six now! Go to your room!”

She gathered her dolls and walked slowly down the hallway to her room. Later she heard the screaming as her mother ranted to her daddy about the television. About how Chloe was a curse. She heard her daddy trying to calm her mama down. Daddy always stood up for her, but mama never listened. She curled up on her bed and cried until she fell asleep.

 

Chloe sat up, burying her face in her hands, fighting off tears, just as she fought off the memories of the past. She hated remembering those days. Hated remembering the way her mother would look at her, had called her a curse they couldn’t cure. Couldn’t be rid of.

It hadn’t been only her mother though, everyone had shunned her, and in school, none of the other kids would be friends with her because of what they called her “affliction”. Because Chloe killed electronics. One touch and whatever the device, it would never work again.

She’d never owned an iPod, a hand held gaming device, a cell phone. Used a computer. She could ride in a car as long as she didn’t touch it with a single finger. But she couldn’t drive one.

Her cabin was free from electricity. No refrigerator. Her stove was wood burning. She used lanterns and candles for light. In essence, she’d been thrown back into the days of the pioneers. Beneath the cabin was a small cellar where she kept her stores of food. It was cooler, but it certainly wasn’t a fridge. Though she’d managed to use some modern technology to improve her food storage.

She had dug a pit down there and lined it with the largest cooler she could purchase. As well as, some of those reusable freezer packs. She’d take them with her when she went fishing, and float them in the river; the water was cold enough from the higher elevations to cool the packs down quite a bit. Then she’d toss them into that little cooler lined pit and it would keep her food cold for a few extra days.

Despite the improvements to her food storage, she was still forced to dry and salt her meat. This made it tough and, well, salty. Still, she made due. She couldn’t complain overly much, after all she was free to do as she pleased up here and there was no one yelling at her or pointing and teasing her.

Teasing. She grimaced at the thought. Cambria Talbot. Another memory she wanted nothing to do with. Cambria and her little group of friends had made her brief attendance at middle school a living hell for her. Teasing and bullying her every chance they got.

Chloe remembered the last incident, just before she ran away …

 

She sat alone at her usual table in the corner of the lunchroom, picking at her food, not really eating it. She could hear Cambria and her friends giggling and see them pointing over at her out of the corner of her eye, but didn’t acknowledge them.

“I mean, just look at her. Even her own mother hates her; at least that’s what I’ve heard. Can you blame her? What a freak! I hear she has some like genetic defect or something.” The group of girls cracked up at Cambria’s little revelation.

Chloe rose slowly, dumped her leftover food into a trashcan, and moved closer to the other girls’ table. As she did, Cambria rose from her chair, grinning in Chloe’s direction as if she expected a confrontation.

Chloe pushed by the other girl, making sure her fingers brushed over the brand new iPhone clipped to Cambria’s waist as she did. It was petty and stupid, but in that moment, she didn’t give a crap. Besides, Cambria’s parents were filthy rich; they’d just get their little princess a new one anyway. She always got everything she wanted the instant she asked for it. Hell, before she asked for it.

 

Chloe knelt before the fireplace, placing more wood into the fire, preparing for the chill that came with the late afternoon and then night that followed. She shoved away the memories just as she shoved the wood into the hungry flames of the fire.

Two weeks after that incident, she’d run away from home. She hated how people looked at her, talked about her behind her back. Hated being on the outside of a world that loved its electronic devices. She was better off here, up on her mountaintop. Alone.

She’d come here, the one place that held happy memories for her. The place where she and her dad had come camping when she’d been a child. He had told her once, when he had enough money he’d buy this little spot and they would build a place, just for the two of them to come. And when he built it, it would have no electricity, it would be someplace they could come and get away from everything, everyone.

Now she had that place. Even if she didn’t have her dad.

Captain Collin had found a way for her to keep the land until she could put a claim on it and pay for it. She didn’t know what he’d done and if she were honest with herself, she did want to ask him if he’d paid to have it put in her name. After all, she’d been only twelve when she’d started squatting here. People in town had helped as well, no one knew where the little girl had come from, but they sort of claimed her as their own.

Chloe smiled at that. No one would turn her over to the authorities when they tried to pull her off the mountain. They hid her. Moving her around from house to house to keep Child Protective Services from putting her into the system. The social workers had finally given up in frustration. They had better things to do than to chase ghosts. No one in town knew her full name, Chloe refused to tell them more than her first name.

And they didn’t question her on it. They respected her right to privacy, even if they wanted to know her story. Most figured she’d run from an abusive home and none wanted to send her back if they could avoid it.

It was an odd sort of thing, but that was how it had turned out. Eventually she’d begun hunting; she knew how to do it, since her father had taught her when they’d taken their camping trips. She’d gone down the mountain with the furs and started trading for things. People in town respected her for trying to make her own way.

One day they showed up en masse and helped her to build the cabin. It had stunned her that they would put themselves out like that in order to help her. She’d found out later that it was the captain who’d put them up to it. Then he started with his little trips up the mountain to check on her.

She gave her head a little shake. She’d left one family and in doing so, had sort of gained another in the townspeople, though this new family knew nothing of her little curse. She’d managed to keep it quiet so far.

Rising, she turned from the fire and headed for the kitchen. Food and then perhaps she’d sit by the fire and read for a while. Then bed. She glanced at the south wall, mostly taken up by built in bookshelves. Someday those shelves would be packed with books, she thought with a tiny smile. Now, they were only three quarters full.

When she was old and gray. Old and gray. And still very much alone.