“Great. You start at the gift shop tomorrow morning. Food is in the kitchen or you can go downtown. We open at nine a.m. Be downstairs and ready by eight forty-five.”
With that, my uncle turns and heads out front to greet the next group of suckers who are here for his tourist trap. I look over to Teller, hoping that maybe he’ll say that Stan is just having a bad day and normally he’s a lot nicer than this, but he doesn’t look surprised by his attitude.
My stomach sinks as I picture spending the next three months here.
“Right this way,” Teller says and I try to force a smile but I don’t think I’m fooling him.
I don’t think that I’m fooling anyone.
4
“So, this is the Mystery Cabin,” Teller says, launching into what sounds like a rehearsed speech.
It feels like he’s done this a hundred times and I try to pay attention as we head down the hallway.
“According to legend, in the early 1960s, a few surveyors were exploring Michigan’s Upper Peninsula one day when they realized that none of their equipment was working properly.”
He pauses for dramatic effect and I just give him a blank stare. He grins at that and continues.
“They ran some tests and found out that the problem apparently only happened in a circle about five hundred feet in diameter. Behold: a mystery spot right here in this Cabin!”
He tries to interject enthusiasm at the end but I give him a skeptical look out of the corner of my eye. Teller just gives me another grin, flashing me a row of straight white teeth.
“Anyway,” he continues. “Over the years, hundreds of thousands of visitors have stopped at the Mystery Cabin to experience a place where ‘gravity does strange things.’”
He actually does the air quotes around that last part and part of me wonders how anyone could fall for this.
“While you can take the guided tour, Stan has also installed other attractions on this special spot. You can play miniature golf on the right side of the property,” he says, pointing out the window as we pass by. “There’s also a maze built into the woods over there and there is even a zip line out back.”
Teller leads me farther down the hallway, past what appears to be a kitchen and an office and I look around at some of the old pictures hanging haphazardly on the wall.
“Any questions about the Mystery Cabin?” Teller asks as we head toward the back of the cabin.
“A few,” I mumble when I see what appears to be a stuffed Chupacabra on a side table.
Teller just laughs at that. I want to tell him that I’m not joking but he stops suddenly as my uncle leads the group of tourists past us.
Stan seems like a different man when he’s in front of the crowd. He’s charming and a true showman when others are around.
He spots me out of the corner of his eye and I swear that his smile dims. Maybe it’s the lighting or an effect of the Mystery Cabin.
He probably just hates me.
Stan leads the tourists into a room, the door slamming shut behind them.
“That’s the entrance to the gravity-defying part of the Mystery Cabin,” Teller explains. “Your room is upstairs.”
I follow after him and he leads me past the gift shop and down another hallway. This one is shorter and leads into a kitchen.
“This is Stan’s place, the living quarters.”
The kitchen is pretty outdated with one of those old refrigerators with the lever on the front and a peeling linoleum floor. One of the cabinets is missing a door and I frown when I see the dirty dishes stacked into the sink. I hope Stan doesn’t expect me to clean up after him. I’m more than happy to help out around here but I don’t want to pick up after him all of the time.
“The living room is right through here,” Teller says, pointing to the right and I take in the old flannel fabric sofa and the worn-looking recliner. At least the TV looks new.
The stairs are up ahead and I nod when Teller points to the door next to them and tells me that it’s Stan’s bedroom. The stairs creak under our feet but seem solid as we head up to the second floor.
It’s dusty up here and the air smells a bit stale, but it should be easy to fix. The second floor has two doors. Teller points to one and tells me that it’s a small bathroom with a bathtub, which is nice, but it looks like you’d have to stand in the bathtub in order to close the door.
The second door opens up to a loft and I smile as I walk past Teller to explore it. I’ve never had this much space all to myself before. There are a few boxes stacked haphazardly along one wall and I can see that Stan was using this space for storage.
“I think the bed is over here,” Teller says, weaving his way around a stack of pillows and blankets.
I peek around him and take in the small twin-size bed. It’s just a mattress and a box spring on the floor but it doesn’t look that worn. The best part is that it’s right next to the double doors that lead out onto the balcony.
The balcony looks out over the water and I can just see over the top of the trees. I can make out part of the town and the bridge from here. It’s the view that has hope blooming in my chest.
“Fortune cookie?” Teller asks and I frown, thinking that I misheard him.
“What?”
“Fortune cookie?” he says, holding out his hand and offering me one.
“Uh, thanks,” I say, taking the wrapped cookie from him.
“Do you need help bringing in any of your luggage?” he asks, changing the subject again.
“Yeah, that would be great,” I tell him with a smile.
We jog back downstairs and Teller leads me out the back door. I let him grab some of the heavier things from the back of the Volkswagen Beetle while I grab my duffel bag and my tote bag of books.
It takes us two trips to get everything and by the time we’re done, the tour is over and Stan is calling for Teller to come help him downstairs.
“That was the last tour, so I’m about to leave for the night, but there is food in the fridge and cupboards if you’re hungry.”
“Thanks,” I tell him honestly and he gives me another one of those easy grins before he turns and heads downstairs to see what Stan needs.
I’m not that hungry, so I get to work on clearing out the attic. I open the double doors and the window and hope that helps air the space out a bit before I stack all of the boxes up against one wall. The extra pillows and blankets go on top of the boxes.
The sun is starting to set by the time I’m done putting all of my clothes away in the closet and stacking my books next to the bed. I found some sheets that seemed clean and made the bed.
I’d like nothing more than to crawl into bed but all of that cleaning really worked up an appetite. I make my way back downstairs, wondering if I’ll run into my uncle.
I get my answer a minute later when I walk past the living room and see him sitting in the recliner. The TV is playing but he doesn’t seem to be paying attention to it. It looks like he’s lost in thought and I’m not sure if I should announce my presence or just sneak into the kitchen.
He turns his head and our eyes lock. For just a second, I can see the family resemblance. He has the same bright blue eyes that my mother did, although his are harder and the brightness in them has dimmed.