THE VISION IS A PLACE | ✓ {complete}

Chapter 6 : the basement

    I scan the mill site as we drive up, hoping to see Noah and Addison still at work, but their station is empty.

"Do you want me to drive so you can hide?" Van asks. "Or, you could walk up and say you were out harvesting mushrooms or something," he says, feeling bad now, noticing how uneasy I've become.

"It's not mushroom season," I reply, even though I know what he meant. I'm just distracted by what's up ahead; Anna is sitting on the front steps of the house, washing potatoes in a bucket of rainwater. She looks at me through the windshield and stops scrubbing. I can feel her watching as I park the truck where it was before, next to Addison's old red pickup that we only use for parts now; its deflated tires are now crowded with long grass, marking its permanence.

"I'll return the key if you want to start unloading," I say, taking it out of the ignition.

"I can do it, Hart," he offers one last time.

"It's okay, he'll just tell you to get me."

"How do you know he knows? You could just slip back to the garden unnoticed."

"Look what time it is," I say. "That ship sailed an hour ago. Plus, Anna is right there. I'll be back in a bit," I tell him, already leaving.

"Hart, wait-"

"It's fine," I tell him again, even though I'm not sure it is.


Anna doesn't have to say anything for me to know she's unhappy.

"Addison was looking for you," she says.

I look around, expecting to see him close by.

"He's back at the cob house now. Aurora told him where you went."

"I only meant to be gone an hour," I tell her, but I can hear how it sounds. It was bad that I left at all.

"Since when do we just leave like that, Casten?" she asks with a touch of betrayal in her voice. "What were you thinking?"

"I was just helping with the supply run."

She looks at me incredulously. She doesn't know what to say. It's so out of our normal to have done what I just did...so, naturally, she points a finger at Van. "It's like he tries to get you into trouble," she says, looking over to him. He's juggling a bunch of apples to show off to Aurora who has just come up the hill.

"It's not his fault."

"So it was your idea to go with him?"

"He didn't put a gun to my head," I say, cringing at the image of Frank still fresh in my mind. I wonder if she or Heath knows there are suicide jokes being made about Kent. I wish I could ask her about it, but then she'd know I fucked up way worse than what it seems.

She eyes the lanyard I have wrapped tight around my fingers. "You should get those back to him. Like...now."

I let it unravel, watching as the colour returns to my fingertips. "He's downstairs?"

She nods.

"Alright." I start walking up the steps.

"Wait, Case," she says, reaching for my arm.

"Yeah?"

"...I'm not...as mad as I look," she tells me quietly.

"It's okay if you are."

"It's just...unexpected. Especially from you."

Yup...

"Do you want me to go down there with you?" she asks to my surprise.