Page 60 of Fate Fiction

“What are you on the lookout for?” I asked, “the hermit isn’t here I promise you. I don’t think he’s even real.”

“It’s not the hermit, I’m convinced Sue is going to sneak up and scare us.”

I barked out a laugh. “A decade or so ago she absolutely would have done something like that, but I think she’s grown a little softer in her old age.”

Evan laughed, but remained tense. His job was to slay CGI dragons yet he was terrified of a middle aged woman spooking him.

Camp was darker without the pinpoint light of the stars and glow of the moon, clouds had rolled in late that afternoon and it cast a darkness over the lake. There were no constellations to admire and even the loons were quiet.

“Do you ever get a little freaked out when you’re up here? Not because of the hermit thing, just in general,” Evan asked. This kind of darkness was foreign to most, and he lived in New York, I couldn’t think of anywhere more opposite to this place.

“Sometimes, sure. You can’t think too much about the fact that you’re the only people around for miles.”

I was downplaying it a bit, I definitely did get nervous, often actually. Even my first night in the cabin this week was a little harrowing, once it set in that I was the only guest at camp. In a way, it was wise to have Evan stay next to me, there’d at least be a small buffer of safety. The idea of admitting to him that I had briefly perceived him as my protector made me want to vomit.

“You know, Sue had asked me if I ever wanted to take over the camp one day.” It was more than an ask, it was almost a plea from Sue at times. “One of the biggest reasons I couldn’t do it is the prospect of opening camp alone and being here for a few days by myself. But they don’t have any kids, and they’re going to want to retire one day. I don’t know what will happen to the place. I almost feel obligated to take it on. My ex only came up here out of obligation because I loved it so much, I don’t think he ever would have wanted to live here four months out of the year. Maybe it’s for the best that I might run it alone one day.”

I hadn’t told anyone this, Sue and Randy didn’t know I’d had this thought simmering at the back of my mind for years.

It had come out so easily to Evan.

Only seeing them annually meant that their aging was all the more jarring. They were both still able to work and keep up with maintaining the camp itself, for now. I wasn’t immune to the fact that it would eventually slow down for them. In a life where I didn’t have to worry about working full time to keep up with bills, I’d definitely consider taking it over. For now that dream didn’t seem sustainable.

“Who’s to say you’d have to run it alone?”

I paused after Evan’s question, I didn’t realize that I had said aloud that I would be here alone. When I imagined a hypothetical future for myself—one where I was in my later years and fully transformed into a clone of Sue—I couldn’t envision anyone by my side. I imagined myself walking the beach in the morning and hanging sheets on a clothesline, but this entire fantasy never seemed to have a co-star.

Realistically, I couldn’t imagine finding a partner who’d want to uproot their life to live out in the woods with me. I never wanted to be an inconvenience to anyone, and committing to a life that was a third off the grid was a massive inconvenience to most.

I itched to change the subject.

“Am I allowed to be a bit of a Thorndown nerd for half a second?” The first time I’d rather talk about the TV-show-shaped elephant in the room instead of the possibility of a future with Evan.

“I welcome it, I think the rest of who you are cancels that out,” Evan laughed, noticeably uneasy. All this that we had built stood precariously on a pinhead. Any tilting too far in one direction and it’d topple over.

“Okay, fair enough, but talk about it like it’s a mediocre job, like mine.”

His brows furrowed, “I’m not going to comment on your continued self deprecation right now, but, sure, I’ll try to dull it down, if you wish.”

What questions could indicate genuine interest without obsession, what could I say to prove I was still casual about this whole thing?

My breaths grew quick, “are the woods of Andoriaan actually a real place or is it all CGI?”

A safe ask, more interest in the set and his work on it rather than delving deep into what was canon in the story versus fan-theory.

I knew the answer, but I’d pretend I didn’t. Still, there was a bubbling in my chest stemming from the nerves of even mentioning a place that existed in this fake universe, like Andoriaan.

“No, they're real. Just enhanced with CGI, they added mountains and changed the color of the leaves. The real thing is in Germany, honestly they’re as cool in person. I’ve never seen forests so dense.”

An easy response, a welcome redirect to discuss him and not the show and not his offhand comment about my bachelorette status.

“Do you like that you get to travel so much?” It sounded a little interview-y but it was a segue to get them back to normal conversation. Normal us.

“It’s not really travel when you’re shuffled around a specific shooting location, like I’ve been to New Zealand over a dozen times and still couldn’t tell you anything about the country other than the six different fields we shot in.”

“Well where would go if you had a choice?”

“Home,” he spilled without a pause, then caught himself and shook his head. “Well, I’d really like to visit Germany again and truly explore it. I went once as a child but didn’t appreciate history and culture then, and when I went for filming we went straight to the woods and a few castles. Iceland is also high up on the list for me, I’ve genuinely never been, and given that it’s a shorter flight from New York than it is to Scotland I have no real excuse.”