Watcher of the Woods (retail)


 
 Watcher of the Woods
 
 
 A Novel
 
 
 
 Skyla Dawn Cameron
 
 Watcher of the Woods
 Copyright © 2023 by Skyla Dawn Cameron
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 
 Cover Art © 2023 by Skyla Dawn Cameron
 
 First Edition February 2023
 
 eBook ISBN: 978-1-927966-56-3
 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-927966-55-6
 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-927966-57-0
 
 Retail Edition
 
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 Watcher of the Woods
 
 After eighteen months staying home under rolling pandemic lockdowns with her girlfriend Joy, artist Thea Palmer has decided the strained relationship has run its course and she’s ready to end it—right after the stress of her birthday has passed.
 Unfortunately, her surprise party comes with a special gift from Joy that puts the breakup on hold: a week-long cabin rental in the tiny northern Ontario community of Hope Falls, for just the two of them.
 No phone.
 No internet.
 No contact with the outside world.
 Joy says it’ll give them the perfect chance to reconnect and maybe restore Thea’s creativity after pandemic stress wearing down her desire to paint. But the cabin creaks at night under invisible steps, and the woods have trees that seem to shift in the corner of her eye. Thea swears she sees a strange white figure on the lake beckoning to her and an empty boat that drifts by in the early morning mist.
 And Joy...Joy seems to be someone else entirely. 
 
 For a list of content/trigger warnings if needed, head here.
 
 
 One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted—
 - Emily Dickinson
 
 
 Map of Grove Lake Cabins
 
 
 
 
 October 2021
 
 
 Friday
 
 Not Soon Enough
 
 It will be over soon.
 My mantra.
 The promise that kept a smile on my face when I swallowed back whatever harsh words I wanted to say. The dream as I drove home after shopping well into early evening, picking up not only the week’s worth of groceries but also some deliveries Joy asked for that extended my trip from one hour to nearly three. The reassurance that got me through four waves of a pandemic.
 It would be over soon.
 Humans can endure anything if we know it’ll end, supposedly. That’s one of those tidbits of wisdom that gets tossed around that feels true, but I couldn’t say whether it had been studied or not. 
 What was true is that the back of my hatchback was full from a Costco trip, a regular grocery store trip, and a last-minute post office trip right before they closed. It was coming up on six in the evening and I’d be more annoyed if I had to cart all the groceries and boxes up a flight of stairs. Thankfully our apartment was on the ground floor. So there was that.
 Pandemic living certainly taught me to celebrate those small positives.
 At least it would be over soon.
 My birthday was in a week—thirty-seven, and I somehow simultaneously felt both older and younger given how the year 2020 (and even 2021 so far) stretched on—and Joy always got extra weird around significant dates. She didn’t talk much about her childhood, but I assumed it was some kind of trauma around milestones because she always wanted everything to be just so for everyone else’s. The right gifts. The perfect day. She did this for everyone else, but it took us living together for three months before I even knew when her own birthday was (and only then because her driver’s license renewal form came in the mail; I collected said mail and got her to finally tell me).
 This was the second of my birthdays we’d be spending together; also the second in lockdown. Which might’ve been why I had a lead ball of dread in my gut pretty much twenty-four/seven; I knew she’d make a big deal out of what I would prefer to pass as any other day. 
 I stopped the car in the parking spot with the #1-F sign in front of it but left the keys in, vehicle idling, while I stared up at the brown-brick building. 
 Maybe I could simply...pull out and drive. Keep driving. For the rest of