Keeper Of A Warlord’s Heart

The musty scent of wood that had been sitting devoid of human contact hit Everly Harrison in the face as the front door creaked and then tapped the wall behind it. A quick scan around the living room didn’t reveal any lingering memories, but it did tell her that the cabin would need a good cleaning before she and her dad could move all of their stuff in.

Maybe it was a blessing that the moving truck wouldn’t be there for a couple of more days.

“Any critters in there?” her dad, Jim, called as he carried in their overnight bags. When he was trying to be funny, he’d use that fake southern accent, which was only funny to him. He’d never even been any further south than Colorado, as far as she knew.

“No, nothing but some spiders,” Everly said, spying an eight-legged intruder scurrying up the wall as she flipped the light switch on. “Electricity works, though. That’s something.”

“Yeah, I had Mark Tucker come over and check all of that out a few weeks ago,” her dad explained. He sat their bags down on the floor. “The electric company said they’d turned the juice on, but you never know if it’s actually going to work in a place like this.”

“Because one of them critters could’ve chewed through the lines?” Everly asked, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her ripped jeans.

“You got it, kid.” Jim ruffled her dark hair the way he always did when he was trying too hard to make her feel at ease. Everly didn’t mind it so much, as long as it wasn’t in front of any of her friends.

That wouldn’t be a problem now that they’d moved back to Cook, Montana. She didn’t have any friends here, and chances were, she wouldn’t have any soon. She wasn’t very good at making friends. It had taken forever for her to make friends at her high school back in Denver, and now, here she was, moving away from those people just a month after school had started. Making friends as a senior would probably be even more difficult than it had been when she was a freshman since most of these kids had probably gone to school together their whole lives.

“Did you see the mountains?” her dad asked, stepping back outside onto the porch.

He’d already asked her that at least three times since they pulled into the drive ten minutes ago.

The view outside was much better than the one inside. “I did,” Everly said. “I bet Toby needs to pee.”

“Put him on the leash,” her father warned. Everly stepped past him off of the porch and turned to look at her dad, a question mark hanging over her head. “I’ll build him a fenced-off area out back, but there really are a lot of wild animals around here. You know that, Ev.”

She nodded, understanding his cautiousness. As she walked to the SUV to free her best friend—perhaps her only friend, at the moment—Everly’s eyes scanned the forest around their home. She wasn’t really afraid that wild animals were about to appear between the rows of evergreens, but she would humor her dad.

Pulling open the back passenger side door, Everly put one hand on Toby’s collar and picked up the leash off of the floorboards with the other. He looked up at her with sad eyes. “Sorry, buddy,” she said, stroking his golden fur as she latched the leash onto his blue collar. “I know you don’t like the leash, but it’s Dad’s orders.”

He whined but didn’t otherwise protest, and once she let go of his collar, he hopped down from the car seat to the ground, shaking his golden coat out and stretching his legs.

“Let’s go potty,” she told him, walking over to a patch of grass next to the rock driveway. Toby came along with her and headed for one of the small shrubs growing there. He had an affinity for helping to water the plants.

Toby was four years old. She’d gotten him when she was thirteen, right after her grandfather had passed away. Her dad had thought a new companion might help ease some of the sting, but it hadn’t. Grandpa Horace had been so special to Everly. She still missed him. Toby quickly became her constant companion and best friend, but that didn’t make up for her grandfather being gone.

Toby finished with his gardening and then walked over a few feet to tend to his other business. At least Everly wouldn’t have to pick that up with a paper towel and shove it in a plastic bag like she had at the rest stops and gas stations along the way. There were too many wild animals out here to worry about a little bit of dog poop, and the yard was so big, he’d have plenty of places to go.

“How much of this is ours?” Everly asked, taking her eyes off of Toby so he wouldn’t be self-conscious and turning back to look at her dad who was unloading some more of their belongings from the Jeep Cherokee.

“Fifteen acres,” Jim said, his arms filled with blankets and pillows. They’d be sleeping on the floor for a few nights since their beds were on the moving truck, like just about everything else. A few odds and ends sat around the house, like a rickety old end table and an old lamp Everly had seen when she’d walked into the space, and Dad had said he thought there were some things in the attic, too, but most of their stuff would be coming in a few days, so they’d have to make due until then.

“It backs up to the park?” Everly asked. Toby was done, so she walked with him back to the house.

‘That’s right. The woods belong to the National Parks for the most part, but there are a few areas that don’t. We have about an acre of trees that are on our property. Other homes on the border probably own some of the woods as well. And there are a couple of smaller towns, villages, I guess would be a better word, situated in the trees a few miles from here.”

Everly hadn’t realized that anyone lived within the border of the woods. “I thought all of it was parkland.”

“Not all of it.” Jim went inside and set the blankets and pillows on top of the biggest suitcase. “I think we are gonna need a broom. And a mop.”

Everly looked around the interior of the cabin again. She could see the living room and beyond it the doorway to the kitchen. To her right was a hallway that led to the bedrooms and bathroom. Her dad had told her there were two bedrooms and one bathroom. Above them was a small loft space, the stairs at the back of the living room, and then a tiny attic above that. The cabin was small. That was all there was to it. But there were only the two of them for now, plus Toby, and once she left for college next fall, there would only be her dad.

Her dad—and the ghost of her mother.