Sandra wheeled her Jeep Cherokee around the tight dirt corner, dust billowing behind her. The trees formed a tight tunnel along the road. Here and there houses tucked themselves into either thick forests or lush, overgrown fields waiting to be chopped. Loping, gentle, mountains popped up from the ground here and there. Sometimes a dirt road would wind its way to the top, each promising adventure and mystery at the apex of the diminutive mountains.

                She rolled down her windows and huffed in the clean, Vermont air. Everything smelled as it did when she was a kid. Verdant fresh grass comingled with the brackish scent of lake water only to be finished with the omnipresent scent of fresh spread fertilizer at the end of harvesting season.

                Sandra spent a moment waxing poetic to herself, extolling the virtues of true rural living. She thought it might be nice to run her hand through waist high grass like she did when she was a child. Whole afternoons were spent in the woods finding the perfect stick to play swords with her brother. Entire months would go by just by playing in the woods or swatting flies or catching frogs or running inside to read a book after one of Vermont’s unreasonably humid summer days. She missed Vermont. She hated Vermont.

                Samson, her brother, elected to stay there in the middle of fucking nowhere for reasons Sandra would never understand. He said he liked the quiet. That living week to week on his meager gas station attendant wage was ‘enough’. He said he felt like he belonged. It made her want to grit her teeth and die in a ditch. Her parents would have wanted him to move on.

                Sandra was so caught in her reverie that she almost missed the tiny dirt road Samson had set his trailer upon. It was realistically a nice place. Tucked in a small grotto at the base of one of those tiny mountains, it was honestly a cool, refreshing place. That’s why Sandra was here. She needed a break from Boston and all of its accoutrements. She’d only been once before and that was only to help move him in, but she decided pretty quickly she liked what she saw. The best part was the ellipse the heads of the trees formed. She could lay down in his back yard, let the tickling insects and grass crawl all over her while she gazed at the heavens. Sometimes in Vermont you could see the nebula of the Milky Way and, if you were lucky, like really really lucky, the Northern Lights. Samson used to look up with her. Now he stayed inside and hid from the gorgeous cosmic radiation inking from the sky.

                His driveway was winding and tight, claustrophobic almost. If she veered off to the side, the awaiting branches, now aggravated car-scratching claws, would rake against her Jeep. About halfway down she noticed a rusted over gate perched on a thick, unearthed tree stump.

                Just as she was pulling up to Samson’s trailer, she caught the oddest image out of the corner of her eyes. Was that a barn cupula jutting from betwixt the trees? She stopped her jeep in its tracks, sliding almost imperceptibly along the dirt and gravel. Contorting her neck to and fro, she tried to recreate the angle. But the almost flaming leaves refused to reveal their secrets.

                “What in the hell are you doing bitch?” Samson’s voice came from her passenger window, startling her and forcing her to let out a small squeal.

                Her squeal turned into laughter as she hopped out of her Jeep. Samson had already walked to the front end, opening his arms for a hug. She gladly jumped in, grasping his sweaty shirt with all her might. “You motherfucker,” she said as they rocked back and forth within the embrace.

                Samson looked and felt healthy. Sandy brown curls framed his light green eyes and Sandra could feel runner’s muscle underneath his clothes. He was just tall enough so she could snuggle her head under his chin.

                “What in the hell were you doing?” He asked.

                “Oh,” she giggled, “I was trying to see that barn at the top of your hill here. The one with the beautiful cupula?” Sandra pointed to where she’d seen the thing.

                Raising one eyebrow, “There’s no way you can see Moose’s barn from here, Sandy, you’re losing your mind.” He tousled her hair in spite of her complaints.

                “I’m telling you I saw a barn!” She punched him in the shoulder, thinking he was playing games.

                “Hey, ouch! Look I believe you because I know that Moose has got a barn, but I’m also telling you there is no way you could see it even when the leaves fall. Just can’t happen. And you’re early! First you come in here blocking my driveway then you’re spitting crazy talk and then you forgot to tell me you were ahead of schedule.” His voice was only slightly serious.

                Sandra cast her eyes to the ground and started playing with her hair, “I just… things weren’t right so I needed some fresh air…” She looked up, “You uh, you got to go to work right? I just wanted to walk in the woods alone for a while. Clear my head.”

                Suddenly Samson’s face was deadly serious, he wouldn’t ask and she wouldn’t tell, but he knew something else was going on. “Ok, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Look, the woods here are almost all public property, but you can’t head towards that barn ok? Moose is a good guy, but he likes his privacy and I haven’t seen much besides his truck go up that driveway.”

                Sandra raised an eyebrow, “Driveway? Where?”

                “You saw the gate?”

                “Yeah.”

                “Well, that’s his driveway, almost never see it open. Hell, I actually think I only ever see him when he stops at the store to buy coffee milk and beer.”

                “Coffee… milk?”

                Samson laughed, “The local dairy sells this incredible coffee flavored milk. Its essentially a milkshake, think a pint has like seven hundred calories.”

                “And he buys beer with that?”

                Samson shrugged, “I see weirder things everyday, Sandy.”