Miles had only been outside Boston a couple times his whole life. His family, his home, his middle school, his friends…everything was there. In his mind, there wasn’t any good reason to leave the city or go anywhere else.
So, when his parents told him that they were headed on a weekend trip during his February winter break to a secluded cabin, to a town in rural New Hampshire, he wasn’t too happy.
“Dad’s Marine buddy Carl and his family will be there,” his Mom had said. “So, there will be kids to hang with. We’ll play board games, make food, go sledding, get to know each other. It’ll be fun.”
But other than maybe the sledding, it didn’t sound all that fun. It was going to be cold and snowy. Talking to strangers was always awkward. Plus, his Mom had said the most dreaded two words a person could say…
No internet.
So, there would be no wifi. He could download some music and a lame game or two. But otherwise, his phone would be useless. The whole thing sounded dumb and barbaric.
It was a long drive up to the mountains. When they reached New Hampshire in the late afternoon, there was snow on the road, on the trees, everywhere. Dad had put something called ‘chains’ on the Subaru, so they continued on, slow but steady.
When they got to Redbury, they pulled into a small gas station. An old man wearing overalls and a knitted cap walked up to the car.
“Fill ‘er up, please,” Dad said.
The man smiled and looked into the Subaru through Dad’s window. He smiled at Mom. But when he made eye contact with Miles, something odd happened.
"You shouldn't have come here," Miles heard the man say, except the man’s mouth hadn’t moved. It was as if the man had thought the words and Miles had heard them!
Too terrified to say anything, Miles pulled his scarf over his face and slumped down in the back seat as far as he could.
From the gas station, they went over something called a ‘covered bridge’ which was like a rickety wooden bridge with a roof, and headed deep into the middle of nowhere. About a half hour later they arrived at the cabin.
Dad’s Marine buddy Carl, his wife Caren and their daughter Aubrey were already there. Dad hugged Carl, the ladies chatted with each other, and Aubrey, who was a year or two younger than him, smiled.
“Want to play Sorry?” Aubrey asked, holding the board game.
And what should have been a normal, lame but bearable night of games, hot chocolate and talking quickly turned into a nightmare for Miles.
He could hear everything everyone in the room was thinking all at the same time.
Aubrey was thinking about how to cheat at Sorry. Carl’s wife Caren seemed happy, but it was clear that she didn’t want to be here and was missing a friend’s baby shower back in Rochester. Mom seemed normal, just concerned that everyone was having a good time. Dad and Carl were only sharing occasional glances, but were thinking very adult things about each other that Miles didn’t understand.
Miles went upstairs to the back bedroom and curled up on the bed. Mom came up to check on him a while later. She thought he was just being antisocial, and he was forced to agree with her. How could he tell her it was just to get away from the constant noise in his head!
The next day, Miles tried to act normal, but still keep his distance from everyone to avoid their thoughts. He went sledding with Aubrey, which was fine because her thoughts were typical, harmless kid thoughts.
He also decided to have some fun, and told Aubrey that he could read minds.
“Nuh uh,” she had said at first. But when Miles was right about a couple of the things she was actually thinking, Aubrey was first amazed, then spooked.
“Stay out of my head!” she yelled, leaving her sled on the ground and running back inside the cabin.
The second night, after everyone had gone to bed, Miles quietly came downstairs and sat on the floor in front of the dying embers in the fireplace, savoring the silence. He noticed a few books on an old bookshelf, got up and looked through them. One of them didn’t have any words on it, so he pulled that one out and looked through it.
It was a diary, and had apparently belonged to a girl named Agatha who had lived in the cabin decades ago. Miles scanned the pages, taking in bits of her story and circumstances. Her final entry about half-way through the diary was unsettling: ‘The porcupine watches. It knows my thoughts.’
Suddenly, a cold draft swept through the room. Miles turned to see a pale girl standing near the front door. She was wearing an old fashioned dress, and she looked angry.
"You shouldn't have come here," she whispered, her voice echoing with an otherworldly resonance.
Miles’ heart pounded as he stumbled backward. "Who are you?" he managed to ask.
"Agatha," she replied. "I tried to warn you."
Before he could respond, a scratching noise came from outside the cabin. Miles glanced through the front window and couldn’t believe what he saw. It was a massive porcupine, its eyes gleaming with an unnatural intelligence. It stood unnervingly still, its quills bristling like an army of daggers.
"It's not just an animal," Agatha said, her voice trembling. "It reads your thoughts, your fears. And it will kill you."
As if responding to the ghostly girl’s words, the porcupine charged, crashing through the whole front wall of the cabin.
Miles ran and darted up the stairs, his mind racing. He pushed open the door of the bedroom his parents were staying in, expecting to jolt them awake and yell at them for help. But the bed was made and the room was empty. Where were they?!
Hearing the porcupine’s quills scratching against the walls of the narrow stairway, Miles could feel the creature probing his thoughts, anticipating his every move. He ran down the hallway and locked himself in his room. But he knew that even the wooden door wouldn’t hold if the porcupine smashed up against it.
Agatha suddenly appeared beside him.
“How do I stop this thing?” Miles asked urgently.
“There is a way," the pale girl said, “but only it knows how. If I could read its mind, I would have destroyed it decades ago.”
“I can read its mind!” Miles yelled.
Hearing the scratching of the giant quills in the hallway, Miles knew he didn’t have much time. And if he didn’t make a move, he would be cornered in the bedroom with no escape.
Mustering every ounce of bravery he had, Miles flung open the bedroom door and came face to face with the giant porcupine.
Seeing his way out, he ran straight at the porcupine, dove forward, and slid on the hallway carpet underneath the animal before it knew what was happening. And in that brief instant, Miles soaked in the porcupine’s thoughts. Its focus was on Agatha’s diary, and how it must protect it.
Was that it? Was the diary the source of the porcupine’s power? Destroy the diary, and maybe destroy the porcupine? It was worth a try!
Miles reached the stairway and flew down it, as the porcupine struggled to turn around in the narrow hallway behind him.
Coming into the main room on the ground floor, he spotted the diary on the floor, grabbed it and threw it into the fireplace. There were enough hot embers left that within seconds, the pages started to burn.
The scratching sound was deafening as the porcupine squeezed down the stairway and into the main room. In its last moments, the terrifying creature locked eyes with Miles.
As the flames consumed the diary, the porcupine let out a horrifying screech, its body convulsing. Miles shielded his eyes from the blinding light, and when he opened them, the creature was gone.
Agatha appeared beside him, her ghostly form flickering. She no longer looked angry.
"Thank you, Miles," she said softly. "You freed us both."
The next morning, Miles’ parents and the others found him asleep by the fireplace.
“Wake up, Miles,” Aubrey said. “Let's have some breakfast and go sledding for a little while before we have to leave.”
Miles opened his eyes. It was sunny outside. Everyone was there. The front wall of the cabin and the door were intact. There was no Agatha, no porcupine. It was like nothing had happened.
And it took Miles a moment to realize the most important thing. He couldn’t hear anyone’s thoughts! Everyone seemed a little down, especially his Mom, but he couldn’t tell why. Maybe he would talk to her and find out later, but at least his mind was quiet again, except for his own dumb thoughts.
They had breakfast, and they went sledding. They packed up the Subaru. His Mom sat in the car while everyone else hugged and said goodbye.
Back inside the cabin, Miles took one last look around, noticed the ashes and a piece of the leather binding of Agatha’s diary in the fireplace, and smiled.
In the years that followed, things would never be the same. He would often feel nostalgic about the cabin and Agatha, and think about going back there someday.
The whole experience, though weird and scary, made Miles realize that there was a whole world outside of Boston. He would spend the rest of his life exploring that world, making a point to venture outside of his comfort zone, and to appreciate the unexpected people, places and things life would offer him.
