What a jolly load of fun @blacklux has got us into! She began this story. Then she handed it on to @ginnyannette for Chapter 2. Then she handed it on to @riverflows for Chapter 3. And she handed it to me, and here we are.

Cabin in the Woods - Chapter 4

The stones on the table began to glow, colour flowing out from their yellow centres like smoke, pulsing, like the coloured stone around Laura's neck. She spooned some stew into a bowl and set it before him and sat down.

"Myshka. My little Myshkie," she said.

Little mouse. His grandmother's nickname for him. Josh sat down, not least because his legs were turning to water.

Laura looked at him. Though she looked the same, there was a different expression around her eyes. Their haughtiness or distancy were gone, replaced by a piercing gaze which held him as if he was impaled. Josh had never been able to get away with anything where his grandmother was involved. Lying to those eyes had been like lying to the sun.

"We don't have much time, Myshka. So eat and listen, and know how much pleasure it was for me to be able to cook your favourite meal for you one last time."

The warmth in her voice flowed over him like honey and suddenly he felt sleepy and safe. His grandmother had some scary ways about her, for sure, but she had been his babushka. With him she had been a comfortable presence while his parents were away. While his grandfather was out at work and Josh was home with her, it was good. Even if the kids from town threw stones at the window sometimes and called her a witch. Even if his grandfather obviously didn't want him there. Even if the one kid who lived even remotely nearby shook his head no when Josh invited him inside after they'd been out riding their bikes. Even when his grandmother scared him, with her clackety clack stones and a sort of wildness that he caught in her eyes at times, so that she felt more like a wild wind than an old woman. With him she would whirl that wind inside herself and come and hug him with her bony arms. She wasn't no round Granny Smith. She was a little more exciting than that.

He took a mouthful of the stew and it was the same, exactly the same. His mouth was in 1990.

The stones stayed silent now, glowing on the table as his grandmother, dead for 27 years, spoke.

"It was not your grandfather who pushed me over the railing, Myshka. It was the man, Slade."

The stones stopped glowing at the same time as Laura jerked forward and gasped. She put her head down on the table and looked up at him. Gone were his grandmother's piercing eyes and here were Laura's. The ones he liked, when they actually saw him and not through him. They looked at him now and filled with tears.

"Your grandmother. Your poor grandmother," she said.

She sat up suddenly and grabbed the stones.

"Slade," she said grimly. She began arranging the stones, not glowing now but still just as mysterious for their meaning that eluded him, in shapes and lines and circles. Clickety clack, clickety clack, like stone knitting needles. Then she sat back, looked at him, and smiled, seemingly satisfied.

"Did you walk Bella?" she asked suddenly, as if none of what had just happened had happened. "Oh, and by the way, I still hate being here. But at least I've got something to occupy me now." She picked up the stones, leant and kissed him, gently on the lips as she passed him, then bent down and whispered in his ear.

"Just kidding about Bella," she said. "I'll walk her. I want to take a look around. Why don't you go have a lie down? You look piqued."

He was more than piqued. Josh was floored and flummoxed. His grandmother, the stones, his grandfather, Laura apparently developing the gift of channelling his grandmother and some insight about herself all in one morning? The second was even more incomprehensible than the first.

It wasn't even lunchtime but sure he needed to lie down. For, like a week or two.

Josh went into the bedroom and lay down for a bit while Laura was out walking Bella. He was exhausted but he couldn't sleep. He also couldn't believe anything of what had happened. And yet he'd seen it, and he wasn't such a hardcore scientific reductionist that he would be able to just dismiss as hallucination something that he had just seen, heard, touched, felt. He pulled the doona around himself more and shivered, even though the cabin was now toasty warm from the fire Laura had lit this morning to cook him stew and channel his grandmother. Just your usual Saturday morning.

Rolling through him were complex emotions - the lingering warmth from what felt like an interaction he'd had with his grandmother. Little Myshka. Confusion around Laura. He just didn't know what to think. Laura going off like that to walk the dog, out in the natural world that was as foreign to her as Caracas or New Delhi would be to him? Her out-of-character behaviour? Some man called Slade? It was too much.

But what if it was true? After his grandmother was killed, this cabin had been shut up and his grandfather had been jailed. He died in prison eight years later in 1999.

Josh pulled his phone out of his pocket. It couldn't hurt to do some sleuthing, see if he could find anything about the history of the town. See if any Slades had happened to live there 27-odd years ago. Something nice and concrete and linear, an internet search, to ground him back into reality.

Damn. No reception.

Laura came back after about an hour. She stood in the doorway to the bedroom with a leaf caught in her hair. Bella jumped on the bed and licked his face with the doggy excitement that comes whenever you haven't seen one of your people for 10 minutes.

Laura's haughty expression was back as she glared around the room. He was almost grateful to see it.

End of Chapter 4

I nominate @kimberlylane to write Chapter 5. You have 7 days (but let me know if you don't want to and I will nominate someone else). As Ginnyannette said, "here are the rules, for those of us that like to them (or intentionally break them)":

From blacklux:

Its simple, I will post a pic and start a story. Then I will tag a person to continue the story. After that person writes a new chapter it will nominate another person to continue the story. It will continue like that until we reach 10 chapters.
The nominated person have 7 days to come up with a new chapter for the story, if the nominated person don't write a new chapter then I will nominate another person. All the posts related to the story must have the hashtag #makeastory and tag me on them.
Also you have to add a pic or drawing related to your chapter of the story, if you don't have any you can use the one provided here. Once the ninth person writes the ninth chapter it have to nominate me to write the last chapter. In other words, I will write the first and the last chapter of the story.
The writers can do whatever they want with their part of the story. Whatever their imagination desires, there's no right or wrong in this story. The minimum word count its 100 words. The title must always say: "Let's Make A Story: Cabin In The Woods" and the number of the chapter ej: Let's Make A Story: Cabin In The Woods - Chapter 1. You can name the chapter if you want. And most important: HAVE FUN WHILE CREATING THE STORY! >

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