Dark Arts by Randolph Lalonde Page B

If anything, they were too
young and too interested in being together as a group to get into
any serious trouble.
    The real rascal business took place when
Maxwell and Bernie were thirteen. Scott and Miranda were twelve.
They snuck into a cabin and discovered a mostly full jumbo bottle
of peach schnapps. Everyone got into that precious supply, by the
time they got through half of it, Miranda was sound asleep, Bernie
was stumbling drunk and worried that his father would discover
them. Scott and Maxwell were taking turns on the bottle, both of
them were desperately ill later, leaving vomit deposits behind the
cabin, but their drunken sleepover was never discovered. Maxwell
still couldn’t smell peach schnapps without feeling a little ill,
however.
    The ceilings in cabin fourteen were tall,
made of split logs with heavy beams for support. The main hearth
was an oddity, it actually had a cast iron screen that could close
it in, and heat pipes leading to other parts of the house. He
always thought it looked like it was grinning at him, when the iron
mask was brought together. During the summer the hearth doors were
open, it was clean and empty. A half circle of stones from the lake
surrounded the front of it, and hard wood floors with broad,
varnished boards surfaced the rest of the large room. There were
three large sofas against the walls, two six foot long hand made
side tables, and still enough room in the middle for a couple dozen
people to gather. Towards the kitchen there was another large room,
where a hand carved table and chairs for twenty-one people.
    The cabin was rented for receptions, special
parties, and many other occasions, but the cost to outsiders was so
prohibitive, they almost always decided against it. Locals knew
that they could offer trade in services and some cash, Allen’s
preferred method of bargaining to use the space. When it wasn’t
rented Allen and the staff prepared meals for the other cabin
guests. The food was plentiful, filling and cheap, while the
atmosphere was always social. What Allen and his family had in
their cabin business and the lake the Three Families shared was
just short of magical to Maxwell. It was a wonderful place to grow
up.
    Max paid little attention to the space then,
except to acknowledge that it was spotless. He took the key out of
the second largest room’s door and went inside. It was furnished
with a broad, low dresser with a triple panel mirror, a queen-sized
bed with a wrought iron frame, and a door leading out to a balcony.
He took the key from the trunk at the end of the bed, opened it and
dropped his saddlebags inside. There was just enough room for his
new guitar behind it, so he put it on top and opened the case. It
was the kind of instrument he pictured himself earning with a hit
record. Their debut only seemed to resonate with audiences after
they saw Road Craft live. They needed the album after that, but the
album itself didn’t draw much attention unless the listener was
already a fan of darker music.
    He another took a look at the glossy black
guitar, followed the trim with his eyes to the dark rosewood fret
board and shook his head. The dream of making the band work,
getting in front of large audiences as Black Sabbath and Cream had
done seemed to go hand in hand with a guitar of that class, one
didn’t seem to make sense without the other. He would still play
his new instrument, despite the strings he felt were attached to
it, and he would do so as if there were thousands in the audience.
He closed and latched the case then slipped it behind his
saddlebags in the trunk.
    There were some improvised jean shorts that
would work for something to swim in, that is if she got him in the
water at all, in his saddlebags, and he immediately got to opening
and digging. After a moment he found them, and was half way out of
his clothes – the bottom half – when he heard Miranda coming up the
stairs. “This place is amazing, I love how the stairs are all