Lost in time

    “Ugh! Just ugh!” A teenage girl yelled and stormed out of her foster home, letting the screen door slam behind her. 

    She was angry. She was mad at the world, mad at her foster parents, mad at everyone. She raced into the woods, tears rolling down her cheeks. 

     After a while, while the teenage girl was wandering around in the woods, not entirely sure where she was going or where was, angrily muttering to herself, it began to rain. She kicked the ground and started to cry, when she came across an old log cabin. At first she walked past it, but then walked back. Curiosity getting the better of her, she approached the cabin, forgetting that she had been mad or even why. 

     There was a broken lock padlock on the old wooden door. She removed it and pushed the creaky door open. 

     “Hello?!” She called into the old house. 

     There was no response. 

     “Is anyone here?!” 

    Still with no response she took a tentative step inside. It was dark inside so she turned on the flashlight on her phone and moved it around, examining every inch of the one room cabin. The cabin looked like it had been abandoned years ago. There were spider webs all over the place and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. It looked like a tree had started growing through a crack in the floorboards. Besides that there was an old wooden rocking chair, a bench, an old toilet, an old ice box, and a bed. 

      The girl whose name was Katie, blew off some dust from the rocking chair and sat down. She turned off her flashlight and rocked herself back and forth, listening to the squeak of the chair. 

    It reminded her of her grandma and she could imagine a grandmother sitting here and sewing, a very long time ago. Or perhaps a mother with a baby. She sat there rocking in the very old chair for a while, lost in her thoughts. 

     Then she got up, finding she was gonna have to use the toilet. After using it, (which wasn't all that pleasant), she emptied the bucket outside and left it in the rain. 

     Katie looked in the ice box to find it empty. She wasn't sure what she had been thinking she would find. Chicken nuggets? Fresh ice cream? Any food that might've been left by the people who used to live here, would have long since gone bad. Although she did find some old weapons behind the ice box. 

     Katie picked up the bow and arrow, thinking about going hunting, before realizing she had no way of cooking it. Then she put them down, imagining a father going hunting with such weapons. 

     She curled up on the hard bed, thinking of her own father. She didn't want to go back to her foster home, not now, not yet. 

     She let out a yawn and curled under the warm blanket, imagining a family sleeping here, cuddling together to keep warm, during the cold winter nights. Eventually she fell asleep and dreamed of her family, living in this house, hundreds of years ago. 

     When she woke up her phone was dead, but she didn't care. It was light outside now and the light shined through the windows. While still in bed, she noticed a loft and climbed up there. It wasn't much, but she could imagine it would be the perfect place for a teenager to hang out. 

     There were old hand made dresses up here and under the dresses she found a diary. She sat there reading it for a while before she heard someone yelling for her outside the cabin. 

    Recognizing the voice as her foster mother, she stayed hidden in the loft until she was far away. Then Katie climbed down and headed back to her foster home.

      Later that night she made her way back to the cabin and used her flashlight to finish reading the diary. She had been right. 

     There had been a Ma, Pa, Grandmother, a girl, and a boy. They had lived in the 19th century. The diary covered the years 1836-1845. It belonged to a girl named Abigail. At the end of the entries she was 14 and had just been forced to marry a man she despised. Her parents had died and her and her brother were taken in by her uncle. 

     Katie could practically see the events unfolding in the log cabin that seemed to be frozen in time. Katie cried as she read. 

    When she finished she thought of her own family. Nothing as dramatic had happened to her. She wasn't being forced into marriage, but her parents had died and she had been placed in foster care.

     After she finished reading Katie burst into sobs and clung to the paper for a while. When she finally calmed down, she sat in the loft for a while imagining the family that used to live here. Finally she made her way back to her foster family. 

    The next day she showed her foster sister the place frozen in time and they pretended that they lived there. Katie gave her sister the diary to read. It took her sister a few weeks to read, in which time Katie would constantly return to the cabin, as it had become comforting to her. 

     When her foster sister finally did finish reading she insisted they show her parents. At first Katie refused, thinking they'd just ruin her favorite spot, but eventually she agreed, and pretty soon it was everyone's favorite spot. They would hang out and read together. One night they even stayed all night, trying to experience what the family all those years ago did. It was fun and became a thing they could bond over.

      Eventually Katie's foster parents adopted her and told her the news in the cabin. She hugged them and burst into tears, realizing that she finally had a family again. What better place to realize that then in the place where a family bond once grew and did again.