The train braked hard. Orer lurched forward and put a hand out to brace against the window, caught off-guard by the sudden stop.

“They always have a difficult time slowing down here in Pidsy,” an old lady across the aisle said over her newspaper. “Must be that the rails are getting rusty and no one’s doing anything about it. Anyhoo, don’t fret; the rest of the way will be smooth.”

“Ah, I see,” he replied, righting himself and brushing his sleeves. He leaned into his chair and went back to looking out the window. Kena was either this stop or the next. She had texted yesterday saying that it just depended on how early she got up, whether she would make it to the first stop or chase the train at the second. He hadn’t bothered replying. Nothing had changed about his cousin, that was for sure.

Eventually the doors to the train opened, and the exchange of passengers began. Orer briefly noticed that the newspaper lady was staying put as others shifted around them–not exactly surprising, given that it seemed she traveled through here often. He took in the rest of the maintained mayhem around him, resigned to the fact that he wouldn’t be able to get off with the crowd and escape from a summer of slow torture.

At the end of last year his parents had made a deal with him.

“Gram’s getting old,” his mom had said, “and you’re about to be a full-time working man.”

They all knew the internship from the summer prior had gone so well that he had been offered a job at the end of it to start the next August. Orer hadn’t thought too much about the timing when the job was offered, since the company assured him it was easiest to onboard new employees right before their yearly conference in September. Plus, the hiring manager had explained that past feedback had found it best to take on new employees after the summer months when everyone wanted their vacations. New hires didn’t get time off (save for sick days) until after the first three months of onboarding, and apparently some employees still resented the fact that they had been fully tied down to their position in the best part of the year when first starting.

Now, however, he didn’t think having to work through the whole summer would have been such a bad thing after all.

“Just promise me you’ll spend a couple weeks with her next May,” had been the request, and Orer obliged because it seemed like the right thing to do. A couple weeks wasn’t the end of the world. Over the winter he began applying for some camp counselor positions when his mom called him with the news that he wouldn’t be the only one visiting Gram in the summer.

“Guess what?” she said when he had answered. “I was just on the phone with your uncle Sten and he loves the idea of you going to visit Gram so much, he’s sending Kena out with you as well!”

The only problem was, Sten wanted Kena out at Gram’s the whole summer, and not just a few weeks. That was all it took for Orer’s mom to make him quite the camp applications and commit to two and a half months of being in Gregar.

“Oh, I just love this, Orer! You and Kena haven’t seen each other in years. This will be great,” she had reassured him.

It wasn’t the fact that he would have to be around Gram, or even Kena–as unbearable as she was–for all that time. He could get behind the idea of spending time with family, especially a grandmother who was in her late eighties and, to put it bluntly, likely wouldn’t be around another decade. And bonding with Kena? Sure, as long as she didn’t try to convince him that she needed a cameraman for all of her social media escapades and actually tried to carry on a real conversation for once.

Unfortunately, talking with Gram and Kena could only take up so much time and Gregar was boringly rural. The main town was a population of two hundred last time Orer had visited, and that was almost fifteen years ago. If anything, there were probably less people there now. The nearest city with more than a thousand? Forty-eight miles away. Yet somehow, in the midst of all of this, Gram had managed to maintain a mansion. At least, that’s what he had always thought of it as when he was younger. Very likely, this trip would reveal that the place he considered stale to be even worse without childhood naivete engaging his curiosity.

Most of the passengers had filed off by this point, and it seemed as though the train was set to start toward to the next stop. No Kena, then.

At least I’ll get a few more minutes of peace and quiet, he thought to himself.

That thought quickly dissipated with a shove and the strong smell of cinnamon intruding into his nose.

“Oh, good, thanks for saving me a spot,” Kena said as she pushed past and took the seat facing him.

Orer coughed. “Were you baking an apple pie or…?”

His cousin cocked a threaded eyebrow and gave a small shake of her head in a what-do-you-mean-you-idiot sort of way.

“Do I look like someone who bakes apple pies?” she asked, sitting down and placing a brand-name purse on the seat next to her. “Well, now that you say it, it might look good to start a baking page. Hmm.”

She seemed deep in thought with her chin on her hand, but Orer knew better.

“I suppose cinnamon perfume is in, then,” he said, bending over to reach into his briefcase. That mystery novel he had randomly grabbed at the store now seemed like a very tempting read.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“It’s actually like an allspice mix, but yes, it’s the latest from Velveteen.”

He stifled a snort. “Well, with a name like that, I suppose you can never go wrong.”

She glared at him now. Kena could tell when she was being insulted, he guessed, but didn’t have the intelligence to know exactly what the insult was in order to make a comeback.

“Good to see you, too, Orer,” she finally said, a little too late for it to be suave.

He opened the book and began to read. This was going to be a very long ride.

----------------------------------------

He managed to get through six chapters of his book before Kena started talking again.

“What’s with the outfit?” she smacked, chewing loudly on a piece of gum.

He looked up, more than a bit annoyed at being cut off in the middle of a murder scene, and gave her a once over. She was dressed in a crewneck and some leggings, complete with tennis shoes and a baseball cap. She must’ve been going for the casually fashionable look, as if she hadn’t put much effort into what she put on today. But the cake face gave her away. If athletic was the new item on the runway, Orer would take a pass. Sure, he hit the gym, but he wasn’t going to wear something like workout clothes when they weren’t going to be utilized. He also knew that Kena would never be caught dead getting sweaty for the life of her. The clothing was all just a show.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he replied. “Gram’s gonna love seeing you dressed like that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh please. It will be like, what, ten pm when we get there? Gram won’t even be awake.”

He squinted. “Then why the makeup? I mean, we’re just on a train.”

“You’re a guy, Orer. You wouldn’t understand.”

She was right, he certainly wouldn’t. With that out in the air, he went back to his book.

“So, why do you think they want us there this summer?”

He didn’t bother looking back up this time. “What do mean?” he asked absentmindedly, not really hearing the question.

“I mean, nobody’s ever pressured us to spend any time with Gram at all since we were like what, ten?”

“Seven,” he corrected. He half-listened when he wanted to.

“Right, whatever. But isn’t it a bit strange?”

“We’ve both just finished college, haven’t we? Our parents know our lives are about to get too busy to spend much casual time at Gram’s.”

They were only a couple months apart, with his birthday toward the end of fall and Kena's in the early winter. She kept switching her major throughout her four years of studies, but if he remembered correctly from a phone call with his mom, she had graduated in psychology.

“They never asked us in any previous summer, though.”

She had a point. Orer looked up from the book to glance out the window.

“True,” he finally acknowledged. “It is a bit odd.”

With all this talking, he decided to jump on the question that had been burning on his mind. “Did your dad go to your graduation?”

Kena snorted. “No. Yours?”

He shook his head. “Not a chance.”

“I’m surprised,” she said. “I would’ve thought your dad, well, cared enough.”

There was an unspoken agreement between them, despite the mutual animosity, that neither of their fathers deserved the title of “uncle” when being referred to respectively. Hence the replacement with “your dad.”

“He’s just good at putting on a facade.”

Kena crossed her legs, looking at him. “Well, maybe he’ll care enough now that you’re following in his footsteps.”

She really knew how to get under his skin. He closed the book and faced her head-on. “And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged, unfazed. “He’s in the banking business, you’ve just graduated with a business degree, and now you’re set to work for a bank as well.”

“One of his competitors,” he clarified.

“‘Like father, like son,’” Kena quoted. “But let’s be honest, I’ve always had the short end of the stick.”

That he could agree with. Brun Janesh and Sten Raidworth were both not very likeable men, but where Brun was just plain mean, standoffish, and willing to use those around him for whatever he wanted, Sten was a provocative monster who enjoyed a public and messy takedown of anyone standing in his way.

When it came to provocation, Orer thought the phrase Like father, like daughter fit well, but he would never say it to Kena. That was a blow too low.

“I first believed you’d been the one to force us at Gram’s for the whole summer,” he admitted. “But as I thought about it, it seemed like something your dad would do.”

He did feel bad for her in that regard. Orer had decided long ago that his disdain for his own dad extended to his dad’s relatives. He couldn’t imagine being shipped off by Papa Janesh to spend the whole summer with some old Granny Janesh. That just felt awkward and awful on so many levels.

Yet here Kena was, doing just that and for the most part, not actually complaining about it. Sure, she had her moments, but those all seemed to have nothing to do with with Sten.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I’m trying to be around him much anyway,” Kena replied, taking her turn to look out the window.

“I don’t even know what there is to do at Gram’s,” Orer said.

Kena laughed. “Sleep, watch movies, post creepy mansion photos, you name it. We’re free from our parents at least.”

Neither of them was misguided about the opportunities awaiting them in Gregar, it seemed. Just great. Orer looked down at his book, regretting not having bought ten others to keep it company.

“My only question is, what was Gramps like to make my dad the way he is and your mom end up someone like Brun Janesh?”

Gramps? He took a moment to comprehend what Kena was talking about, before realizing she was bringing up the dead patriarch.

“Must’ve been a piece of work.” Gram was nice, and Kena had a point. The “evil” trait had to run somewhere in the family.

“That’s one way of putting it. Maybe Gram will give us some family history to explain all our drama.”

“Maybe,” he replied. Orer had a hard time believing that, however. Gram had always seemed like a tight-lipped woman.

The train was slowing to a stop again, the last one before making the hike up to Gregar. They were the only two on the train now, save for the lady with the newspaper.

“Do you two mind closing the shades,” she called across to them. “I’m hoping to get some shut eye in before we make it into town.”

Orer pulled the blinds down, saying a farewell to his enjoyable read as they were swathed in darkness.