The fictional places to visit in Vermont you won’t find in any travel guide, because even the locals don’t know they don’t exist. Find more Vermont Extended Universe stories including When the Devil Came to Georgia, Vermont here.

---

The Hibernating Man

The drive to the Hibernating Man was pure misery. Salt caked my windshield driving the iced Newport Roads, but this couldn’t wait until Spring. I received a tip from his wife, Sarah Matthews, she read my profile of a woodworker in Shelburne who made frisbees. It’s helpful for me to write stories for local papers, both for practice and for credibility.

Sarah thought I’d be interested in, as she put it, her husband’s “unique winter arrangement.” The address was 82 Humpback Drive—the development named all the roads after endangered species.

“Come any time,” she said. “He’ll be asleep anyway.”

So there I was, slipping up her steep, ice-covered driveway, wishing for a dog sled instead of my Subaru. The house itself was a nondescript McMansion, the kind that’s less common here than in the other Vermont. In the yard, a plastic Santa lay facedown in the snow, half-buried, as if he’d given up on the season entirely.

Sarah Matthews greeted me at the door, tired but kind. The dark circles under her eyes contrasted with the toothy smile.

“Abigail?” She asked. “From the VEU?”

“I am. Abigail George.”

Sarah ushered me inside quickly enveloping me in the home’s warmth.  The scent of cinnamon-infused apple cider disarmed me immediately.

“I’m not exactly sure what the VEU is. You write for other newspapers around Vermont?”

“The Vermont Editorial Unit,” I fib.

A boy of about eight rolled in on a scooter. “Mom, Is she here to write about Dad?”

“She is,” Sarah headed to the kitchen and I followed. “Coffee?”

“Sure,” I answered despite recently finishing a large gas station brew on the ride.

“Do you know my husband James’ story at all?” She asked pouring into a mug covered with faded images of her kids. How do you take your coffee.”

“Light and sweet,” I tell her, surveying the kitchen. The fridge is covered in more photos of the family, two kids in addition to Sarah and James. In some pictures, James is skinny with a long beard and in others, he’s morbidly obese. “Only what you said on the phone. You said your husband hibernates.”

“Okay so yah, James is the only human that truly hibernates, that we know about at least,” She says placing the coffee mug on the table in front of me.

“We’re not talking about an induced coma right?”

“Oh, nothing like that. He was in grade school when it started,” she explained, stirring cream into her cup. “He’d fall asleep in every class even if he had a full night’s rest. He grew up right down the road and his parents tried everything, different diets, light therapy, and vitamins but nothing worked. He needed more sleep than a koala bear.”

“Do they need a lot of sleep?”

“Twenty hours. Doctors thought it was some rare form of narcolepsy at first,” she continued. “Or depression. He did a sleep study when he was in middle school and the specialist compared his sleep needs to a bear, practically no metabolism – his heartbeat dropped to four beats a second.

“Like a chipmunk,” I comment jotting down her words on paper.

Tommy walked back into the room. “My dad doesn’t like winter.”

I laughed. “I’m not a big fan either. Hibernating sounds like a good plan.”

“This world is sometimes a little too much for him,” Sarah adds. “He’s a good person and a great dad. James was never a fan of the long winters here. His family decided to let him sleep through winter. Usually three months and it’s not like a coma,” seeing my expression when she told me how long, she quickly added. “His brain doesn’t shut down. He has vivid dreams and remembers nearly all of them. When his mom passed away we had to wake him up so he could attend the funeral. It took three days for him to get his heartbeat and metabolism back to normal. The cold makes him grumpy.”

“So you just single parent?”

“I pretend he’s on an oil rig risking his life for a paycheck and not two flights down sleeping.”

Emma, the youngest kid at six walked in proudly. “Want to see Daddy’s cave?”

I nodded and the girl took my hand, Sarah stood up while Emma pulled me out of my seat. I left my coffee and notebook on the table.

The basement looked like a normal finished basement. A fun place for kids to hang out, with toys everywhere, and TV always playing cartoons. I look around and see no signs of a Hibernating Man.

Sarah motioned me to follow with the kids at my side. We entered a laundry room dominated by a spiral staircase parked in the middle of the space.

The kids and Sarah deftly moved down the stairs while I struggled with the narrow steps My senses were on alert. It was dark, the temperature dropped noticeably and the classical music pumped Bach. Bach made me uneasy.

Downstairs there was a smaller version of the basement, dark and windowless. At the bottom of the stairs was a small sitting room, with a compact sofa and a well-worn easy chair.

The couch and chairs faced a large observational window looking into James’ winter room. The kids run to the window and look in, like a fish at the aquarium, their artwork taped to the glass.

“They never miss a goodnight,” Sarah explained walking me to the windows. “I’d like to think he hears it even through the soundproof windows. Tommy can read any story so sometimes he reads to his dad.”

Through the window, I saw him— a still hefty James Matthews, curled up in a queen-sized hospital bed. The space looked more like a research facility than a bedroom. He was connected to wires that led to an EKG on our side of the window.

“He looks content I say,”

“Four beats per minute will do that to you,” Sarah said.

“Why did you seek me out?” I ask focused on James, still not a hundred percent sure this isn’t some scam. “What does publicity do?  Just go Facebook, no?”

“I need help,” Sarah says her arms crossed. Even though James is asleep she moves away from the window as if he could read lips sleeping. “I have what, another twelve years of this before the kids are on their own? If he is still hibernating, I’ll be going to Arizona for the winter.”

“So you want the story profile to be your story as much as his? How it’s hard to be married to the Hibernating Man.”

“Ew, Sounds like I’m a victim. Let’s go back up,” She motions and we head back up the stairs “I love James but he has no idea what it’s like here in the winter, just because he hates to ski.”

Upstairs, we finish our coffee, Sarah fills in the blanks while I take photos of the family and the locations for the story.

Finished Sarah walks me to the door. I think of a question I almost forgot.

“Does he dream?”

Sarah’s face lights up and she exclaims “Oh, the dreams. When he wakes up in spring, he writes them down immediately. They’re… extraordinary. He writes everything he remembers over the next few months. It’s like he lives a whole different life.”

“What does he do with the writings? Maybe he could publish them. Help you out.”

“They don’t make a ton of sense,” she says. “Interested in seeing them?”

Before I could respond, she led me past the kitchen to a small office. On the shelves, there are two dozen journals. The first few are just in notebooks while the more recent ones are leather-bound. “This is from last winter,” handing it to me like a sacred text. “I read them for comfort sometimes. That world is a warm blanket on a cold day.”

Reading or talking about someone’s dreams can’t be less interesting to me but I could pretend. I took a look noting the frantic handwriting. I can imagine he was afraid he’d forget the memories before they were captured.

And there, on the third page, a word that made my breath catch: Garvin.

 The town that doesn’t exist.

“Sarah,” I said carefully pointing to the word.  It appears often I notice. “Has James ever mentioned where he heard about Garvin?”

“No, but he mentions it often. It’s not a real place. It’s the town he lives in…when dreaming.”

“I’d like to talk to him about it,” I closed the journal, my mind racing. “In a couple of months, of course. Could I borrow this?”

Sarah paused. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable.”

“Can you make a copy?”

“Is Garvin something I don’t know about?” She took the journal from my hand.

“It’s not a physical place, but it’s also not an invention of his mind,” I say cryptically. “It’s come up before.”

Fortunately, Sarah took my explanation at face value assuring me she’d make a copy as we moved to the door.

Walking to my car, the cold air biting my face, my confusion was so intense I felt nauseous.  Why was the Hibernating Man dreaming of a place that’s not supposed to exist?