August Ansel - Shadow Road

“Look at that,” said Renna. She shuffled over and placed her sock-feet into the reflected colors. “So pretty.” She smiled at Kory. “Someone did that on purpose, didn’t they?”

“Mama found the window. She said Papa built the house around it.”

“He made the whole place, then, your papa?” asked Arie, glad he’d raised the subject of his parents first. She had to ask hard questions today and try to give the boy even more difficult answers.

“They did it together,” said Kory. “We lived in a tent before that, but I don’t remember. I was still a baby.”

“Maybe after we’re awake, you’d like to give us a tour.”

“I’m awake now,” he said.

“Slow down,” said Curran. “I could use another cup of tea. Or six.”

Kory started to get up for the kettle, but Handy, standing near the stove, got there first. He refilled Curran’s mug and settled at the table next to Arie.

“So,” he said to Kory, “you’ve lived here all your life. I grew up in one place, too. Wasn’t a whole lot different from this.”

Kory put the crumbling remains of a biscuit in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Did your papa build your house?”

“He did,” said Arie. “Though it wasn’t near as lovely as this place.”

“You saw Handy’s house?”

“I lived in it,” she said. “Lived in it long before he was born.” She and Handy were seated side by side at the dining table, and she nudged him lightly with one elbow.

“Are you—” Kory looked carefully at them, puzzling over this information. “Is Handy your boy?”

“A reasonable question,” she said. “No, he’s not mine—not the way you mean. Handy is my brother.”

His eyes flicked back and forth between their faces. “You’re a lot older,” he said.

“A lot ,” she agreed.

“I’m the baby of the family,” said Handy.

Kory snorted. “Some baby.” He’d obviously never heard the term.

“Hey, it’s true. Youngest of all. That makes me the baby.”

“Me, too,” said Renna. “My sister Bridget was two years older.”

Curran rubbed a palm over his face and yawned. “Not me,” he said. “I’m the oldest. There were three of us boys. My brothers Derrick and Peter were twins. They got away with everything.”

“Like what?”

“Losing my dad’s tools. Skipping school. Eating all the cereal and leaving the milk out all day,” Curran said. “Stuff that seems stupid now. The kind of stuff our folks were too busy or too danged tired to worry about.”

“I’m the only kid,” said Kory. “So I’m sort of the oldest, right?”

“Absolutely,” said Curran. “That makes two oldest and two youngest. Okay Arie, you’re the tie-breaker.”

“Handy’s the baby,” mused Kory, “so Arie must be the oldest. Three to two—oldest kids win!”

“A fairish guess,” Arie said. “Not a stupid one, by any means. But no, my new friend, I’m hardly the oldest in our clan—not by a long shot. I’m a middle child, through and through.”

“That explains plenty,” said Curran. “Aren’t middle kids supposed to be trouble?” Even under his thick beard they could see the little smirk on his lips.

“Contrary as sin,” she said. She stood and moved around the table, gathering empty cups and plates. “Seven were born before me, and seven born after, though the one right after me died on her way out.”

The boy goggled at her then looked at Handy as if expecting him to call it a bluff. When Handy merely sipped his tea, Kory did a quick calculation on his fingers. “Fourteen,” he breathed, and stared out the window for a moment. “That’s a lot of children.”

The dishes clinked and chattered as Arie rinsed them in a blue plastic dishpan. “Ho, smart boy,” she said. “It’s far too many, by any intelligent reckoning.”

“Maybe it wasn’t too many, though,” said Renna. There was a wire-thin edge in her voice. “You still have family alive out there.”

“Apparently so.”

For a few moments no one spoke. In that beat of silence simmered all their unmentioned losses. Arie kept an eye on Kory, who hadn’t asked them any of the questions she’d expected him to. He’d opened the cabin and fit himself into their midst with seemingly no concern about where they’d come from or why they were here.

The iron cook stove, cooling now, made intermittent ticks and pops. Small claws suddenly scrabbled on the roof, bringing Talus to attention. Renna drained the last of her tea and stood. “I’m going to find my boots,” she said. “Ready to give us the grand tour, Kory?”

The cabin sat at on a fortuitous shelf of land, situated at the top of one rise and near the foot of an even steeper one. The land sloped downhill to the east in front of the cabin—this was the grade they had climbed yesterday to reach the clearing. A few yards behind, the terrain fell off precipitously, dropping into a narrow gorge and the river far below.

On either side of the house was a chunk of flat, usable land, used for the privy, the well, and a sizable garden. On the south side though, the terrain eventually humped up again, creating a craggy horseshoe that became almost vertical in places. Sandstone boulders bulged from the hillside, and saplings that had managed to take root in the thin soil leaned precariously.

Rivulets of water, some visible and some not, coursed through the shrubby growth on this hill and then drained into the gorge. The forest seepage and seasonal runoff made its inevitable way to the river. At one of the larger springs, a simple spigot had been set, allowing a constant trickle to divert into a shallow, rocky pool built beneath it, a handmade declivity the depth and breadth of a household sink. All around the spring, delicate maidenhair fern grew on its slender black stems.

The land was beautiful. The cabin was a work of art. Neither of these things was the real mind-boggler, though. What left them truly flabbergasted as Kory led them from one place to another was food . They thought they had seen abundance yesterday when the boy fed them. But what they saw today was nothing short of remarkable. It was everywhere.

Stashed under both beds. Stacked on shelves built behind panels in the walls of every room. Layered on a special platform rigged in the rafters over the sleeping loft. Cans, boxes, barrels, jars, and sealed plastic bags. Dehydrated, preserved, powdered, smoked, and freeze-dried. Vegetables, meat, fruit, grains, and legumes. The jars of home-canned food Curran had brought back to the cave had been the merest hint of what Kory had at his fingertips.

On the south side of the property, where the hill erupted, was a root cellar. The entrance fit neatly into the hillside, camouflaged perfectly by surrounding vegetation. Curran helped Kory pull open the single heavy door. The earthy smell that wafted out was of clean packed dirt—no hint of souring or corruption.

Kory looked around at everyone. “We can’t all fit in here.”

“Handy and I will wait out here with Talus,” said Curran. “Ladies tour first.”

Not quite tall enough to stand in, the cellar was nevertheless deep and cool. Four barrels stood side by side. Kory showed them each one: potatoes, yams, pears, and carrots. He was like any boy having a sleepover, anxious to show off things that might impress a new friend. Arie and Renna followed him down and there was barely room for the three of them.

“You grew these?” said Renna.

“Potatoes are easy,” he said, “because I can plant what I don’t eat. And the pear trees don’t need me to do anything, except scare the birds sometimes.” The carrots were buried in layers of sand like bodies at the beach, and Kory smoothed his hand over the top layer. “These are harder. I tried helping Mama do seeds, but I’m only good at the big ones, like peas and squash.”