“It’s a pain, most of the time. I keep my shields up because frankly, listening to you wears a girl out, but it can be useful. You can tell me things in your mind you don’t want others to hear. I can read a stranger’s intentions, let you know who to trust and who not to trust.”
Now Mattea’s eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline in surprise, and his expressive black eyes were large with new appreciation. Wren’s ability could be a very good thing. Coru was staring at her too, but in a different way, drinking her in like a starving man, forgetting to act amazed at her revelation. How long before Mattea realized Coru had an agenda? How long before Coru tripped up and showed her that agenda?
That was okay. She could wait.
“I’d like this to be just between us. I don’t want people to feel awkward around me. It’s hard enough … you know.”
Mattea and Coru agreed, and led Wren’s and Bill’s little clan back to their camp, their weapons held easily at their sides. It wasn’t long before everyone was awake and seated in a circle, their faces a mixture of wariness and hope in the flickering firelight.
Mattea made coffee. Coru introduced everyone. Wren took each member’s measure by listening into their thoughts as Bill filled in the silences from their end with friendly chatter. Nicola’s mind was a mess; a tangle of motivations, emotions, and mostly confusion. Catherine’s mind was a calm resting spot. She thought simple, straight forward thoughts. She was a kind woman. Oh! Malcolm wasn’t her son—he was her grandson. Malcolm didn’t know this. Annie was a rod of strength. She was carrying a child and God help the human who threatened that child. Whoa. Watch out for this one. Malcolm was a regular little boy, confused and finding his way, with thoughts of hunger—he could use one of his mom’s biscuits, even if they were hard and old, with some of that yummy jam from Deklin’s place—and worry for his new friend, Deklin, and curiosity about these new kids. Were they friendly? Could he play with them? Wyatt looked so serious. Was he okay? Was he weird?
And Deklin. Poor, traumatized Deklin. He was simple, but here she stopped, uncertain. But not. He had surprising cleverness as well. For the moment, however, he was hiding in a fog, not wanting to come out and see what might be out there. She left the poor boy alone.
Mattea was a pure soul. Honest, open, loyal. Mattea was spiritual, taking his guidance from the spirits around him. As a result, his mind was at peace. He did what he did for a reason. Right now, his reasons were Coru’s mission … Mission? And Nicola. He was compelled to protect Nicola.
Coru was itemizing in a storage room. Weird stuff, too. Geez. The guy was anal. What was he masking? She knew now he had a mission, that he was aware of her abilities before they’d even met and hadn’t been honest with his best friend, Mattea. Why? Because he needed Mattea? Because he didn’t trust Mattea? But she saw that he did. Was it because if Mattea knew, he would disapprove and leave Coru? She bowed out of Coru’s head, meeting his eyes as she did. He looked satisfied with himself. So, it was like that, was it? She arched an eyebrow at him, staring him down before looking away.
Catherine passed around mugs of coffee—real coffee. Like Mattea had bragged, it was mixed with goat’s milk, definitely a different taste, but still delicious. She searched the darkness, saw four goats tethered in the grass, grazing. Do goats eat at night? She answered her own question. If they’re inside a cage during the day they do.
“… Wren?”
Her attention returned to the campfire and the people gathered around it. They were looking at her expectantly.
Bill prompted, “Your land, ‘Drop Out Acres’. There’s plenty of room there, right?”
“Yes!” She changed mental gears. “I have a thousand acres of mostly treed land, with two cleared fields. One is fourteen acres and has my cabin and a smaller, old cabin, which needs some repair before it’s habitable, and a second six-acre meadow, off on its own. I have a fenced in orchard and large vegetable garden area. The large field currently self-seeds to alfalfa.”
Here she laughed. “Don’t I sound like I know everything! Here’s where I confess. This is my first year on the land, and I stupidly planted my garden too early. We’ll have to start again, which, I’m sorry to say, is barely enough time to get some crops off. And those crops are now more important to me than they ever were a week ago.” She grimaced. “I came late to this party. I’ve been out there for three months, without communication—my choice—and came out for supplies and … Well, you know what I found.”
There were nods around the fire. People drank from their cups, memories of their own experiences flooding their thoughts. She respected their privacy and didn’t intrude. Everyone here had their story.
“Anyway. My cabin can sleep most of us, if you decide to join us, and we have the summer to bring the other cabin up to living grade. Everything is solar powered. I heat with wood, but do have a few solar heaters, though they are power guzzlers, so I pretty much stick with the wood. I don’t cut my trees, there’s plenty of windfall to use as firewood. Oh, and I have a barn for your animals, a chicken run that’s in disrepair, but could hold chickens if we found some. We need to knock together a chicken coop. And the best part—well, there are two, no three—best parts.” She laughed self-consciously. “One, this is down along the river, so lots of fresh water. Two, it’s completely hidden. Three, we can be there in a couple of hours.”
Her audience exchanged glances, but stayed silent. A gentle rain, more of a mist, really, began to fall. It was cool and refreshing. Done trying to convince them, Wren closed her eyes and lifted her face to the tiny drops, letting them wash her skin.
Bill said, “You’ll work harder than you’ve worked in your life. We’ll need to put up supplies for the winter for twelve people and all the animals over the next three months. We’ve got July, August, and September to work with. October, if we’re lucky. After that, we’d better be set ‘til next spring.”
Wren opened her eyes. Again, people were looking around, searching for opinion without speaking.
What were they waiting for? She dropped her shields completely away and opened her senses to feel the entire group’s dynamics.
“I can make cheese,” a hoarse voice whispered. Deklin.
Joy and hope for this boy sprang out from his group and slammed into Wren’s head, washed her clean of all other sensations and enveloped her in wave after wave of warmth and protection and pure, pure love.
15
DROP OUT ACRES
They approached her cabin from the opposite direction from when she’d left it a lifetime ago. After leaving the highway for the last time, they first traversed rolling acres of scrubby ranchland, a mixture of grasslands, old rusted pieces of farm equipment and random stands of trees. There were a few grazing cattle in the distance, doubtlessly now orphaned. They were free range animals, however and did well on their own. There was lots to eat, fresh water from creeks and safety in numbers.
The land sloped ever-closer to the river as they traveled north to Wren’s property, which was the next one over. After nearly two hours, they came to a blind corner. Here they turned sharply behind a swath of huge old-growth trees. This was the back entrance to Wren’s property. They rumbled across a cattle guard, and onto a narrow, over-grown road—more of a path—into her largely untouched, forested acreage. This was why she’d bought this place—the untouched trees. Except for her two cleared fields, and two beaver dams, the forest made up the bulk of her property. Twenty minutes in, they drove past the first cleared area, this the sheltered six-acre meadow, sunshine and gentle rain combining into a rainbow overhead, confirming it was a magical place. Wren’s heart swelled with gratitude to finally be back, home and safe, the rainbow seeming to be a sign that all things would be good here. A short way up a gentle treed hill, they turned right, guiding their ATVs through her broad open gate. She owned the land above and below the road, but the homestead portion was below, and therefore had the gate. This time, after all the vehicles and animals were safely through the
gate, Wren produced a key and locked it behind them. Now they eased down Dewdrop Hill road, which had a steeper incline, relying on their brakes. They traveled slower here, in deference to Missy and Junior and their over-packed vehicles. They past a small beaver’s dam to their left, where the incline gentled, and further down to the flat fields of the main homestead which ran parallel to the Peace River.
Of course, the first thing Wren saw was her huge, fenced-in garden. Here she made Bill stop, the other ATVs stacking up the incline behind them. She leapt from the Beast and raced to the fence, gripping the wires with both hands and shaking them with excitement. The earth was black and moist from the gentle rain, and there was row after row of strong green shoots emerging everywhere. Below the apple, cherry and pear trees, hilled plantings of zucchini and pumpkin, spaghetti squash and cucumber showed glossy leaves emerging. The cold-framed tomatoes were strong and healthy. The rows of raspberries and Saskatoon berry bushes were tall and strong, reaching for the sun. The rows of strawberry plants had stretched out, dropping runners, with new leaves emerging.
“Oh, my God! Everything grew. It wasn’t a mistake! Everything is growing.” She shoved her whole arm through one of the square openings in the page wire fence and pointed, feeling as giddy as a little kid again. “See?” She jumped up and down a few times, unable to contain herself. “See all the rows of little sprouts? It wasn’t too early. Everything’s up, started already, and growing inside this fenced off area, protected from the deer and moose. This is good; this is so good!”
She grinned at Bill, and at the others, trickling in from their vehicles to see what the excitement was all about. “When I came into town, I wanted to stop and talk to Mona, but Mona wasn’t there. Her happiness dimmed, now knowing why. “I looked at her garden and it wasn’t planted yet, so I thought I’d made a mistake, that I’d planted too soon.” She stopped. “I guess my friends were …” Her nose pricked and she knew she was going to cry. Roller coaster emotions, or what? She struggled to rein herself in. God, how she needed a break, even a little one, a chance to pull herself together.
Bill gave her a hug. “You did good, Wren. This is a great start. I’m proud of you. Your first garden. We’ll all eat hearty this winter.” He guided her away from the fence. “Why not show us that run-down cabin of yours we need to spruce up. It’s on the other side, right?”
She blinked rapidly and nodded, dabbing her nose with her sleeve, knowing he was “handling her” and was grateful for it. Bill was so steady, her rock. He’d let her think she was helping him, when in reality, he was keeping her here, anchored to the ground, sane and focused during the most frightening time she’d ever experienced.
She offered shakily, “I’ll show you the good one first, let everyone get settled. We can mostly squeeze into mine if this rain gets stronger.” Trusting her voice more, she added, “You should know the other one’s more of a fixer-upper.”
Annie spoke up, pointing away from the garden to the river. “That’s the river?”
It obviously was; she was pointing at the boat launch area that Wren never used, where they could all see the swiftly flowing river and the banks of sandy, rocky shore opposite. Well, duh, it wasn’t a ham sandwich, Wren thought peevishly, instantly ashamed of her thought. The girl was probably as exhausted as she was, more so with being pregnant. The real reason Wren was resentful was Annie had pointed out what Wren believed to be the one major weakness she had in her survival plan, here at Drop Out Acres, and Annie had done it the first moment they’d arrived. The Peace River was magnificent, but to Wren, with its beauty came danger.
Oh. She saw everyone was waiting for her answer. Time to be a good host.
“Yes.” She nodded toward the water briskly. “The Peace River. It’s the only large opening to the river I’ve got, even though Drop Out Acres has 10 kilometers of river front.” She pointed to the band of tall trees and scrub, a hundred yards or so of untamed, natural growth that followed the edge of the river, and secreted the homestead. “I’d considered dropping some of the trees between my cabin and the river, so I could enjoy a river view, and the banks opposite, but hated the idea of cutting live trees. Plus, you’ll see I have a pair of nesting bald eagles right across from the cabin at the top of one of those view-shielding trees. Now I’m glad no one on the water knows what’s on the other side of my river trees. We’re completely shielded here.” She looked at the boat launch again. “Except for that.”
All the adults turned to consider the thirty-foot wide opening, it’s gentle slope from the homestead meadows down to the beach and then to the water was ideal for launching a boat. It was also ideal for bringing a boat into shore.
Annie said, “You do get that Drop Out Acres has the acronym D.O.A., right? Dead On Arrival?”
Wren felt as if she’d been slapped. She whipped around to face Annie. “Yeah. I get it. What’s your name? Annie, is it? Try this one out for size: G.A.B.O. and F.U.!” She leaned back and arched an eyebrow, drilling her gaze into the skinny blonde’s pale face, challenging Annie to push her any further. Wren was so ready for a fight.
Annie blinked, unprepared for the reaction she’d received.
“Let me help you out, why don’t I? Try ‘Got A Better Option?’ and—.”
Annie threw up her hands. “Okay. That one I can guess.” Grinning, she grasped her curved belly and burst out laughing. “Guess I deserved that!”
Bill followed suit, a belly laugh exploding from him, a sound Wren hadn’t heard in months, his cheeks rosy, his pale blue eyes sparkling. Now everyone was laughing, even Wren—she couldn’t help herself—laughter bubbling up from deep in her gut, the ridiculousness of this conversation hitting her, hitting them all. Really? She was going to punch out a pregnant woman? Punch out anyone? Just how far down the rabbit hole had she fallen?
And how good it felt to laugh, laugh right out loud, laugh ‘til she cried; laughing tears streaming unchecked down her face. Annie even hugged her; triggering the others. Still laughing, now everyone was hugging, wiping at their eyes, barriers between them gone, brought down by laughter.
“Okay,” Bill said, mopping his face. “Lead the way to this cabin of yours, Wren Wood. Let’s see if it’s everything you’ve been bragging about.” They all piled back into their ATVs, with Wren in front, driving the Beast, leading her band of 12 survivors to her own slice of heaven.
And she did not disappoint. She first heard the shuddering reaction to the property’s original log cabin from years ago, the fixer-upper she’d warned them about that sat on the other side of the garden. This log cabin only appeared when they drove around the garden, as it was set into the forest, with a tilted outhouse further back in the trees. She turned to the left and drove a worn path across a bright meadow of dandelions, which was surrounded by trees and led to the second cabin, the one she’d had built and skidded here three months ago, when snow still lay on the ground. Oh, how her father ragged on her about this impulsive extravagance. She was so grateful she’d stuck to her plan despite his ridicule. There would be no squeezing twelve survivors into the old cabin, that was for sure.
This new cabin was clad in tan colored tin—she hated the idea of mice, and mice couldn’t eat through tin—and had a large front porch, a generous wraparound shaded deck and a green tin roof that blended into the surrounding trees. She wanted this cabin to be part of the landscape, not a bright penny, catching attention. Her barn, sturdy and weatherworn and so-far unpainted, stood farther still, with the rundown chicken run built beside it. Thank goodness she hadn’t gotten to painting the barn. Her plan had been classic barn red. Unpainted, it blended easily into its surroundings. For now, living unnoticed would be the way they might stay safe.
She pulled up behind the cabin, parking the Beast beside the Beastette in the natural shelter she’d found in the forest. The others followed, the area quickly becoming congested with ATVs and people. She didn’t need to listen in on their thoughts. Everyone was talking, exclaiming excitedly to one ano
ther, the adults gazing around, smiling and nodding approvingly, the children running everywhere, picking up and discarding leaves, sticks, stones, pinecones, calling out to one another about some new treasure they’d found, only to be drawn on further by something better, shinier.
She led the group around to the front of the cabin and opened the door. “Come on in and take a peek.”
They filed in, one after the other, until the main floor was filled, and as a group stood in the center of the cabin and looked around, taking in the open kitchen and living room design, the bedrooms and bathroom and utility room around the perimeter, the loft overhead, running around the outside walls. She had firewood and kindling packed under the staircase leading up to the loft, and a wood stove large enough to warm the whole place.
“It’s a bit chilly.” Catherine said, ever practical. “Why don’t we start a fire to warm up?” She looked inquiringly at Mattea, who nodded.
He said, “The wood’s good and dry. You’ll be okay.”
Wren showed her where she kept the lighter, leaving Catherine to her task.
Wren continued, “You may not have noticed, but I have a bank of solar panels out front, between the trees that open up to the main 14-acre alfalfa field. The Solar panels are set up to follow the sun, turning to get maximum exposure.
“I also have a powerful solar system buried into the ground, you didn’t see. It’s called a Smart Flower.”
“The flower,” Deklin confirmed. “Pops has one too. It catches lots of sunshine.”
“Yes! Its main stem rises from the ground each morning, opens its solar panels, which are like paddles all around the center, forming a circle, and looks like a giant flower. It follows the sun throughout the day and closes at night or if the wind is too strong or if it rains.
“I have a bank of batteries in the utility room.” She led the group into the utility room, which was much larger than the bedrooms, necessarily so. She pointed out the batteries. “The laundry’s in here, and this is also the main bathroom, with a hot-water-on-demand shower.” She rested her hand on a wooden box. It protected her precious well pump. “The well water pump is in here and supplies the house with lots of good, clean water. Being inside, the pump can’t freeze in the winter, a huge plus for us.”
Lost Sentinel: Post-Apocalyptic Time Travel Adventure (Earth Survives Series Book 1) Page 17