by E A Lake
That was the first thing we agreed upon in a long time. A miracle. But how and who and, most importantly, when?
Chapter 63
A cold wind blew for a week. We huddled inside, trying to stay warm. We ate very little but attempted to drink as much water as possible. Worst of all, we still hadn’t made it to the store to resupply.
Every day, we meant to, yet every day, a new excuse arose. One day it was Sunshine. Her feet didn’t feel well enough for the trip—whatever that meant. Then, I had no energy another day. She had a sniffle; I had a headache. The excuses went on and on.
I believed we were both afraid of the long trip and the windchill that would gnaw at our exposed flesh. Who could blame us? It was cold and windy, and we were nothing but skin and bones.
“The next break in the weather, we have to get to the store,” I admonished my friend. “Here’s what we’ll do.”
Sunshine refused to look up at me or even move. All she did was groan.
“We’ll fill up on as much food as we can,” I continued. “We’ll save a couple days’ worth, but everything else we’ll eat. And we can drink more water, too. Enough to be sure we’re properly hydrated.”
Her arm covered her eyes. “And if we don’t make it there and back?” she asked with a pitiful tone.
“We have to,” I answered solemnly. “We have to. We don’t have any other options.”
The weather broke several days later, and a warmish south breeze gave me hope. Two or three miles down and the same distance back. Sure, the cart would be heavier on the return trip, but we could stop and snack at our leisure.
Even with the slightly warmer temperature, we still bundled up for our journey. Each of us put on two pairs of socks and an extra layer of pants and sweaters, and we wrapped our heads in our two remaining tattered stocking caps, one green, the other orange.
I put on a pair of leather gloves that had been Brady’s. The additional space allowed me to easily pull my fingers inside, just in case they became too cold. Sunshine chose a pair of deerskin chopper mitts. I believed they were a gift from the Fredericksons one winter a few years back.
After eating most of our remaining rations and each taking another cup of water, we began our journey. Walking at a slow pace along the back road of the property, I enjoyed the sights and sounds of the pleasant morning. We could do this; we had to do this.
I watched a pair of squirrels chase across the road in front of us. Sunshine’s head shook back and forth slowly as we continued.
“If we could just figure out a way to snare a couple of those bastards,” she said. “Except for some dried beef and deer, we ain’t had no meat in a long time.”
We stopped and surveyed the woods on both sides of the road. There had to have been 30 squirrels in sight, scurrying about on the dried leaves on the forest floor. Surely two or three of them wouldn’t mind giving their lives so that we might stand a chance to live. If only Walker was around. He’d feed us.
“I bet there’s a hundred of those buggers out there,” she went on. “How come they live just fine with what nature gives them and we’re starving to death? That don’t make no sense. Maybe we should start eating acorns like them.”
I chuckled at the comment. Brady had given me a taste of a raw acorn a while back. The sour, bitter taste it had left in my mouth was hard to forget. Sunshine had a good idea, but we had no way of making the oak fruit edible.
“We had acorn cookies once, a while back, that Mr. Frederickson brought over,” I replied as we continued our stroll. “I don’t know how they got rid of the bitter taste, but they seemed fine to me.”
“You gotta leech them in water somehow,” Sunshine added, already sounding out of breath. “Then you roast them. That’s what GeeMah always said. But I never saw her do it.”
She grabbed my arm and stared at me. “We gotta take a break, Abby. I’m already pooped out. We gotta stop for a few minutes.”
Sighing first, I nodded my agreement. Though I hated to admit it, our quarter-mile walk had sapped most of my energy as well.
We sat on a downed log, drawing deep breaths to replenish our oxygen-starved muscles. It was amazing how quickly we became fatigued. Just a few weeks back, we had enough energy to haul two loads of wood in one day.
But it was the lack of food, any food, that was robbing our bodies. That’s what made the trip so important. The situation was dire… a matter of life and death.
“I’m gonna die never knowing what it’s like to hold a baby of my own,” Sunshine said. Her words weren’t bitter—more matter-of-fact, actually. Deep inside, I wondered just how right she was since she had a way of seeing the future.
“I’m never going to see my daughter again,” I replied, my tone as depressed as I felt. “Her smiling face, her beautiful long hair. I’ll never hear her giggle again or even cry.”
I glanced at Sunshine and caught her staring at me.
“Maybe Brady was right in leaving,” she commented, nodding as she spoke. “Maybe he saw what was coming and decided to save himself and Sasha before something bad happened.”
The thought had crossed my mind once or twice in the past. Still, hearing the words aloud hurt.
“And he left his pathetic wife behind,” I added. “I gave him a daughter, and he knew he couldn’t save us both, so he chose her.”
Sunshine patted my hands. “Don’t ever say you’re pathetic, Abigail Turner,” she admonished. “You are the strongest, most decent person I ever met. I love you just as much as I loved my GeeMah. Sometimes even more.”
Tears began to streak her dark face. “You took me in, no questions asked. I remember you telling Brady he had to accept me in your house even though he didn’t like people like me. GeeMah always said I had to beware of men like him. But she never told me about people like you, people who care about everyone, no matter what they look like.”
I wiped her tears away and helped her from the log. “I know a certain man I might just strangle if he were to ever show up again,” I said, pulling the wagon as Sunshine walked beside me. “So don’t go praising me too much, now.”
I saw her smile return; that was something I hadn’t seen in a while. “You’d have to beat me to that rat bastard,” she chirped. “He’d be dead by the time you got a hold of him.”
I didn’t doubt that statement. Besides everything else, our mutual hatred of Brady made us sisters.
Chapter 64
We paused again for another break just before we came to the far end of Mr. Hulton’s fence. Maybe we’d made it another quarter mile… maybe.
Giving me a strange glance, Sunshine looked away quickly.
“What?” I asked.
I noticed her head shake before she began. “I gotta tell you something, and I don’t want any crap about it. Okay?”
What was she up to now? She had already told to me how much she desired Walker. What could be worse than that?
“Yes…?”
“I don’t wanna die after you,” she confessed. “I wanna die first or at the same time you do. I don’t wanna be left in this shitty world without you.”
Though I should have been touched, I was mostly confused.
“Are you planning on dying soon?” I asked with a tinge of sarcasm. “Or just making plans for the future?”
She turned and scowled at me. “I knew you’d take that wrong,” she spat. “I knew you couldn’t deal with it.”
Oh goody; she was in one of her moods again. Not what I needed at that time.
“No one is dying right now, Sunshine.”
She looked shocked that I’d said that aloud. “We are so!” she shouted. “We ain’t gonna make it to spring. You and I both know that. Say it; admit it.”
I felt my eyes squeeze tightly shut. The whole point of this excursion was to prolong our survival. But Sunshine could find the dark side of a carnival, I knew.
“We’re going to be fine,” I replied in a calm, steady voice. “We’re going to get the food we need to las
t another month. Before the end of the day, things will look brighter. I promise.”
I reached for her hands, but she jerked them away.
“You’re probably too stupid to die,” she quipped. “You and all your positive bullshit are gonna get me killed one way or another.”
She rose and began to drag the cart westward, towards the Amish store.
“Come on, Pollyanna,” she called back. “Let’s see how far we can make it before we have to stop and lay down in a ditch to die.”
Standing and dusting off my pants, I felt a smile grow. Obviously, GeeMah had told her the tale of the always optimistic young girl she’d mentioned. Somehow, that one name made me feel happy.
Later, I would know just how stupid Pollyanna and I were.
We rested outside of our back porch. That was mostly because we didn’t have the energy to take on the steps and pull the back door open.
“Well, that was a magnificent idea,” Sunshine groaned, her head between her bent knees. “Either I’m the stupidest person alive for believing what you said, or you are for saying it.” She paused to pant several times. “I’ll decide sometime before I die tonight.”
I scratched my head, wondering if we had given up too easily. Maybe we didn’t give up, really; perhaps our survival instinct saved us.
“Did we even make it halfway there?” Sunshine quipped. “I really think we got halfway.”
Sighing first, I snuck a peek at my friend. “Mr. Hulton’s gate is only a half mile from our place. Even taking the road like we did, I don’t think it’s any further than three quarters of a mile.”
That got a snort from her. “You mean to tell me we only walked a mile today? Hell, it feels like I ran a maratron.”
I felt a smile grow. “Marathon,” I replied, considering going inside. With no burst of sudden energy, I decided to stay seated. “A marathon is twenty-six miles. There is no such thing as a maratron.”
“I don’t give a shit what you call it,” she barked. “Feels like we walked a helluva lot further than one measly mile.”
I thought about keeping my reply to myself. “And yet that’s how far we made it, one measly mile… or thereabouts, Sunshine.” So much for holding my tongue.
“They saw us, ya know,” she added. “Hulton’s whole clan saw us. Now, they all know what a pair of losers we are.”
Again, I considered not replying. But, again, I just had to. “Bully for them. I don’t think that’s news to anyone over there. We’ve been the biggest sponges this area has ever seen. We produce nothing and take all we can. We aren’t even decent friends because if we were, people would come to see us.”
Somewhere on the way back from our failed mission, my mood turned dark. We needed to get to the store. We desperately needed more food. But we couldn’t even make the four-mile round trip to take care of our needs.
We were going to die. The worst of it was we deserved whatever we got.
“How much food we got left?” Sunshine asked, sounding more like a whining child than a young adult.
“Not enough,” I answered bitterly.
“We gonna live a week?”
“Oh, we’ll probably linger for a while,” I replied, pushing away from the step so I could face her head on. “We have maybe three or four days of food remaining. And that’s if we eat one small meal a day.”
I cupped my cold hands together and blew a warm breath inside of them. “After that, I don’t know,” I continued. “Maybe Mr. Frederickson will show up soon. Perhaps he can take us to live with his relatives. We’ll have to work hard to earn our keep, but we’ll do what we have to.”
She looked at me with a funny expression. I wondered what she was thinking. And I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long.
“You could always go to Hulton and extend Walker’s contract. Have you considered that anymore, Abby?”
I bristled at the idea and her not-so-sudden change of heart. “We’re not that desperate yet.” I held a hand out to help her up. “Not yet.”
She opened the back door and paused.
“You sure could have fooled me,” she whispered.
Chapter 65
A day later, hope further died. The wind had picked up during the night. We could hear it rattle the windowpanes in the bedroom and all throughout the house. Even with the fire burning in the living room stove, we could still feel the dropping temperature invade the house.
I awoke the next morning to too much light. Though I believed it was the still howling wind that woke me up, it couldn’t have been much earlier than my normal rising time. When I slid from under the covers, the room felt cold, almost as if the fire had gone out.
I dashed to the stove and threw in several large hunks of oak. The heat right near the site was fine; it was the rest of the room that felt frigid.
Pulling open the blind on the door that overlooked the garden, reality slapped my face… harshly.
“No,” I moaned. “Please, God, no.”
The world outside had been transformed into a winter wonderland. At least a foot of snow had piled up while Sunshine and I slept. And it was still falling, being pushed around by winds that had to be in the 30-mile-per-hour range.
I lost every last bit of hope I had managed to cling to, staring at the snow.
The wind blew stiffer, and I lost sight of the garden. It was a blizzard all right, one that just might signal the end of Sunshine and me.
I didn’t bother waking Sunshine. She’d see the disaster outside when she saw it. I guess I really wasn’t in the mood for the tantrum and doomsday words that would follow.
I knew what this meant. I knew it right away. The one thing that couldn’t happen on the road to our survival had happened. Nothing I could say or do would change a thing. The same went for Sunshine.
When she finally rose, she stared for a while at the scene without uttering a word. I had expected a vulgar tirade; instead, I received silence. Perhaps she was building up to something, or maybe she just wanted me to hear the wind continue to howl.
When she finally turned away from the window, she joined me on the couch, squeezing my hands tightly.
“You got a plan, don’t you, Abby?”
Good Lord. Was she finally insane?
“I most certainly do not,” I countered in a nearly hysterical tone. “This was the one thing we didn’t need. Now, we’re truly cut off from any further supplies.” I softened slightly. “For a while, at least.”
She pondered and nodded, nodded and pondered. “Storm like this will blow out in twenty-four hours, right? After that, we should be okay, right?”
What I wanted to do was rise from the couch, go find a sharp knife, and slit my throat. Instead, I considered her strangely optimistic questions. Well, that and the fact that none of our cutlery was sharp enough to peel a potato, much less do the job.
I rose and began to pace. “After a storm like this, it usually clears off in a day or two.” At least, that’s what I recalled from previous winters.
“And the winds die too—right, Abby?”
My God, something had changed with this girl. Typically, she saw the dark side of sunshine; here, she was looking for any ray of hope she could find. I found the change in attitude both refreshing and troubling.
“Yes,” I answered, holding up a single finger to stop any response. “But the winds are blowing in straight from the north. That means it will be cold for a while until a new weather pattern takes hold. So we could be stuck for a week like this.”
She nodded several times and stared at the stove. “We got more than enough wood to last a week. Food will be a little tight, but we’ll have plenty of water now for a while.” She glanced at me, trying to put on her best face.
“I ain’t ready to give up, Abby. Not yet.” She stood and wrapped her arms around my waist from the back. “We can make it a week. And who knows, maybe it won’t be all that cold in a day or two, when the sun comes back. As far as we know, it’s only early December. There could be plent
y of warm weather still. Hell, this snow could be gone in a week, right?”
She had a good point. Many times in the past, early winter snows disappeared as quickly as they fell. Perhaps this was another small, short setback. Maybe Mr. Frederickson would show up and save us in our greatest moment of need. Perhaps he was on his way right now, sensing through prayers that we were in trouble.
Or maybe this was the end. And we were both too foolish to see it.
Chapter 66
My fingers began to cramp as the blood left them. I tried to flex them, but the tight balls clung to the side of my coat. Wearing two pairs of gloves barely kept the cold away. And I was standing inside my home, in the only heated sealed-off room.
I glared at the thermometer. It had to be wrong. It had to be.
“GeeMah always said a watched pot never boils,” Sunshine chirped from the couch. Wrapped in two blankets, I could see her breath as she spoke.
“Did GeeMah have a plan when your back and front doors were drifted over with packed snow?” I countered in a bitter tone. “A plan that included something other than burning possessions to stay warm? Because if she did…” I turned and faced Sunshine. “Because if she did, I’d really like to hear all about that plan.”
Sunshine pulled the blankets tighter around her face and refused to look to me.
“Did GeeMah have a plan for when the food ran out?” I continued. My diatribe had been building for four days; it was time to release it… while I still had the breath in my lungs to do so.
“We have one meal left, Sunshine,” I cried. “One small, meaningless meal. And then our food is completely gone. We’re about to be reduced to water and water alone. So unless you have something pertinent to report from GeeMah, I’d prefer you keep your quips to yourself.”
I turned back to the window, letting my head fall against the cold glass. At least it still felt cold; that was good, I figured, because it meant my body temperature was more than the minus 12 it was outside.