An Unexpected Sanctuary

by Cassie Decker

  Candlelight glows through the windows on the lower level of the house, and the shapes of people move inside. Those must be the other members of his gang. Not for the first time, I wonder what kind of job the man has for us. I wonder too if he’s planning on letting us go once we’re done.

  After pulling us down out of the sleigh, he marches us to the front door. The man knocks three times, and we are suddenly bathed in a rectangle of orange firelight and the scent of spiced cider. A willowy old woman with gray eyes and short salt-and-pepper hair stands before us. She is drying her hands on a poinsettia-print apron but promptly smashes them down onto her hips.

  “Maximilian James, what have you done?” she asks with a dismayed frown deepening the wrinkles around her mouth. She ushers us inside quickly out of the snow and glares at him.

  “It’s just Max, Grandma Bea. How many times do I have to tell you I hate it when you call me by my full name?” He huffs behind us, shaking snow from his collar.

  Grandma Bea is looking Kyle and me over with a concerned expression on her face, and I really start to worry what kind of scenario we have gotten ourselves into. I’m already imagining how we are going to make a run for it if things turn for the worst.

  “I’ll call you by your full name as many times as it takes for you to stop doing foolhardy things!” she admonishes. “What in the world are these boys doing here? And why are they tied up like this?”

  The warmth in the kitchen area where we are standing inside the doorway starts to melt the snow clinging to my coat and hair, but an occasional gust blowing through the room makes me shiver. The breeze doesn’t seem to be coming from the open door behind me but from the room to my right. A wool blanket hanging from the doorframe separating the two rooms flutters, confirming my guess. It is obvious this house is not protected very well from the elements.

  “They’re here to help us with the roof, Grandma. And they’re tied up because I didn’t want them running off before I got them here.”

  I glance at Kyle and see how the cut on his temple stands out starkly, even in the low light. Anger burns through me anew at the thought of Max hurting him. I turn toward Max behind us and narrow my eyes. “You could have just explained the situation.”

  Max shrugs. “I couldn’t take the chance that you wouldn’t agree to come.” He gives Grandma Bea a pointed glance, then starts for the front door. “I have to tend to the horse,” he tells her. “Make sure they don’t get away—we need them.”

  “Come back here and untie them!” she protests, but it’s too late. Max is already outside and slams the door shut behind him.

  I shift my sore wrists in their bindings, and Kyle and I exchange a look. This is undoubtedly so far removed from what I imagined we’d be heading for tonight, but it still doesn’t make the situation any less dangerous. If I’ve learned anything from Kyle’s teachings, it’s to expect the unexpected. In this world we live in, you can never let your guard down because anything can happen. We can’t afford to trust anyone but each other.

  The sound of shuffling feet startles me as a lanky old man comes through the blanket-covered doorway. He is limping along with the use of a wooden cane and has a very sharp-looking pair of scissors raised in his free hand.

  “I’ll take care of it,” he says, making his way closer to us slowly.

  Kyle and I both back toward the front door, and I move protectively in front of him. My brain can hardly comprehend what has conspired the last couple hours to bring us to this point. All I can do is stare wide-eyed at the man walking toward us. Does he mean to hurt us or free us?

  “Oh, give me those before you hurt someone.” Grandma Bea grabs the scissors. “Can’t you see they’ve been through enough already, Harold? You’re bound to give them heart attacks to boot!”

  Kyle lets out a sigh of relief beside me, as do I. These are some of the first people we’ve seen in weeks, and they are already making quite the impression. To her credit, Grandma Bea makes quick work of the ties. I pull Kyle in for a hug as soon as our hands are free. We are both cold and wet, Kyle more so without his jacket, but I hold him tightly. It’s like my body won’t believe he is actually all right until he is wrapped in my arms.

  Bea and Harold let us have our moment, and then Bea becomes a flurry of motion. She scolds Harold for being out of his chair, bundles him under a thick afghan, directs us to sit in front of the fire, starts a kettle going on the woodstove beside the fireplace, and cleans and bandages Kyle’s cut before Max has even come back inside. She offers us dry clothes, but we decline for the time being until we get some answers.

  After pouring mugs full of hot cider for us, she finally sits in an old cane rocking chair beside the fire. The breeze swirls through the room again, and Harold barks a railing cough. I instinctively draw back, so ingrained is the fear of another outbreak. Bea fetches him a second blanket.

  “It’s not what you think,” she says and sits back down. “It’s the damn constant chill going through this house that’s made him sick.”

  Kyle lets out an exasperated huff and sets his mug aside. “Can someone please explain what the hell is going on? Are we really here to fix a roof?”

  “And why didn’t Max just approach us in the daylight instead of dragging us here at night?” I chime in. “His method of finding volunteers for his job is a little unconventional.”

  Grandma Bea stares at the fire for a few seconds. She turns, and her face looks more worn than before, as if coming up with her reply has put more years on her. “We don’t get many folks down this way anymore after the KEX ran its course. Max found this abandoned farmhouse after it all happened and moved us here out of the city. The seclusion has been both a blessing and a curse to us this year. Max has been able to take care of us and keep us safe, but the roof caved in three weeks ago, and he cannot fix it by himself. Harold is far too frail to be moved anywhere else, and my arthritis has gotten terrible in this frigid cold. So Max has taken it upon himself to find the help he needs.” She reaches a hand over to pat Harold’s knee.

  Harold coughs again and casts his eyes down. “Before you two, the last group of people Max approached on the interstate fifteen days ago robbed him of everything he was carrying and took off,” he says, his voice shaky with regret.

  I glance to the hot mug of cider steaming in my hands. No wonder Max had scoped us out first. He was a desperate man trying to protect his family. Still didn’t give him the right to hurt Kyle, though.

  The bandage on Kyle’s temple catches my eye. I slip one hand into my jacket pocket and run my fingers over the watch. I can’t help but think again how the night might have been different if I had told Kyle up front where I was going.

  Suddenly Max bursts through the door in a flurry of cold night air, his arms loaded with a bundle of wood, and startles us all. He stomps the snow from his boots as he walks to the fireplace after kicking the door shut, then stops dead in his tracks when he sees us sitting in front of the woodstove. “You untied them?” he asks incredulously.

  Grandma Bea rises from her chair and grabs a few sticks from Max’s armful. She gives his broad chest a playful poke with them. “Tsk, tsk. I was getting them comfortable in front of the fire. They wouldn’t be much help if they were frozen to death, now would they?”

  Harold hacks and wheezes again, and Max sets the rest of his armful of firewood down to rush over to his side. “It’s okay, Pops,” he soothes with concern wrinkling his brow. The gesture immediately makes him seem less intimidating and a little more vulnerable. He tucks the blanket closer about Harold. “We’ll get this house buttoned up again in no time.”

  Kyle and I exchange a look, and it is clear what we have to do. This family needs us. How could we say no? Especially around this time of year. It is almost Christmas, after all.

  “Okay,” Kyle concedes, and I nod. “We’ll do what we can to help.”

  Max gives us a relieved smile. I return it with a smile of my own, though I know it doesn’t quite reach my eyes; I’
m still not ready to trust him completely yet.

  Later that night, after Grandma Bea sets me and Kyle up in a cramped twin bed in the room next to the kitchen, we have some time alone. I lie with him on the sagging mattress in the clean, dry clothes Bea scrounged up for us and settle my head on his chest. Kyle runs his fingers through my hair, and for a moment, we’re quiet. Ambient moonlight filters through the window, settling faint silver highlights over my coat hanging on a chair in the corner. The pockets are steeped in shadow, but I know what’s still hidden there. I take a deep breath and squeeze a little closer to Kyle on the narrow bed.

  “I have to tell you something,” I whisper, bolstering my courage. “The reason you didn’t see me when Max first broke in was because I wasn’t there. I was off making a present for you. It was supposed to be a surprise. I’ve been working on it for months now, and I wanted to make sure it was perfect before I gave it to you. But I should have been there. I never should have tried to sneak off.”

  The words tumble out of me, and I’m glad there aren’t any secrets between us now, even one as small as this. But I can’t help feel it will make the thoughtfulness of the present I’ve spent so much time on less significant somehow. It’s just like me to screw up something so important.

  I wait for Kyle to say something, but all I hear is silence. He must be really disappointed. I pull back a bit to get a look at his face in the dark, even though I’m afraid to see what expression he might be wearing.

  He’s asleep. As if to really confirm it, his mouth falls open a little, and he lets out a soft, rumbling snore. Did he hear anything I’d just said? I’m guessing that’s a big fat no. I sigh and rest my head back down on his chest. His heart thumps right under my cheek, and it soothes my nerves.

  I consider waking him up, but after the day we’ve had, I can’t bring myself to do it. Besides, I can hardly keep my eyes open much longer. A few seconds tick by, and I drift off to the sound of wind whistling through the eaves, the occasional cough coming from Harold and Bea’s room, and the strong, steady beat of Kyle’s heart.

  The next morning dawns cold and clear, with the clouds and falling snow having moved on over the course of the night. Grandma Bea serves us up a breakfast of oatmeal and, surprisingly, eggs. After we eat, Max gives us a quick tour of the house. It was apparently quite the attraction back before the world all went to hell, and Max tells us he remembers coming here as a kid on school field trips. They used to run a restaurant out of the building and it even had an actual working water mill. This news piques my interest—the mechanics of a water mill, much like that of a watch, are endlessly fascinating. All the pieces must work and move together in perfect harmony to achieve any output.

  I want to ask Max if I can see the mill, but my wish is granted before I can even say anything. He leads us through a door that looks like it’s been sealed around the edges with weather-stripping in an attempt to keep the cold out. The seal has been doing its job as well as it can because the milling room we go into is positively frigid compared to the kitchen. There’s a few chutes leading down from the upper floor where the ground-up grains would have come through back when the mill was working, and a faint dusting of snow covers them where it fell between the cracks in the wooden ceiling during the night.

  We climb up some stairs to the next few levels, past most of the rest of the inner workings of the gristmill as we go: hoppers, pulleys, big circular millstones, and the long pole of the spindle running through each floor.

  Making it to the top of the stairs, I come face-to-face with the collapsed roof I saw outside last night. I don’t know as much about roof repair as I do water mills and watches, but I know it’s not a good thing when you can see the clear light of day through a giant hole in the ceiling. The gap is about six feet across from where the weight of the snow broke through, and two rafters are splintered, one of them busted completely. A blue tarp covers most of the hole, but one corner is ripped and flapping with a breeze that blows in.

  Kyle lets out a low whistle and walks around under the damage with his arms crossed and his hands tucked up into his armpits to keep them warm. He is wearing a coat Harold lent to him since he was brought here without one. “Hell of a cave-in you got there.”

  Max rolls his eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He steps across the wood floor and shows us the supplies he has scavenged in order to do the repair. “I have everything all together to patch it up and keep the building’s integrity in check, but the replacement beams are just too heavy for me to lift alone. I used a hand truck to get them to the back entrance, at least.”

  I look up at the damaged roof and wonder how long it will take us to complete this job. We have come too far on our way to the sanctuary to stop for very long. Not that we have a deadline to get there, but it has been our main objective these last twelve months to make it there someday, and we are closer now than ever. “Are we free to leave once it’s fixed?” I ask.

  “There was news of a safe zone being built in upstate New York right after the KEX hit,” Kyle explains to Max. “We were on our way there before you brought us here.”

  Max shoves his hands in his pockets and stares at us frankly. “As soon as my grandparents are safe and warm again, yes, you can go.” His voice takes on a lower, softer pitch, and I feel bad for my impatient tone of voice. “I shouldn’t have forced you to come here in the first place, but they took care of me and loved me when I had no one else. I have to do everything I can to protect them.”

  I feel Kyle looking at me, and I glance over at him. His eyes are half-lidded and full of meaning before he looks down to his boots and scuffs his toe into the dusting of snow on the floor. Clearing his throat, he looks back up at Max. “Can we start now?”

  Max nods, and we waste no time in getting back down the stairs to grab the beams. We have to go down to the lowest level of the mill that is partially underground to get to the back door where Max moved the replacement rafters. I get to see the final parts to the mill’s mechanism on this floor and notice it’s attached to a turbine system, as well as generator that appears ancient but in good shape. I instinctively stick my hand in my jacket pocket to grab my notebook. My fingers brush over the watch, and my heart skips a beat. I suddenly have a strong urge to give it to Kyle now. I want to tell him what happened last night. But it doesn’t seem like the right time.

  I pull the notebook out but leave the watch in its place. I start jotting down on what little paper I have left a rough outline of the floor plans on the different levels. I also include the mechanisms of the mill in my drawing.

  “Have you ever tried turning this thing on?” I ask Max as he goes out the back door.

  He shrugs, then bends down on one end of a rafter. Kyle is at the other end, and they work together to lift it. I stuff my notebook back in my pocket and rush to the middle of the long piece of wood to help.

  “I have no idea how it works, least of all how to turn it on.”

  We carefully haul the beam to the top level, then make our way back down for the second piece. “You know,” I say, trying to catch my breath after the exertion, “this thing could actually generate electricity. With the amount of water running through the river out back, you could make enough to power this house every day. Every house in the vicinity, probably.”

  Kyle pauses as he hefts his end of the plank. “Really?” he asks with a grin.

  Max just looks at me, dumbfounded.

  “Yes, really,” I reply. A blush tinges my cheeks from the excitement on Kyle’s face. He made the same expression when I showed him how to use the old Victrola record player at the bed and breakfast. “You’d be able to run a refrigerator, space heaters, lights. You know, the works.”

  Max seems to consider my words for a moment, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “I’ll make a deal with you,” he says, hoisting his part of the beam in his arms with a grunt. I grab the middle again. “If you get electricity running to this house, I will give you guys one of my horses to t
ake with you to New York.”

  Now it’s my turn to be dumbfounded. We could get there in half the time with a horse. “Really?” The word tumbles from my mouth. In my surprise I almost lose my grip on the heavy wood beam—so does Kyle.

  Max chuckles and parrots my words. “Yes, really.”

  The next week is a blur of sweat, scraped knuckles, a couple tears, and lots and lots of heavy lifting with Kyle and I going as hard as we can. And that’s just for the roof repair; the mill takes up most of my attention. I help Kyle and Max as much as I am able. But in between experimenting with raising the water levels in the holding pond outside, replacing a handful of worn-out belts on the pulley system, and hand sawing new paddles for the water wheel, I’m barely available for more than lifting up the beams.

  Kyle and I also help Grandma Bea cook meals and gather eggs from the henhouse the couple times Max goes off to scavenge medicine for Harold in the next town over. We muck the horse stalls and learn how to make apple cider as well. There is not a moment where we sit still.

  By Christmas Eve the roof patch is finished, and I have nearly gotten the mill in working order. I am worn to the bone. Did I really used to think walking twenty miles in a day was exhausting? I know now I had no idea what tired really was. I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow tonight, cuddled up and dead to the world against Kyle.

  The next morning, Christmas Day, it is nice and warm in the kitchen now that the roof is closed up again; every room in the rest of the house is too. The tension seems to have loosened since we finished our job. Getting sick from the cold isn’t something to actively worry about now. The medicine Max found has been helping Harold immensely as well.

  Without the constant chill blowing all around, I find it’s easier to think. Sitting down for our usual breakfast of oatmeal and eggs, I make a mental checklist of the last few things I need to do in the mill today, our final day here. I pause with my spoon halfway to my mouth when I suddenly discover I am not as eager as I was before to be off on our journey to the sanctuary in New York. In all honesty, I’ve gotten closer to the tight-knit little family here throughout this last week than I thought I would. I feel a sense of purpose in helping Grandma Bea, Harold, and even Max. I’m sure Kyle feels the same way.