While I was digging, I thought I heard the crunching of fallen leaves like someone or something was walking through the woods behind me. I spun around, half expecting Irv to be stalking me and half afraid that the ghosts had infiltrated my safe zone. I couldn’t see anything out of place and didn’t hear the sound again so I finally went back to digging, thinking that my overactive imagination had just played a trick on me.
Just as I finished my harvest, I heard the sound again, this time making the hair on the back of my neck stand up out of some kind of primal instinct. At first I was frozen in fear, but then a flush of white-hot anger flooded my system with adrenaline. I suppose ‘fight’ won out over ‘flight’ as I subconsciously thought about losing my sanctuary to fear. I stood abruptly and swung around to face where the sound came from, shouting, “Come out and face me, spook!”
A shadow, a movement in the leaves beyond the clearing, caught my eye. I stared at the spot, willing my eyes to bore into the gloom to ferret out my antagonist. Nothing. No movement, no sound.
After a few tense moments, which seemed like minutes, I relaxed, the adrenaline draining from my system as fast as it had came, leaving me weak and unsteady. I sat down cross-legged and put my chin in my hands, still vigilant but not as confrontational. I briefly wondered again if I was losing my sanity.
All of a sudden the leaves parted a bit, and a pair of spooky yellow eyes stared back at me.
Chapter 9
Spook
I shivered slightly, even though I tried as hard as I could to appear strong and stalwart. Suddenly I didn’t care anymore, and I allowed my shoulders to slump, signaling my surrender to the spook whose gaze never wavered nor blinked. I thought how weak I was, giving in so easily, nearly inviting the ghost to take over my soul.
But it wasn’t a ghost after all. After a few seconds, a gray snout appeared, and then a head, a body, all clad in a silky gray coat that shimmered in the sunlight as it crept into the clearing. Soon I knew what it was that had been watching me, stalking me maybe. A dog. Just a dog, a beautiful, lithe, large gray dog. A Weimeraner to be exact. I’d seen them before on TV while watching the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
After gulping down the disappointment of my weakness, I said in a soft and still quivering voice, “Hi, Spook.”
At the sound of my voice, the dog seemed to come alive and it shook with excitement over meeting a friendly soul. He came right up to me and nudged my face with his nose. I completed the greeting by reaching up to stroke his fur and I couldn’t help but chuckle over the tumult of emotions my brain had traversed in just a few seconds.
As I petted his back, I noticed Spook was quite thin, not starving, but his ribs were beginning to feel like an old metal washboard. I reached into my pack and pulled out a tin of Vienna sausages. As I fed them to him one-by-one, forever cementing his devotion to me, I slurped the contents of a jar of home-canned applesauce and laughed as he cleaned up the happy mess on my face.
After our snack, we wandered through the woods together, Spook stuck to my side like I was his long-lost friend. Together we searched for more dandelions and other wild edibles and medicines, finding a few here and there. We were even able to find some milk thistle plants that had gone to seed. I carefully collected the seeds to combine with the dandelion roots for a liver detox tea. I was pleased with myself for finding something to help my family as well as finding a friend to ease my loneliness. Hope filled my body like the rays of sunshine that warmed the chill of the December afternoon.
Before long, my canine companion began walking ahead of me instead of beside me. I followed, believing that Spook was leading me somewhere. We walked for quite a while and I noticed through the trees that the sun was just beginning to slide down the sky toward the west, signaling that it was after noon. I was starting to think about heading back home when we came upon a small cabin in a large clearing in the woods. There was smoke coming out of a small chimney flue on the roof, so I knew someone was living there. Spook seemed to know that too as he went right up onto the porch and scratched at the door while I stood back and watched from the edge of the clearing.
The door opened, but I couldn’t see who was on the other side because it only opened wide enough for the dog to enter. A thin voice said something, but it was too hushed for me to make out what was said or what manner of person was talking. Spook started in but hesitated then looked back at me as if to say, “Aren’t you coming?”
After an expectant pause, which hung in air like an unfulfilled promise, Spook sat and whined, looking from me to the person in the cabin and back again to me. The door creaked open slowly—or at least it was slow in my imagination—and soon I could see an old woman in the doorway. She hunched her shoulders and stared hard in my direction until I apparently came into focus. When she finally saw me, she straightened up and said, “Well hello, young lady. What brings you this far into the woods?”
I swear, visions of Hansel and Gretel and the old witch flashed through my mind, and I almost turned and ran. But I got ahold of my rampant imagination and worked up the courage to speak. After all, she looked harmless enough and this was the 21st century, not medieval times, even though we had been forced to live like it since PF Day.
“I was just out for a walk and met your dog. He brought me here.”
She chuckled, throaty and phlegmy, then coughed a little before answering, “He’s not my dog. He just visits sometimes. Don’t know who he belongs to.”
“Oh. Do you know his name? I’ve been calling him Spook.”
“Spook’s as good a name as any. He looks kind of spooky.” She cackled again. “Well, don’t just stand there, dear, come in and have a cup o’ tea with me. I haven’t had a human visitor for several months.”
As I entered the cabin, my eyes having to adjust to the dim candlelight within, the woman continued to talk, the words pouring out of her mouth like they had been held back too long.
“The last visitor I had was sometime last spring. The granddaughter of my dear friend Vona May came to see how I was doing and to bring me some supplies. You see I’ve been on my own since my dear husband died two years ago. He was such a dear…” She paused and her eyes misted over as she thought of her ‘dears.’ Then she snapped out of it and said cheerfully, “My name’s Fern. What’s yours, dear?”
I was warmed by the fact that she already included me in her ‘dears,’ so I was eager to converse with this sweet lonely lady. “I’m Taylor Smith.”
“Ah, a tinker, a tailor, a candlestick maker…” She laughed heartily at her own joke until she started coughing again. After she caught her breath, she said, “Darn cough. From the wood stove, you know. Anyway, where are you from, dear, and are you lost here so deep in the woods?”
“I’m not lost; I know exactly how to get home from here. Due east.”
“Ah, you from town then?”
“Well, sorta. We’re staying at Owen Smith’s hog farm.”
“I remember Owen. Helen is his wife, right? How are they? Good people, Owen and Helen.”
“Uh, they both passed away recently. My dad was their nephew.”
“Oh, so sorry to hear that, dear. Good people, they were,” she repeated. “Well, like I said, my name’s Fern and I lived in town years ago. I went to school with Owen and Helen. Well, Helen was a couple of years behind us, but I knew her well enough. Sweet girl. Like you.” She smiled warmly at me.
“Thank you.” I blushed. “It’s nice to meet you, Fern.”
“So now tell me why you’ve strayed so far from the farm, Taylor. It must be two or three miles from here. Seems to me you have a story to tell,” she paused slightly, “as do I.”
Chapter 10
Fern
At first I was reluctant to share my story with my new friend, but Fern had a way of drawing me out much like I did with Irv. She was surprised when she heard about PF Day as she had lived without electricity for quite some years and had not had a visitor since before the CME changed the way
the rest of us lived. I told her about my brother and parents but stopped short of telling her about their past drug abuse and current mental issues. My story was compelling enough even without those tidbits. When she asked again why I was so deep into the woods, I answered honestly that I was trying to escape the ghosts of the people who had died. She nodded in understanding and said, “That’s the reason I moved here.”
Fern then started telling me her story.
“My Jack, my dear sweet Jack…” her eyes misted over and she wiped them before she continued. “I knew the day I met him that he was my soul mate. We were in college and we never went a day without talking—either in person or on the phone—since the day we met. Until he died, that is.” She wiped her eyes again and blew her nose into a white cotton hankie. “Jack was a botanist. He called me his sweet bracken—that means fern, you know.” I nodded and the image of Bracken Powell invaded my thoughts, becoming Jack in the movie my mind was making of Fern’s story.
“Sometimes I called him my jackass,” Fern chuckled, “but usually, I called him ‘my dearest’ because he was. We never had any children; never knew why. We wanted them, it just never happened. Anyway, after we graduated from college, we bought a house next door to my best friend, Vona May, who had four children already. Oh how I doted on those children. Years later, they grew up and had children of their own. I’ve stayed close with some of them, especially Vona May’s youngest granddaughter, Lauren, who named one of her boys after me…sort of.” Fern snorted a laugh as she confirmed my dawning realization, “His name’s Bracken. Do you know him?”
“Yes, I do,” I said incredulously. “He’s in my brother’s class.”
“Well, sweet Lauren visits me often to make sure I have everything I need out here. She keeps trying to talk me into moving to a senior apartment where her parents live, but I’ll stay here as long as I can hold out. So far, so good!” She grinned and waggled her eyebrows, making me laugh out loud.
“In return for Lauren’s devotion to me, I teach her about herbal medicines and the old ways of life. I guess that knowledge would come in real handy for people right about now, eh?”
I nodded, more interested than ever in her story, and asked, “How did you lose your husband, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Oh, I don’t mind at all, dear,” she said as she patted my hand. “I was just getting to that part. Jack and I had a marvelous greenhouse where we raised all sorts of plants, from ornamental, to food, to medicinal. When we retired, we sold it to the Littleton’s.”
“Yes, I know Mrs. Littleton. And Lauren Powell.”
“Oh good, have you seen the greenhouse? It was our pride and joy.”
“Yes, it’s a beautiful greenhouse. Mrs. Littleton takes good care of it.”
“That’s so nice to hear, dear. Anyway, Jack built this cabin for hunting and getting away from it all.”
“How did you get the building materials here in the woods?”
“Good question. There’s an old gravel road to the west. It used to come clear up to the cabin, but it’s so overgrown around here now, you have to walk a few hundred feet to get to it. Now as I was saying, Jack bought this land and this cabin for hunting and fishing—the river’s a short hike from here—so we could take mini vacations and practice our love of living in the old way. The more we came here, the more we loved it until we decided to sell our house in town and move out here.” She sighed and smiled wistfully. “But before our house sold, he had a heart attack. I tried to save him, did CPR, and the paramedics got there quickly, but we couldn’t save him. The coroner told me later the attack was so massive that he probably wouldn’t have survived even if he were in the hospital when it happened. I went ahead and moved here because this is where I feel the closest to my Jack; this was our dream, to live together here.” She wiped copious tears from her eyes and face and sniffed into her hankie. “Sorry, dear. I can still feel it like it was yesterday, but it was all of three years ago.”
“I lost my Grammy three years ago too. She was my best friend, other than my brother.” Fern smiled sadly and empathetically, and we sat for a while in silence, lost in our respective memories. I thought that maybe some ghosts were not so bad to carry around with you, especially those of people you really loved.
After a few seconds, Fern perked up a little and said, “Well, how about that tea I promised you, dear?”
Chapter 11
Still
I didn’t make it home until past dark that night, although darkness fell around 5:30 pm at that time of year, so it was probably still early in the evening. Spook escorted me to the edge of the woods but wouldn’t come any further even though I tried to coax him. Just as well though. Who knows what my crazy family would do to my new friend. I told him I’d be back the next day and hoped he understood me so I could find him again.
As I crept past the shed, I noticed candlelight flickering long fingers of light through the cracks around the door. I knew from the occasional clink and clang that Irv was still in there building God-knows-what. I hoped he was building a rocket ship to take him far away from there. Maybe he’d even ask me to go along. But I was pretty sure it was probably some kind of distillery for making moonshine. I decided to stop in and check out his handiwork.
He jumped when I opened the door. With his back to me, he tried to hide his contraption behind his outstretched arms like I would know what it was by looking at it. It just looked like a bunch of tubes and pots and gadgets to me. He looked over his shoulder and when he realized it was me, he relaxed a little but still said rather curtly, “Hey, get outta here, okay? I don’t want Dad to know what I’m doing.”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter; just go, okay?”
“Okay…” I turned to leave but paused before going out. “Can’t you at least tell me what it is? So I don’t worry about you, you know.”
Irv turned around slowly, obviously pondering what to say. At last he said simply, “Something to make life easier. Don’t worry; it’ll be okay. Now go.”
“Still I’d like to know what you’re doing.”
“That’s what it is.”
“That’s what what is?” Irv’s shorthand dialog was getting tiring.
“A still. Now go.”
“Oh…Yes, of course it is.”
As I turned to leave, Irv growled, “Don’t tell Dad.” As if I ever would. Even though Dad used to call me Tattle Taylor, I never tattled on Irv. Or anyone for that matter. Even though I always had so much I could reveal about every one of them.
When I entered the house, I found it dark and quiet. Everything seemed eerily still. In the living room, I was startled by a slight movement. It was Dad sitting in Uncle Owen’s favorite armchair, staring through the moonlit darkness straight at me. He seemed to stare through me though, not really at me, and made no move to recognize my presence. I shivered slightly and instinctively went to Mom’s room to check on her.
I opened the door to find her bony form lying on top of the covers of her bed. She was wearing her thin nightgown even though it was cold, and her face looked like porcelain in the moonlight. My heart and stomach clenched together. Had she died of the neglect she had inflicted upon herself? Had Dad done something to her?
“Mom?” My quivering voice was barely audible, but she heard me and tuned her head slowly to look at me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. The dark circles around her sunken eyes contrasted with the stark whiteness of her emaciated face, making her look exactly like a long-dead skull. She reached out a bony hand to me and I hesitated a moment before taking it.
“Mom?” I asked again. “Are you all right?”
“No,” she said in barely a whisper and then said, more strongly, “Yes, I’m okay. I suppose Dad needs me to cook him something, right?”
“I don’t know. I was just worried about you, Mom.”
She smiled and begrudgingly sat up. “Thank you for always being so sweet. Don’t worry about me though. I’
m not worth the trouble.” She stood and left me in the room, surrounded by my memories of the ever-constant fear of becoming an orphan.
I climbed the stairs to my room, wrapped myself in Aunt Helen’s old hand-crocheted afghan, and cried for the first time in a long time.
Chapter 12
Close
In the morning as I was headed out the door, Dad stopped me. “Where’s Irvine?” he demanded.
“I don’t know; I just got up.”
“Find him.”
I checked Irv’s room and the rest of the house even though I knew where he most likely was. I just didn’t want Dad to know I knew. Also I didn’t want to lead Dad to him, so I pretended to search around outside until I was sure Dad wasn’t watching before heading to the shed where Irv was building his still. As I passed the hog pens, the hogs snorted angrily at me, grunting and squealing their anger at not having been fed yet. That was probably why Dad wanted Irv found; it was now his chore to feed the hogs every morning.
I found Irv curled up in his coat on a pile of rolled up carpet on the floor of the shed. Behind him, the still waited expectantly in a blizzard of dust floating in the sunlight streaming through the sole window. I shook Irv awake and told him Dad was looking for him. He jumped up, shaking the sleep off him as if the dust had settled on him like snow. He shot me a startled look, but I shook my head and assured him, “He doesn’t know I came here.”
All the same, he cracked the door open and looked in all directions before he slunk out, leaving me to my own discretion. I wandered back to the house by a circuitous route, planning my later escape to the woods as I walked head-down.
Teenage Survivalist Series [Books 1-3] Page 33