Breakfast. I needed breakfast.
After shuffling to the larder, I checked the barren shelves, hoping that—against all logic and better judgment—a miracle had taken place overnight and they’d be more stocked than when I’d inventoried them the day before.
It had not.
They were not.
I lingered in the doorway, swaying as my center of gravity wobbled. Finally I grabbed a tin of dried mint leaves—Sadie had discovered a patch just before the snows had set in, and we’d plundered it bare—and returned to the fire.
I set the kettle on its hook and waited for the water to boil.
Tap, tap, tap.
Tap, tap.
“Sam?” I called out, confusion clouding my senses. My throat felt raw, creaking with uncertainty.
No response.
No, there wouldn’t be. Sam had been gone for months.
Months? That’s can’t be right.
“You know that, Ellerie,” I muttered, trying to ground myself in the present.
It was the tree, it had to be. Once I’d had my tea, I’d walk around the outside of the house and find where the branches scraped. Perhaps I could coax Ezra and Thomas to help me get the ladder from the barn and chop down the offending limbs.
I nodded as the kettle began to whistle.
Yes. Good. That would be what we could do today.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap, tap.
“What is that?” Merry asked, coming into the room.
I hadn’t heard her footsteps on the stairs, but in truth, I wasn’t hearing much of anything over the persistent tap-tap-tapping. Focusing on more than one task at a time felt impossible these days.
“Tree branch, I think. Water is on.” I took a sip, letting the weak brew warm my insides. It would almost be enough to trick my stomach into thinking it was truly full.
“It woke me up,” she said, busying herself with a cup.
I hummed in agreement, oddly pleased she’d heard it too. As the winter had progressed and our supplies had dwindled, I’d often wondered if my hunger had caused me to see or hear things that weren’t truly there. I’d wake from dreams so vividly real that actual life felt dimmer by comparison.
Just last week, I’d dreamed Mama and Papa had returned. I’d spotted their wagon approaching, out the little diamond window in the loft, and raced down to greet them. In the dream, Mama had been healed whole, no trace of burns or scars marring her skin. Papa was smiling and happy and so, so eager for us to meet our new baby brother, tightly wrapped in Sadie’s blanket. But when he pulled back the quilt, a horrible creature lay within the cozy folds.
The baby’s head was bulbous and misshapen, grown too big for his tiny body. He looked too soft, as if his bones had never formed and his skin struggled to hold back the weight of his insides. Strange bumps protruded along his face, like teeth sprouting from the round curve of his baby cheeks. But worst of all, our brother had stared out at the world with burning silver eyes.
“I’m hungry,” Sadie called out, her voice echoing down the stairwell.
“Come have some tea.”
She stomped into the room. “I’m sick of tea.” Sadie had pulled one of the quilts off the bed and wrapped herself into a cotton cocoon. I could barely see her eyes winking from the dark folds. It was enough like my nightmare to send a flurry of shivers down my spine.
“You can have my share of the oatmeal this morning, love,” Merry offered generously.
“That’s just as watery as the tea,” Sadie grumbled, plopping herself in front of the flames. “I’m sick of winter.”
“Keep the quilt from the hearth,” I said. “The last thing we need is another fire.”
Sadie repositioned the blanket and begrudgingly accepted a cup of tea. “Can we go into town today?”
I briefly pictured us waddling across the icy fields. The path had long been buried under steep drifts of snow. Every time we left the house, I worried we’d lose our bearings and wind up freezing to death, caught in an endless sea of blinding white. “What for?”
“We haven’t seen anyone in ages. I miss my friends.”
It did seem forever ago that the Elders decided to close the church and Gathering House, thinking it would be easier to tuck ourselves securely into the safety of our homes.
Easier in theory, at least.
After two months of isolation, we were all feeling the stirrings of cabin fever.
Tap, tap, tap.
Tap, tap.
Tap.
Sadie rubbed at her face. “Ugh, that noise again! What is it?”
“Ellerie thinks there’s a branch hitting the house,” Merry said, polishing off the last of her tea. She stared longingly at the tin of mint before firmly setting the cup aside. “It’ll be good to replenish the firewood, I suppose.”
I nodded grimly.
We’d been far too liberal with our woodpile at the beginning of winter, and now the log shed stood nearly as empty as the larder. Eventually we’d have to wander into the pines in search of felled trees, but biting storms had kept us squirreled away in the farmhouse.
It seemed like this winter would never end.
Tap, tap, tap.
The soft strikes were echoed by louder booms as footsteps sounded across the porch outside.
Merry shot up in alarm. “Who’s there?”
My eyes automatically swept to the mantel, but Papa had taken the rifle with him. At the time it had made sense, but after so many months of being unable to hunt for game or protect ourselves, my nerves frayed anxiously, jumping at every unknown.
The door swung open, and a figure stepped inside, immediately choking the room with the stench of offal and the bite of iron. Three shrieks split the air. Ezra raised his hands to calm us, but they were stained dark red, covered in blood.
“What happened to you?” I managed to gasp.
“Dealing with Bessie,” he said, removing his coat. He glanced down the front of his shirt with a frown, spotting a splatter of blood.
Sadie paled.
“That’s right. Thank you,” I said, suddenly recalling his offer of assistance yesterday. I shook my head to bring focus to my thoughts. I was forgetting too many things lately. “Beef for supper tonight, at least, I suppose.” My stomach rumbled, and I guiltily pushed aside memories of our milk cow’s docile stare.
Merry busied herself making our uncle a cup of tea.