Long after the sun had gone down, I still sat on my bed, bored. I’d taken the pain pill, but with several of the men in the building, I couldn’t bring myself to turn off the lamp and sleep. Not until Mary returned, anyway. Then, as if my thoughts had conjured her, I heard her yell my name.
“Up here!” I called.
Her steps were light and barely audible on the stairs. The door opened a moment later.
“Come see everything we’ve found.” Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed, and I was sure it wasn’t because of what they’d brought back. There was a dark spot on her neck, a kissing mark.
I grabbed the lamp and followed her.
“It’s an odd collection of things, but I think we found some amazing pieces.” She paused at the bottom of the steps to wait for me.
From above, I heard Thomas’ door open and fought not to roll my eyes.
I’d returned to the bedroom after a very long, very uncomfortable afternoon shadowed by him. Even in my room, I hadn’t been free of his presence because seconds after I’d closed the door, I heard his door close, too.
“I’m glad it wasn’t a wasted trip,” I said, hurrying to get to the common room. I didn’t want to linger in the gloomy hall with him not far behind me. I pushed through the doors, then stopped.
Mary hadn’t exaggerated about what they’d found. An odd assortment of items littered the area. I set the lamp on the table and walked further into the room. Some of the taller objects cast shadows on other objects. It was definitely too much to go through with the poor light of night.
“Wow, Mary. How did you get this all back?”
“Winifred asked a few others to help us.” She moved further into the room and patted a large looking metal upright chest. “This is an old refrigerator. We can use it for storing food. Nothing will be able to get to it.”
What did she think would try to get to our food?
“And this,” she said, tapping something else big and metal and partially hidden in the refrigerator’s shadow, “will come in handy for cooking.”
I moved closer and grinned when I saw the old-fashioned stove. I vaguely remembered my grandparents having one like it. The metal beast had two doors and two removable plates on the cook surface. The smaller door, I knew, was for wood. When lit, it would heat the oven that was behind the second door and the cook surface above. It would also help heat the room. Mary had just made life much easier.
“That is totally amazing,” I said. Most older people, like my grandparents, replaced these things years ago with gas stoves.
“And check this out,” she said, waving me over to a small, potbellied stove. “This is for your room. In winter.”
I didn’t miss her use of the word your, however, I pretended to.
“I can’t wait to look at the rest of it tomorrow when we have better light.”
Mary nodded excitedly, said goodnight to Gregory, grabbed my hand, and practically dragged me from the room. I managed to take hold of the lantern on our way past.
As soon as we closed the door to our room, she grinned at me.
“That was the best evening of my life. We talked about everything. Did you know that he’s Thomas’ cousin? He’s only four years older than me—that’s a relief—and said he wouldn’t mind living here if that’s what I wanted to do.”
“He does seem pretty sweet,” I said, returning her smile. “I’m very excited for you. How much longer are you going to make him wait?” I just wanted to know when I’d be sleeping in this room alone.
“He asked the same thing today. I don’t have a set time. When it feels like it’s time, I’ll tell him.”
I nodded, kicked off my shoes, and crawled into bed with a yawn. Now that she was back, the need to sleep kicked in with full force.
“Good night, Mary,” I said softly.
She turned down the lamp. Mary saw better in the dark than I did, and there was less of a chance of her bruising her shin on her way back to the bed.
I closed my eyes and listened to her settle under her covers.
“Did you have a nice day with Thomas?” she whispered.
I didn’t answer. It wasn’t because I didn’t trust Mary with the truth. I did. But I didn’t want her to feel bad that she’d had such a great day when my day had been so awful. Plus, I had a suspicion that Thomas was in his room already. I didn’t want him to hear what I had to say.
“Good night, Charlene,” she whispered after a moment. “I hope you have a better day tomorrow.”
A smile curled my lips. Mary was smart.
****
The amazing mounds of goods that crowded the common room looked even bigger in daylight. There were small and large tables, chairs, dressers, cabinets, toys, lamps—not the gas kind—pieces of metal I couldn’t identify, bags filled with things—it looked like clothes—a pile of random tools, and many other odd items. None of it was in good condition. After Mary’s excitement last night, I’d expected a bit better than what I saw. Though, the stove totally was a find.
Paul, Henry, Gregory, Grey, and Mary watched me study everything. Through the open door, I listened to the thwack of the ax and the crackle and crunch of breaking wood.
“Okay. Let’s store the tools in the other building.” Mary and I hadn’t yet explored it, but it looked like it was in as good of repair as the main building. “Maybe take a table out there, too, so we can take stock of what tools we have.”
Thomas opened the door and asked for volunteers. A rush of men fought to crowd into the room. Thomas didn’t appoint someone to move the tools but looked at me. His deference puzzled me.
“Can you two start carrying the tools to the other building?” I said, pointing to two men toward the front of the group. “And you two carry a table over? Then maybe the four of you can organize them and tell us what we have?” I said everything as a question because I didn’t want to sound bossy. The four I pointed to nodded and got to work.
“Can everyone else grab the furniture and move it out to the yard? The stove and the old refrigerator can stay in here.”
Within minutes, the room was cleared of everything but the odd items and the bags. I sorted through some of the oddities and found several old window frames still with whole glass.
“If they don’t fit, I thought we could cut the glass to work in some of the windows here,” Mary said.
“Perfect,” I said with a smile. “Anton could probably do that since he helped us before.”
She shook her head. “He left yesterday.”
I gave Mary a puzzled glance.
“There was no point in staying. He already had his chance.”
“Then why is… never mind,” I said. I didn’t want to know why Thomas was being exceptionally persistent.
She gave me a knowing grin. “I’ll see if someone else is willing to come in and help with that.”
“Before you do that, what’s in the bags?”
“Clothes,” she said, confirming my suspicion.
“From the junkyard?”
“Yeah. Just as we were coming in, some church group was leaving. They had a sale and brought what didn’t sell along with some of the stuff they didn’t think was good enough to put out. We took the bags before they hit the gross stuff. Wini said that even if some of the items are stained, spare clothes are better than no clothes at all.”
I agreed.
“Let’s carry these outside before we check out the furniture. Maybe someone will be willing to help us sort the clothes.”
Four hours later, everyone seemed to have something to do. Two work groups divided the yard. On one side, men chopped or just broke the deadwood into smaller pieces and stacked it where the old shed used to stand. The other side of the yard, cleared of everything but the tables, functioned as a general work area.
The men surrounding two of the tables sorted clothes into gender and size, adult vs. child. When a folded stack grew too tall, the man would carry it to the front entry where another table was setup to hold everything. Only a few very tattered pieces were on the ground beside the table. Most was salvageable; I’d even found myself a pair of cotton shorts and a soft top to sleep in.
On several other tables, men worked to fix some of the odd items the group had brought back. The intent was to take those things to town and sell them the next day. The tools and the paint that were brought back from the dump came in handy at those tables.
As Mary and I moved around the yard to answer questions or help as needed, Thomas, Gregory, and Grey shadowed us. They never spoke a word. Gregory’s presence, I understood. He rarely took his eyes from Mary and growled at any man who looked at her for too long. Thomas and Grey puzzled me, though. I couldn’t be sure if they were watching me or just listening to what I was telling the men to do.
Seeing everything well in hand, Mary and I went inside to start a late lunch. Our shadows came with us. Three cleaned rabbits waited on the table.
“Dad and Paul went hunting,” Mary said, eyeing them with me.
“The rabbits are perfect. We should be able to make a stew for the group outside,” I said, moving to the pump. While we started to fill a pot with water, the three men moved around the new cook stove. Their quiet conversation was lost over the noise of the pump.
“Excuse me,” a voice called. I looked up from the pot to see a man and woman standing in the doorway. Though they were clothed, they were filthy, and the woman was very pregnant. The man wasn’t looking at me, but at Thomas.
“We heard about the changes here. My Mate wants to stay until the cub is born, if that’s all right.”
I didn’t give Thomas a chance to answer.
“Of course,” I said, dropping the handle and moving toward the couple. “My name is Charlene, and this is Mary.”
The man glanced at Thomas once more before his gaze settled on me.
“This is Ann, and I am Leif.”
“Mary, would you be willing to show Ann and Leif to one of the fixed rooms, and maybe Ann would like to pick a few things out from the stuff you brought back.”
Mary nodded and happily chatted with Ann as the three left the room. I turned toward Thomas. He watched me with an odd expression, not angry… more like confused.
“How long will it take to hook up that stove?” I asked. “Ann will probably want a hot bath and that stove will make the job a lot easier.”
“We need some kind of pipe to vent the smoke,” Thomas said, stating what I’d already guessed.
“Gregory, did you see any pipe at the junkyard?” I asked.
“We brought some back,” Grey said. “It should be around here somewhere.”
“See if you can find it and get the stove working. I’ll keep fixing lunch.”
I didn’t wait for them to answer but turned toward the rabbits. We needed to make the food stretch. It wasn’t something I was used to doing. I lugged the heavy pot to the fire and set it on the hook there. Then, I went back to the table and started cutting every bit of meat off the rabbits. After covering the meat with a cloth, I tied the carcasses into another piece of cloth. I tossed that bundle into the water.
“What are you doing?” Thomas asked from across the room.
“Making a broth for a stew base. My mom never used a shirt, but it should work the same and keep the little bones out of the stew while adding flavor.”
He didn’t ask anything else, so I turned back to our supplies. We had pasta, dried beans, rice, and canned vegetables. The beans would need to be soaked. And, even if I used the canned vegetables, I needed the carcasses to boil for a while before adding the meat.
“This won’t be ready until closer to dinner,” I said with a sigh. “I don’t know what to feed everyone for lunch.”
“Charlene,” Thomas said, turning me away from the table. I hadn’t realized he’d crossed the room. “We’ve fed ourselves our whole lives. You only need to worry about feeding yourself.”
He was back to studying me, again.
“You need to stop thinking like that,” I said. “Each individual only thinking about themselves… it’s not helping. Winifred and Mary said your race is dying. Stop looking at your little groups as isolated families and start seeing the big picture. You all need to work together to find a way to survive. If you want to survive.”
His expression never changed while I spoke. I wanted to shake him to see if he was still alive, and maybe, because he frustrated me a bit.
“Don’t you see?” I said with exasperation. “It’s not you who will suffer the most, but the generations after you, if you don’t change your ways.” He still gave no indication he understood me. I turned back to the table. “I need to get something ready for Ann to eat.”
“Whether you know it or not, you were meant to come here,” Thomas said. “We won’t change on our own. But maybe you will change us.”
He walked away before I could glance back at him.