Adrian Silvercrest's Arc

Chapter 19 of 23

The morning after the apology, Adrian stood at the cottage door and looked at the clearing. The woods pressed close on all sides. The pantry held half a sack of flour and three onions. Whatever they ate now, they would have to make. He went out with Aldric before the sun cleared the trees. They marked a square of ground behind the cottage and cut the sod in strips. Aldric's hands were not made for a spade. He blistered by noon. He did not stop. "How deep," Aldric asked. "A foot," Adrian said. "Dan told me a foot." Elara came out with Hope wrapped against her chest and a basket on her arm. She knelt at the turned earth and pressed seeds in with her thumb. Peas. Beans. Turnip. She counted rows out loud so Eric, sat on the blanket beside her, could hear the numbers. The well was a quarter mile through the trees. Adrian walked it four times a day with two buckets on a yoke. His shoulders burned by the third trip. By the end of the first week the path was worn smooth from his boots. Aldric built snares from cord and bent hazel. He set them along the hedgerow where wild hens roosted. The first three days he caught nothing. On the fourth morning he came back with two brown birds by the feet and a nest of four eggs held in his hat. "Four," he said. He set the hat on the table like it was glass. Elara laughed. It was the first laugh in the cottage since they had run. They fell into hours. Adrian hauled water at dawn and again at dusk. Elara weeded the rows with Hope tied to her back and Eric pulling at her skirt. Aldric checked the snares and split wood. At night they ate what the ground and the traps had given them, and it was enough. One evening Adrian came in from the well and found Elara on the floor with Eric. She was shaking a bright wooden rattle over him, the beads inside clicking. Hope lay on the blanket beside them, reaching for the sound with a small glowing hand. Aldric sat against the wall, watching, a cup of water forgotten in his fingers. Adrian set the buckets down. He crossed the room and sat on the floor with them. Elara handed him the rattle. He shook it. Eric grinned. Hope's palm dimmed as she turned toward the noise. "We made it," Elara said. She was looking at Adrian. Not past him. Not through him. At him. "We made it," he said. He leaned across the children and kissed her. She kissed him back. Aldric set the cup down and moved to sit against Adrian's shoulder. The four of them stayed on the floor a long time. The cottage held them. The garden would feed them. Adrian had what he had wanted. He knew it, sitting there, with dirt under his nails and her hand in his.