Blueberry Shroomy's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Blueberry Shroomy set the table upright and gathered the cups. The window still hung open above the sill, its frame splintered where the sprite had clawed its way out. Cold air moved through the room. She touched the broken hinge and felt the wood give. She could not fix this alone, and dusk was coming. She crossed the field to the low stone wall at its edge, where the field handyman kept his lean-to. He was older, gray-bearded, with a tool belt that clinked when he walked. He had patched her roof once, two winters back, and taken payment in berries. She trusted his hands more than his words. "Cole," she said. "My window is broken. I need it closed tonight." He looked up from a length of pine he was planing. "How broken?" "Hinge torn out. Frame split along the top." He set the plane down and reached for his belt. "Show me." They walked back through the rows. She kept her eyes on the east side out of habit, on the three rows where the bruised berries hung. Cole noticed her looking but said nothing. At the cottage, he climbed onto a crate and ran his thumb along the split. "Wood's dry," he said. "I can brace it. Won't be pretty." "I don't need pretty." He pulled a short board from his belt loop and cut it to length with a small saw. He drove three screws through the frame and set a new hinge over the torn one. The window swung, caught, then closed clean against the sill. He tested the latch twice. "That'll hold," he said. "Replace it proper in spring." She nodded. "Thank you." He wiped his hands on his trousers and looked past her, toward the east rows. "Your berries are marked." "I know." "Not birds." "No." He waited, but she offered nothing more. He shouldered his belt and stepped down from the crate. "Bring me a basket when you can. We'll call it even." Then he walked back toward the wall. Blueberry Shroomy stood alone in the cottage. She latched the window and pressed her palm flat against the glass. The seal held. No draft moved her sleeve. For the first time in many nights, her home was closed. She went to the door to draw the bolt and stopped. On the step outside, just below the threshold, sat a single blueberry. Its skin bore a round, deep bruise, the kind she had seen only in the east rows. No tracks led to it. No tracks led away. She picked it up. It was still cool. She closed the door and slid the bolt into place. The window was fixed. The field was not. Whatever had leaned on her berries in the dark now knew the shape of her door.