Elena Moss's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Elena Moss set the last bucket under the worst leak and knew it wouldn't be enough. Her grandmother's cottage had stood at the edge of Sycamorefall for sixty years, and Elena meant to make it the warm heart of this neighborhood again. But rain was coming. She could smell it. The roof above the upstairs rooms had failed in a dozen places, and one storm would rot the floors she had just scrubbed clean. She climbed the ladder and pressed a cracked shingle back into place. It crumbled in her hand. She couldn't move in like this. She couldn't afford a crew either. She stood on the rungs, dark hair stuck to her face, and tried to think of a way out. An old man stopped at her fence. He wore a red plaid shirt and a leather tool belt, and he studied the roofline the way a doctor studies a wound. Harold Winters. She knew him by name only, a retired carpenter from the far end of the lane. "That ridge is going," he called. "Two of those rafters are soft. Patch the shingles and you're still sleeping under a sieve." "I know," Elena said. "I don't have the money to fix it right." Harold rubbed his beard. He looked past her, toward the herb beds along the south wall. Lavender, yarrow, the tall stalks of comfrey. "You the one who grows all that?" he asked. "They say you know healing." "I do." Elena came down the ladder. "Why?" "My wife's been sick three weeks. Cough that won't let her sleep. Fever at night." His voice caught, then steadied. "Doctor in town just shrugs." Elena looked at his hands. They were scarred and steady, a builder's hands. "I can help her," she said. "Thyme and elderflower for the cough. Willow bark for the fever. I'll mix it tonight." "And I'll fix your roof," Harold said. "Rafters and all. No charge." He put out his hand. She shook it. His grip was firm and warm. They worked through the afternoon. Harold tore off the rotten shingles while Elena hauled new lumber up the ladder. He showed her how to sister a cracked rafter with a fresh board. She cut herbs between loads and bundled them on the porch rail. By dusk the ridge was sound and the holes were sealed. The first drops fell as he nailed the last shingle. Inside, the buckets stayed dry. Elena pressed a cloth pouch into his hand. "Steep one spoonful in hot water. Three times a day." Harold tucked it in his shirt pocket. At the gate he turned back, his face tight. "If this doesn't work on her," he said, "I don't know what I'll do." Elena watched him walk into the rain. The roof would hold now. But she had promised a cure she had not yet proven, and a sick woman was counting on it.