Ellie Monroe's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Ellie Monroe stood on the collapsed porch of the mansion her father had left her and understood, for the first time, that a corner office had taught her nothing useful. The letter from the lawyer named the place a woodland manor. Ellie saw only broken planks and a front step that sagged like a bad tooth. She had traded her ad job and her city life for this. She wanted to make it the coziest handcrafted retreat in the woods, write her romance novels here, and maybe, someday, find her own. Right now she couldn't even walk safely to her own door. The movers had dumped her furniture in the yard. Her boxes sat in the grass beside her old suitcase, still held shut with twine. A vase of purple and pink tulips leaned against a crate, a housewarming gift she had no wall to set them on. Night was coming. She needed the porch fixed enough to reach the door, and she needed heat. She found a rugged tool box near the front stones. Inside lay a saw, an axe, matches, and a bundle of kindling. She lifted the axe by its yellow handle. The weight surprised her. Ink still stained her fingers from signing the deed that morning. Ellie dragged a fallen porch beam into the yard. She set it on end, raised the axe, and swung. The blade skidded off and buried itself in the dirt. She swung again. The wood barely dented. Her silk scarf slipped loose and she yanked it off, breathing hard. She stopped fighting the wood and looked at it. The beam had a split running down its grain, a natural weakness. She remembered every ad campaign she ever ran had worked the same way. You didn't force the market. You found the crack and pushed there. She set the axe blade in the split and struck. The beam cracked halfway. She struck the same line again and it broke clean. Ellie laughed out loud, alone in the trees. She worked the split boards for an hour, splitting each along its grain until she had an armful of rough planks. She hauled them to the porch and laid them across the broken gap. She had no nails, so she wedged them tight against the sound beams. She tested her weight, one foot, then both. The boards held. She crossed her own step for the first time and stood at her door. Inside, she struck a match against the box and lit the kindling in the cold hearth. The fire caught. Firelight moved across bare wooden walls and stone. Her first night would be warm. Then she looked closer at the wall beside the hearth. Water had come through the roof and swollen the boards black. A slow drip fell from the ceiling into a spreading stain on the floor. The porch would hold her weight now. The roof would not hold the next rain.