Ellie Monroe's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Morning came gray and damp. Ellie set a pot under the ceiling drip and watched it plink, plink into the water. The stain on the floor had grown overnight. She needed to see the roof, but from inside she could only guess where the water came through. She had to get up top. First she needed a way up. She went out the back of the manor and walked its worn wooden side. Ivy climbed the stone. A window hung crooked in its frame. Then she saw it, leaning where someone had left it long ago: a ladder. She pulled it free of the weeds and knocked the dirt from its rungs. The wood was solid. Whoever stored it had cared for it. She carried it to the low edge of the roof and set the feet in the dirt. She fetched the tool box, grabbed the saw and axe, and tucked her leftover planks under one arm. She wiped her ink-stained hands on her pants and climbed. Each rung held. At the top she got her first real look. The damage was worse than the drip below had told her. A whole section of slate had slid away. Bare boards showed through, black and soft with rot. Moss filled the gaps. She pressed one board with her palm and it gave like wet bread. Water had a clear road straight into her house. Ellie didn't force it. She found the worst board, the one crumbling at its edge, and worked her saw along the rotten line. The bad wood came away in chunks. She cut her planks to fit the hole and laid them across the sound beams. She had no nails, so she wedged them tight, the same trick that held her porch. She pressed each plank down until it stopped moving. Rain began before she finished. Fat drops smacked the slate around her. She worked faster, fitting the last plank over the gap. She climbed down and ran inside to check. The main drip had stopped. The pot below sat still. Ellie let out a breath and laughed. Then she heard it. Not one drip but many, spreading out across the ceiling. Water found the edges of her patch and ran along the old beams. A new dark line crept down the far wall, away from her pot. She had sealed one hole and pushed the water somewhere else. The rot ran farther than she could reach from a ladder. She stood in the middle of the room, rain drumming above, and understood the whole roof was failing at once. Patching would never be enough. She would have to tear it open and rebuild.