Grampy Fernside's Arc

Chapter 1 of 16

Grampy Fernside knelt in the dirt and pressed a finger into the bare row where his beans should have been. Nothing. Forty years he had grown food from this patch, and this season the soil gave him three sprouts and a lot of brown. His wife had tucked a pink flower and a yellow flower into his beard at sunrise, the way she had every morning of their marriage. Tonight was the night he meant to start over. Somewhere in the back of his shed, behind the trowels and the twine, was a tin he hadn't opened in years. Inside the tin was a single packet of seeds for a bloom most gnomes thought was gone for good. Their anniversary was coming. He wanted that flower in her hands. He stood and brushed his knees. The shed sat at the edge of the garden, a round green door set into a grassy mound. He had built it himself the year they married. He walked over and pulled the door open. The floor was a disaster. Seed packets lay torn across the boards. A burlap sack leaned on its side, gnawed through at the seam, birdseed spilling in a wide fan. Paper labels he had written in his own hand forty years ago were chewed at the corners. He crouched and picked one up. The ink was smudged but readable. He set it on the step and picked up another. He had been finding this mess for four mornings now. Whatever was coming in at night was working its way deeper into his shelves, and the tin he needed was on the lowest one. He dragged a picnic table out of the shade and set it in the sun. Moss clung to its legs. He carried the packets out in armfuls and began sorting: beans here, herbs there, anything unlabeled in a pile of its own. He worked until his back hurt. Then he set a trap. He tipped an old clay pot onto its side, propped the rim with a twig, and trailed a line of seeds underneath. He sat down on the bench to wait. The chipmunk came at dusk. He was small and orange and walked straight past the seed trail without stopping. He climbed onto the picnic table, sat on his haunches, and looked at Grampy. "Your trap is insulting," the chipmunk said. "I'm Togg. The shed's on my run. Has been since before you sorted anything." Grampy folded his hands on the table. "I need what's in that shed. I'm growing a flower for my wife. One packet. Lowest shelf. After that you can have the birdseed." Togg's tail twitched once. "One packet. Then the sack is mine. And the shed stays open at night." "Done," Grampy said. Togg dropped off the table and was gone. Grampy walked back to the shed in the blue light and knelt at the lowest shelf. The tin was there. He lifted it out and held it in both hands.