Hannah Mitchell's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

The next night twelve travelers came. The one table sat nine. Three stood at the wall with their cups, quiet, waiting for a place that wasn't there. Hannah watched a thin girl press her back to the cold stone and hold her tea against her chest for warmth. The gathering had worked too well. Now the room mocked her, half of it warm and talking, half of it left out in the dark. Hannah could not fit twelve at one table. She could add a second. She thought of the grove cottage again, but she had already stripped it of its best. She needed more than a table now. She needed seats. At dawn she walked back through the roots and mud to the cottage. Inside she found what she had passed over before. Against the shadowed wall stood two chairs, matched as a pair, their backs carved in clean curves. One seat was red, one blue. Both were sound. She rocked them and they held. But two chairs would not seat three, and there was still no second table. Hannah searched the cottage for more and found none. She sat on the blue chair and thought. She had a table already, the long one at the house. If she pulled the bench away, the chairs could fill its place, and she could raise a second surface for the overflow. She remembered the plain planks stacked behind the cottage, wide and thick, waiting to be a top. When the winged horse came she loaded it careful. The two chairs. Three broad planks for a second tabletop. Four sturdy legs she pried from an old bedframe. The horse walked slow through the trees while Hannah steadied the load with both hands. Back at the house she worked through the afternoon. She joined the planks and fixed the legs and stood the new table beside the old. It was rough but level. She set the two carved chairs at its head, red on one side, blue on the other, and lined the bench along the far edge. Two tables now. Seats for a dozen, and room to spare. That night the travelers came in from the cold. Hannah did not point anyone to the wall. She waved them all to the tables. The thin girl took the red chair and folded her hands around a warm cup. An old man dropped onto the bench and passed the honey down. The two tables filled and the talk rose and no one stood alone. Hannah stepped back and counted the seats against the faces. Every guest had a place tonight. But she looked at the door, still open to the dark, and knew more feet were coming. The tables would fill. The house itself was only one room, and one room could hold only so many before the cold outside pressed at the walls again.