Leo and pisces green's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The storm broke a week after Leo's fever, and the twins turned two weeks old in the rented red house with the walls sweating from one overworked hearth. Leo woke every two hours to feed. Pisces woke with him, angry each time to find his brother already at the breast. Nova counted feedings on her fingers and slept between them on the floor by the basket. Brock stood at the window one morning and watched steam rise off the roof of the bigger house down the road. The chimneys were both drawing. The frame he had cut and joined by hand through the fall was dry inside. He turned from the window and told Nova the house was ready. Nova did not argue. She said, "Today. Before dark." She was already folding the blanket off the basket. They moved in one trip. Brock carried the wood box and the milk crate of clean cloths on the sled. Nova carried both boys inside her coat, one against each side of her chest, and walked the road herself. The wind cut hard at the turn, and she bent her head and kept moving. At the door of the log cabin she stopped and looked up. Seven bedrooms. Two chimneys. A porch wide enough to stack a winter's wood. She stepped inside. The main room smelled of new pine and old smoke from the first fire she had lit weeks ago. She set the twins down on the rug in front of the near hearth and unzipped her coat. Leo blinked at the high ceiling. Pisces started to cry, then stopped, listening to the sound of the room. Brock came in behind her with the sled and shut the door against the wind. He lit the second hearth. Both fires caught. The house held its heat. Nova sat on the floor between her sons and put a hand on each small chest. Leo's ribs moved even and warm under her palm. Pisces turned his head toward the fire. She looked at Brock across the room. "We stay here now," she said. He nodded once. Outside, the road they had come up was already filling with new snow, and the rented red house at the far end of it stood dark and empty for the first time in months.