Mr. Silas Mcgruffin's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Silas stood on the porch with the footprints below him and the wind already shifting west. The fog would roll back within the hour. He could see it waiting at the tree line, gray and patient. Whoever had climbed halfway up his stairs was gone into those trees. He needed a name, or a face, or anything he could follow before the fog swallowed the road again. He knelt on the top step. His knees cracked. The prints were small, maybe a child's, maybe a slight woman's. The heel dug deep. Whoever it was had carried weight. He pressed his thumb into the mud beside one print and got nothing back but wet earth. Footprints alone would not tell him who to call after. He went inside and came back with a lantern he did not light. He worked his way down the stairs, one hand on the rail. Halfway down, his boot caught on a loose board. The plank tilted under his weight. He almost fell. He caught the rail and looked at the step. The board had shifted sideways, showing a black gap beneath it. He lowered himself and lifted the plank free. Under the stair sat a shallow hollow he had forgotten he built. Sixty years ago, maybe more. Inside lay a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. He drew it out. The cloth fell open on his lap. A compass. Brass, scratched, the glass clouded at the edges. He knew it at once. He had given it to a traveler who slept one night on his floor during a bad winter. The traveler had a daughter. The traveler had promised the compass would come back one day, in the hand of someone who needed shelter. Silas turned the compass over. The needle swung and settled north, toward the trees where the footprints led. The visitor had left it here on the way up. A calling card. A test to see if he remembered. He did not remember the daughter's name. He reached for it and found the shape of it, a coat on a hook with no one inside. The scar over his eye pulled tight. He stood. He tucked the compass in his coat. He had his answer about who had come, and he had lost it in the same breath. He could not shout a name he did not have. He could only walk. The fog was already curling around the bottom step. The rose on the porch bent its heavy head. Its circle of clean air was shrinking. Silas stepped down onto the wet grass and followed the small prints toward the trees. Behind him, his door stood open on an empty house. Ahead, the fog closed over the road before he had taken twenty steps.