Raven Meadows's Arc

Chapter 4 of 25

Three mornings after Finn arrived, Raven opened the food cabinet and counted. Two jars of beans. A sack of oats gone half to dust. A knot of dried herbs. She'd stocked for two, and now three ate from it. At this rate the shelves would be bare by week's end. She shut the cabinet before the pup could see her face. Finn stood by the hearth, book under his arm. "I heard the jars," he said. "There's not much." "There's enough," Raven lied. "No there isn't." He said it plain, no drama. "I can go. One less mouth." "Sit down," Raven snapped. Then, softer: "Nobody's going anywhere. I fix problems. This is a problem." Her eyes went to the window. Behind the cottage stood the old green house, its wood weathered gray, vines crawling up the glass. She'd used it for storage and nothing else. But glass held warmth. Glass grew food. She'd been too busy failing at huts to see it. "Come on," she told Finn. "You want to earn your keep? Earn it." Inside the green house the air was warm and damp. Broken pots lined the shelves. Dead vines hung from the roof beams. But soil filled the beds, and light poured through the dusty panes. Raven pulled the herb bundle from her pocket. Seeds still clung to the stems. Finn worked without being told. He hauled out the dead vines. He stacked the good pots and threw the cracked ones aside. When Raven knelt to turn the soil, he knelt beside her and dug with his hands. "You've grown things before," Raven said. "My mother did." His sentences got short. He didn't finish. By midday they'd cleared three beds and pressed the herb seeds into the dirt. It wasn't food yet. It wouldn't feed them tomorrow. Raven wiped her hands and knew it. That was when the knock came at the green house door. A small green fellow stood there, curly hair, gray horns curling back, a fluffy tail swishing behind him. He carried a basket. Roots, wild onions, a wheel of hard cheese. "You're the fire," the gnome said, echoing Finn's own words. "I trade. Herbs for food. Willow said your cabinet had pamphlets and cures." He peered past her at the fresh beds. "You grow, I bring. Every week." Raven stared at the basket. A steady supply. Not a handout, a trade, the kind she could take without choking on it. "You grow medicine here," the gnome said, "and half the marsh will feed you for it." Raven looked at the beds, then at Finn, dirt to his elbows, watching her decide. "Deal," she said. She carried the basket inside and filled the empty jars. The green house would feed them now, and more than them. Word would travel. More would come knocking. And she still had three broken huts and no bed to offer a single one of them.