Scarlett Hopper's Arc

Chapter 31 of 33

By morning the barn was full. Crates stacked to the rafters. Beans, squash, potatoes, onions, tomatoes still warm from the vine. Scarlett stood in the door and counted rows. More than they could eat raw before the food turned. She knew how to grow it. She did not know how to keep it. "We need a curer," she said. John was already at the table with coffee. "Someone who knows salt and smoke. Jars. Whatever the old way is." "The widow," John said. He did not look up. "Two ridges east. My grandfather traded her eggs before the collapse. If she's alive, she knows." "Alive?" "She was old then." Scarlett pressed green on the horn box. Marcus answered green from the barn. She told him the plan through the wire. She would take Maranda and go. John would hold the house. Duke would come with them. Maranda met her at the gate with a pack and a small blade tucked into her belt. The dagger was rough at the edges and sharp at the point, gold-capped at the pommel, the grip wound in red cord. "Found it in the hardware cellar," Maranda said. "Feels better than nothing." They walked the ridge road with Duke ahead. His tail swept left as he moved. He sent Scarlett an image every few minutes: empty road, empty road, a fox, empty road. By midday they came to a low house with a tin roof and a chimney still smoking. An old woman stood on the porch with a shotgun broken over her arm. "Whose girl are you?" she said. "Hopper," Scarlett said. "My grandfather kept bees past the creek." The widow lowered the barrel. "Then you're late by forty years." Scarlett laid it out. A full barn. No know-how. In trade: two crates of produce now, a share of every harvest after, and a room in the new house if she wanted it. The widow chewed the inside of her cheek. She looked at Maranda. Maranda held her eyes. "You cook?" the widow asked. "I can learn," Maranda said. "Good answer." The widow packed jars, salt, cheesecloth, and a crock into a wheelbarrow. On the walk back she and Maranda fell in step. The widow named plants along the road. Maranda named the ones she already knew. By the second ridge they were laughing at something Scarlett could not hear. Duke's tail swept faster. They reached the barn at dusk. The widow took one look at the crates and rolled her sleeves. "Boil water. Wash jars. Cut the tomatoes in halves, not quarters." They worked through the night under lantern light. Salt in crocks. Beans in brine. Tomatoes in jars sealed with wax. Onions braided and hung from the rafters. At dawn Scarlett pressed green on the horn box. The house answered green. Nothing in the barn would spoil now. The widow was asleep in the corner on a folded coat. Maranda had covered her with a blanket.