Sierra's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The morning after the crossing, Sierra woke to frost on her tent. Her breath hung white in the air. She checked her pack and found only two energy bars and a heel of bread. The woods had turned overnight. Yellow leaves fell in the cold wind. She had days of food, not weeks, and no shelter but thin nylon. If she wanted to build a life here, first she had to survive the coming cold. She broke camp and searched for higher ground. Her plan was simple. Find water, find food, find walls. She walked until she smelled woodsmoke long dead in old ashes. Beyond a stand of pines stood a cottage. The wood was gray and split. The roof sagged under moss, and one window gaped black and empty. A short plank porch had rotted at the edges. Someone had lived here, then gone. Sierra pushed the door. It scraped open on a room full of dust. Inside she found a stone hearth and a rusted iron pot. A shelf held sealed jars, cloudy but whole. She opened one and sniffed. Dried beans. Another held salt. It was not much, but it was more than she had. She carried her tent and firewood inside and built a fire in the old hearth. The flames caught. Warmth spread through the cold room for the first time in years, she guessed. She set her tent near the fire and felt the chill leave her hands. Food still worried her. Two jars would not last. She stepped out to search the land around the cottage. Behind it she found a small pond, its surface calm, reeds bent at the edge. Fish moved in the shallows. A short dock stretched over the water. She could fish here. Near the pond a bush hung heavy with dark berries. She tasted one. Sweet, not bitter. She filled her hat with them. Then a rustle stopped her hand. A small blue creature watched her from the leaves, round and soft, its bright eyes fixed on the fruit. It snatched a berry and darted off. Sierra laughed and let it go. By dusk she had beans soaking, berries stored, and two fish drying by the fire. The cottage held the heat. She had solved the cold. She had food for weeks, not days. But when she checked the far shed, she understood the cost. A crude coop stood there, and inside it a handful of hens still pecked at bare ground. They were thin but alive. Someone had fed them, and not long ago. The jars were not abandoned. The fire ash had been fresh under the old. Sierra stood in the doorway and looked at the dark trees. She had walked into a home someone still tended. She was warm and fed tonight. But this place was not empty, and its owner would come back.