William Rosewood's Arc

Chapter 14 of 20

The dry logs by the hearth lasted eight days. William counted them each morning and each night. On the ninth day, six remained. The wet rows under the pine boughs stayed dark and heavy. He pressed his thumb into a log and the wood gave. Not ready. He had done his sums a dozen times and got the same answer. Two weeks of wood, and winter was longer than two weeks. He went out to the stump where the axe stood buried. He looked past the yard to the bare oak and the stripped pine. No easy fuel left. He had cut everything close and burned through it. He worked the axe loose and split the last dry rounds smaller, so they would catch faster and waste less. It was not enough and he knew it. Eddie came to the stump with Tommy behind him. Eddie carried nothing. He watched his father split wood, then spoke plainly. "You can't get more wood. There isn't any close." William did not answer. The boy was right, and softening it would not change the count. Tommy crouched by the split pieces. He turned one over and looked at the pale, split face. "Green wood won't burn," he said. "But we don't need it to burn all day." He stopped, then went on. "The old house holds two hearths. We only feed one." William set the axe down. He looked at the stone house, at the single fire Cecily kept. Two fires ate twice the wood. One fire, in one room, ate half. "We close off the far room," he said slowly. "Move the beds to the hearth. Burn one fire, hot, and let the stone hold it." Eddie nodded. "Stone stays warm after the fire dies. You taught me that with the wall." He said it flat, but he looked at his father when he said it. They worked through the short day. William hung a heavy cloth across the far doorway to trap the heat in the small room. He and the boys dragged the beds close to the hearth. Tommy stacked the split green wood near the fire to dry through, the way his father dried the last dry logs. Cecily moved the children's bedding without a word and set the pots by the stones to hold their heat. By dark the small room was warm. One fire filled it. The stone walls took the heat and gave it back. William counted the wood again. Six dry logs, and the wet rows drying slower behind them. But one fire in one room stretched two weeks toward four. Long enough, maybe, to reach the thaw. He carried an armful of green wood inside to dry. Tommy watched the fire hold and said, quiet, "The far room's cold now. Ralph's water froze in the trough this morning. The pigs." William stood in the warm doorway and thought of the animals in the sty, and the cold pressing in on them too.