10.
~ There was enough to feed an army for months in the cold root cellar. New shelves had been fitted from floor to celling and glass jars stuffed into every available space. All of them neatly labeled in fine, cursive script.
Candles, hardening in their molds were spread out on the work table along with tray after tray of homemade soap.
Arthur leaned over and saw jar after jar of pickles with wild dill weed infused in the mix. He saw blueberries and other fruit that were also well canned for winter.
"Impressive." he nodded to Ariadne as she was looking for a jar of jam for them to eat.
"I'm going to start making apple cider; soon as out apple crop is ready." she sighed.
"It's always nice to feel protected against the winter with plenty of food." he told her as the feeble light of the oil lantern cast gloomy shadows over the well prepared cellar.
It was bone cold here. The floor was like ice and he understood how all this food was so well kept.
"When the flu came, the panic made everyone careless about running their farms and their stock." she explained as she climbed up the rickety stairs. He followed after her into the warm kitchen again. Grateful to be out of the cold cellar.
"Whole families were wiped out. Animals left to starve. It wasn't pretty. No one was really prepared to have so many die."
He wanted to help her fix their light meal, but she was too fast in her work. Her body moving gracefully in the quest for bread and fresh milk for them to drink. All Arthur could think to do was stoke the fire some more. The flames bursting hot and wonderful in the old hearth.
The soft smile on her face was all the reward he needed as she brought out a large glass pitcher of milk that had been sitting in cold well water overnight. She placed the bread from yesterday on the table with the jam and a large knife.
He quickly took his slice she cut for him, skewered it on a fire place poker and started to lightly toast it.
"Tell me about the war." she said as she sat in her rocking chair. Her face softer now with the fire light playing over it. She didn't seem so worried or tense now that they were safely indoors with the fire, warm food and each other.
"It wasn't what I expected when I joined up." he said after a long time. He found he was staring at the flames as if lost in time.
"A lot of cold meals, bad weather. I caught the pneumonia twice and took some wounds that never healed right." he said sadly.
Well he remembered the scars on his chest and legs from where he had been shot and fell. His body left behind in the mud for days till he was discovered by a man and his cart horse. The old man who was digging and robbing from the dead had found him, barely alive. Why he had pulled through, he had no idea.
Naturally, he didn't breath a word of this to anyone. It was an odd feeling to live, when so many others around you had perished.
"I just... it's best to think it happened to someone else." he said at last as his slice of bread was toasted and he gave it to Ariadne.
She grinned slightly as though he had given her an unexpected present and was generous with the blueberry jam she put on it.
"I learned to keep my socks and feet dry. Eat when I could, sleep when I could; never take anything for granted because tomorrow isn't promised."
He turned to her, hoping to see that lovely smile that made her face look like a fairy tale princess, but she looked sadder somehow.
"You must think we're spoiled and easily frightened." she said at last. "After all you've seen and had to do."
"No, not at all." he argued. "Seeing you're loved ones leave this life. Knowing you'll never be with them again, that you're alone. I can't imagine the pain."
"I haven't missed them as much as I thought I would." she confessed. "I just, I guess I haven't thought about it too much. Like it's not real at all."
He opened his mouth to tell her about shell shock. How he felt that the war years, the trenches, the gas, the bombs and the death, had somehow not been real at all. That it was all an elaborately long dream. That he would wake up and think himself a fool for dreaming it at all.
"One day." he said with difficulty. "One day it will become real. You'll feel it and you'll be able to move past it. For now, it's too close to understand."
"No, I understand it." she bit back. Her dark eyes, so enchanting, were full of anger. "I understand how Doctor Fisher had my family buried in the plague pit two miles out of town. How I don't even know where to grieve for my family because I was so weak from digging their graves so that wouldn't happen to them. How Sister Brown was hissing at me from my bed each day that I had caused the sickness. These people became inhuman, Arthur. And, if the flu has come back, it will start all over again."
"Is that why you didn't marry Doctor Fisher's son?" Arthur asked.
He could scarcely believe the words had left his mouth.
She sat back in clear surprise. her face looking as if he had struck her.
"I didn't marry Robert." she said calmly. "Because all of them had changed during the sickness."
Her voice was calm and whispered. Speaking of a trembling hatred that was buried deep inside her.
"It might not be the sickness." he said soothingly. As though he were talking to one of his fellow comrades in arms who was growing scared of the shelling and the fighting.
"What if we're all killed this time?" she said and her voice turned into a sob. "We came so close. Children died in their mothers arms and Sister Brown was saying it was the devil come home to roost. What if there's a panic?"
"Ariadne." he said and took her hand in his.
Her eyes seemed to glitter in the fire light with her tears brimming there.
"If there is a panic, you and I, we'll leave. We'll leave together." he said with raw conviction.
She nodded and he could see her swallow her fears and try to make her face be brave again.
"We'll just leave." he promised agin.
~ The dawn came. It's hateful sun held no warmth in it as a light dusting of snow skittered about.
"We can pick the apples, I think." Ariadne said cheerfully as she readied the breakfast for the family at the table.
"My, we're in a cherry mood." Miles teased her.
"I like apples." Ariadne said. "And think of the money it will bring. Phillipa can have a new dress and shoes with what we can make from selling them."
The little girl looked delighted.
"I want a red dress! I saw a lady in a magazine with a red dress and she looked so lovely!" the girl said eagerly.
"Now, what would Sister Brown say to that?" Helena teased.
"She won't say a thing, the old bat." Miles said bitterly. "She causes more trouble than anyone should."
Arthur was stealing glances at Ariadne again. He couldn't help it but watch as she cooked the bacon and eggs for them. Her face seeming free of whatever was haunting her the night before.
"It's Charlie Hewlett." Cobb said suddenly from his place at the table.
The whole family turned as saw from the window a teenage boy running across the lawn to the back porch from a large window. Apparently in a small town, everyone knew to go to the back door of Mr. Cobb's home.
"Mr. Cobb!" the teenager shouted.
"Ariadne, get the door." Miles instructed and Arthur stood instead so that his new friend wouldn't have to be torn away from her cooking for such a mundane chore of letting someone in.
"Charlie, what is it?" Cobb demanded and stood as the youth barged in out of breath.
"Little Margret Wilkie." he said and Arthur felt the tension in the family build.
"What about her?" Cobb asked.
"She died this morning." Charlie panted. "She was running a fever all night, sweating and had the chills. She had the flu, sir. Just like last year."