Small Favors

by Erin A. Craig

  The bridegroom nodded, clearly reluctant to go out into the hailstorm.

  “You’re right, my love.” Parson Briard stood, readying to leave. “Good Blessings to you all…” He trailed off as Rebecca’s words rang sharply in our ears, and he rushed from the church before anyone could return the sentiment.

  “What day is it?” Merry asked, looking up from her basket of mending.

  We were situated around the fireplace, our sewing projects covering our laps as a fierce wind blew outside, howling over the valley.

  I stabbed my needle into the wool that Whitaker had brought from the city. I’d finished making the dress weeks before but was already forced to add pin tucks to the bodice. It hung large around my thinning frame, gaping and catching. Our larder was still full, but I knew it wouldn’t always be and had taken to cutting my share of meals by half. I was always hungry but couldn’t bear the thought that my sisters might be. “Sunday, I think.”

  “No, what day?”

  I thought back.

  Rebecca had married Simon on Tuesday.

  “The wedding was on the eighteenth,” I remembered, and counted from there. “So today is—”

  A sharp knock on the front door broke our conversation. I glanced at the grandfather clock, worry edging into my chest. It was just after four, but twilight already blanketed the Falls. With the weather as fickle as it had been, it was rare to receive visitors so late in the day.

  I set aside my sewing and approached the door. “Who’s there?” I could make out a large silhouette framed in the window of the door, but Mama’s eyelet curtains obscured all features.

  “Gran Fowler.”

  I frowned. The Fowlers lived clear across the valley, their ranch pressed as close to the western border as the pines would allow.

  “I know it’s awful late, but Alice wanted to make sure you all got one.”

  With a twinge of reservation, I removed the iron bolt and opened the door, peering into the inky light.

  “A Christmas blessing,” he said, holding out a wrapped bundle.

  He seemed just as reluctant to cross our threshold as I was to invite him in.

  “Christmas! Today is Christmas?” Sadie’s surprise behind me echoed my own. How had we forgotten Christmas?

  This was usually my favorite time of year—we decorated the house with swags of pine boughs and holly berries. Mama made a punch with cinnamon tea and oranges and cloves, and we’d stay up late as Papa read the story of the first Christmas from our family Bible. There was popping corn and sleigh rides, a dance held in the Gathering House, caroling and ghost stories told in giddy whispers around a single tapered flame.

  But with Mama and Papa gone, I’d forgotten about the holiday entirely, and it seemed most of the town had as well. Cheer and merriment were hard commodities to come by in the Falls these days.

  “Not just yet. It’s the twenty-third today.”

  “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” Merry whispered, and she cast a sharp glance at the calendar as though it had betrayed her. “Christmas Eve and we’ve done nothing to prepare.”

  Sadie dropped her embroidery sampler. “What does that mean? No Christmas? We have to have Christmas!” Her eyes shifted toward an empty corner of the room. “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything, Abigail!”

  “Of course we will,” I said, skirting over the mention of her imaginary friend. My mind raced with how to come up with an approximation of what Mama would do. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Fowler,” I said, drawing my attention back to the large rancher filling our doorway. “You’ve caught us a bit off guard. Please, come in. Would you like some tea?”

  He shuffled his feet before stepping inside. “I can’t stay. Need to get back to Alice before supper. Just wanted to deliver this.” He held out the parcel again.

  I peeked beneath the wrapping. “A chicken!”

  We’d not had chicken on our plates in weeks. Once the Elders had declared there would be no further attempts for supplies, Merry and I had drawn up a list of every bit of food in our possession and created a rationing plan. We’d decided it was more prudent to keep the laying hens alive, however much grain they might eat themselves.

  He wordlessly pushed the plucked bird into my hands.

  “This is far too generous….I’m afraid we don’t have anything to offer in return.”

  “Not asking for anything….We decided—in light of the holiday and all—we ought to share our…abundance.” His eyes shifted away, not meeting mine.

  “Is everything all right, Mr. Fowler?” He looked ashen and miserable.

  “We’re fine,” he started. Then he pressed his hands together, nearly squirming. “There…there was a bit of an incident at the ranch. Alice went out for eggs this morning and, well…all the chickens had been slaughtered.”

  “Slaughtered,” Sadie said, pressing herself against my side with rapt attention.

  “Every last one of them.”

  I tried to not envision the massacre but couldn’t help but imagine it, the yard festooned with bursts of white feathers and sprays of arterial red. “The coop is near the forest edge, isn’t it?” I’d been to the ranch once before. “Do you think the creatures came through the Bells?”

  Sadie’s fingers dug into my thigh, pressing hard enough to leave bruises.

  Gran Fowler shook his head. “Wasn’t the creatures.”

  “How do you know?” Merry asked, her voice hushed with horror.

  “Whoever did it left behind a message of sorts.” He swallowed once and ran his fingers through his hair as if casting back the memory. “A picture, really. Drawn out on the side of the chicken coop with…with all the blood.”

  I leaned in. “What was it?”

  He looked up, directly meeting my gaze for the first time that afternoon. “An eye. A big watching eye.”

  My mouth fell open. Once my mind had added the gruesome detail to my imagining, I couldn’t unsee it. Even when I blinked, it remained, imprinted upon my eyelids, shocking and ghastly.

  He scratched at his beard with a helpless shrug. “We alerted the Elders, but it’s not as though they can truly do anything. Alice suggested we share the birds before they started to turn. She…she wanted to make sure you all got one. We know what a difficulty it must be, not having your ma and pa around.”

  “That’s very kind of you—”

  “Best be on my way. Don’t want to be traveling after dark.” He paused before stepping off the porch. “Merry Christmas to you all.”

  “Merry Christmas,” we repeated perfunctorily. Our voices held no cheer.

  “That’ll need to go into the ice chest,” Merry said, scooping the parcel from me after I shut the door.

  Buttons raced into the room, knocking my sewing project off the settee. It landed perilously close to the fireplace.

  “Get that cat out of here,” I said, scooping up the dress. Sadie chased after him, and the two bounded up the stairs to the loft.

  “Was that Gran Fowler I saw riding off?” Sam asked, coming in. He’d been out in the supply shed, refilling the oil lanterns.

  “He came by to give us a chicken for Christmas.”

  Sam blinked with surprise. He too had forgotten the approaching holiday.

  “Apparently someone slaughtered their entire coop last night.” I folded up my dress, keeping the needle and thread safely stored away within its tucks. I’d have to work on it later that evening. Supper needed starting.

  Sam’s eyebrows furrowed. “Who would do such a horrible thing?”

  “No one knows.”

  “Bet it was Judd Abrams,” Sam said, trailing after me into the kitchen. “Gran borrowed his auger a few weeks back—he was installing some new posts along one of his property lines—and Judd said he returned it with a broken bit. Cracked the point entirely in half but didn’t say any
thing. No apologies, nothing.”

  A piece of broken farming equipment hardly seemed reason to murder an entire coop of chickens, but I didn’t say so.

  “Christmas is in two days,” Sadie announced, bursting back into the kitchen. “Two days! We almost missed it!”

  “We wouldn’t have forgotten Christmas,” I said, grabbing the cast-iron skillet from the hook on the wall. I drummed my fingers along the edge of the worktable, willing inspiration to come to me, but I couldn’t think of anything but fried chicken.

  “We might have,” Samuel told her with a wink.

  “What should we make for dinner?” I raised my voice over Sadie’s cry of outrage.

  Samuel let out a snort. “Why ask? You know it’s just going to be beans and corn bread again.”

  “It’s all we’ve had for weeks,” Sadie agreed. “And you don’t even put the bacon or onions in it like Mama does.”

  “We don’t have any bacon,” I reminded her, releasing a sigh. Our meals had grown staggeringly stale. “Why don’t we do something special for Christmas? A big family dinner, just like Mama would make.” I paused, guilt tugging at me. There was more family in the Falls this year than we were accustomed to. “We could invite Ezra and Thomas. We’ll roast the chicken and fry up some of the potatoes.”

  “That would be lovely,” Merry said, coming in from the cold and rubbing her arms. “I’m sure they’re sick of Violet Buhrman’s cooking by now. And there are still a couple of apples in the back bin.”

  “And cinnamon!” I added. “I’ll bake them, and we’ll have a real feast.”

  Sam’s lips twisted. “I suppose I could ride out tomorrow afternoon and invite them.”

  “We’ll need a tree!” Sadie exclaimed. “Papa always got a big tree for the sitting room. We could do that, right? Trees aren’t being rationed.”

  “Tomorrow morning,” I promised. “We’ll cut one down and start decorating.”

  * * *

  “Just remember, the farther we go out looking for a tree,” Samuel grunted as we trudged through the snowbanks, “the farther we have to pull it back.”

  We’d had to all but drag him from the house. He’d woken in a grumpy mood, sour and snapping at everyone. Dark circles smudged his eyes, and I wondered if he was coming down with a cold.

  Sadie paid no attention, her gaze fixed in the distance as she searched for the perfect tree. She pulled along a sled, ready to bring our prize home.

  “What about that one?” Merry asked. She’d lingered back from the group as if taking Samuel’s words to heart. She hated using snowshoes.

  Samuel looked at the one she pointed to. Shaking his head, he followed after Sadie’s exuberant steps. “Too tall.”

  “This one?” I asked, gesturing to a smaller tree. It didn’t look like it would be too heavy if all four of us helped.

  “Too small!” Sadie giggled at her rhyme.

  We shuffled on through the snow, Merry muttering behind us as the tips of her snowshoes crossed and she toppled over once again.

  “That one!” Sadie exclaimed, pointing deep into the woods.

  Situated among the underbrush, the tree’s branches were thick and lush with verdant needles. It was just the right height and almost perfectly symmetrical. A shaft of weak gray sunlight struck it just so, as if even the sky knew this tree was special.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Sadie asked with a hushed, reverent tone.

  “It’s lovely,” Merry agreed.

  “It would fill the sitting room perfectly.” I envisioned it swagged with strands of red string and popcorn. We could even use old scrap paper to make snowflakes.

  “No,” Samuel said, putting an end to the magical moment.

  Sadie’s head snapped toward him. “What? Why not? Abigail thinks it’s pretty too!”

  “Then she can wander out and get it,” he grumbled. “It’s beyond the Bells. I’m not going that deep into the forest for a tree, when there are others that will do just as fine.”

  “But that’s our tree! That’s the one we want,” Sadie said, pawing at him.

  “I said no,” he replied with a sudden harshness, using the firm tone to mask the quaver undercutting his words. It only took a glance at his face to understand what was going on.

  Sam wasn’t sick.

  He was terrified of stepping foot into the woods again.

  Sweat beaded his upper lip, and his skin was pale with a sickly sheen. He breathed out of his mouth, almost panting, his pupils shrunk to tiny pinpricks.

  Our days were so often spent bustling about, tending to the animals, keeping the house clean, ourselves clothed, and our larders stocked. I didn’t mean to ignore Sam’s trauma, but it was easy to forget what he’d been through, with other concerns piling up around us. But it was clear to me now, as I studied his trembling form, that he wasn’t as fine as I’d assumed he was.

  Dark shadows limned his eyes—was he not sleeping through the nights?—and his frame seemed so much less than it used to be.

  “Why don’t I take the hatchet?” I offered, wanting to spare him embarrassment. “I…I’ve never gotten to cut down the Christmas tree before—Papa always does it. It might be fun.”

  “We should find another—”

  “Just give me the axe, Sam,” I said, holding out my hand. “You all wait back here, until the tree is cut, all right?”

  Merry nodded. Sadie handed me the sled’s rope. Samuel remained motionless, eyes fixed on the pines as though an army of monsters were there, lurking in the shadows.

  When I turned, there were eyes.

  Dozens of them.

  Round and full, with enormous irises, staring wide, staring at me, all-knowing and unblinking, a horde of eldritch creatures come to claim me.

  I nearly cried out in surprise and alarm before realizing they were marks on the trees, whorls in the trunks where limbs had fallen off, leaving the impression of human eyes in the wood.

  Or almost human, I thought ruefully, staring at one with an uncomfortably malformed pupil.

  Were these Sam’s monsters? I wanted to laugh. They were nothing but knots and felled branches.

  Then I remembered the blood that had covered him, running like a macabre river down his arms and face, staining his clothes with fetid rust.

  Pines and firs had not done that.

  So I hesitated at the tree line, giving the moment when my foot first stepped into the woods a strange importance I normally would never have noticed. One moment I was with my family, a part of the Falls, and the next, I belonged to the pines.

  It was darker in the woods, the evergreens’ full branches blocking out most of the morning’s light. Quieter too. All the soft background noises I was used to hearing—the wind pushing across the valley, the rustling of the winter wheat, waves slapping on the Greenswold—they were all swallowed up as I crossed the invisible boundary.

  The Bells jingled uneasily, each clinking note sharp with discord. There was no melody, no pattern, just noise. Being in the midst of the Bells, I understood why our forefathers had thought the little chimes would hold back strange animals. The pitches grated on my nerves until even I wanted to flee them.

  The Christmas tree was farther in than I’d thought. I picked my way through the thick undergrowth, pulling free my skirt as it snagged on thorny brambles. When I finally reached the edge of the Bells, the axe felt heavy in my hand, and a flicker of irritation swept through me as I noticed how weathered the wooden handle was.

  Samuel must have left it out on the splitting stump after finishing the last cord of firewood. How many weeks ago had that been? The head was dulled gray, with bits of rust sprinkling the blade. When Papa had left, this hatchet had looked brand-new, the wood oiled, the metal polished and clean.

  Anger sparked in my chest, kindling a firestorm of fury, and I sudde
nly had the sharp and terrible urge to hurl the axe at Sam. I pictured it thwacking into his face, cleaving those smug, thin lips into two jagged halves. I’d never have to see that arrogant, selfish smirk of his again.

  God, what a relief that would be.

  The shock of the thought startled me, and I nearly dropped the hatchet. What—what was I thinking?

  I glanced back at my brother, alarmed he might somehow guess my thoughts. His eyes were worried. He wasn’t fretting over my wicked thoughts but my safety.

  I blinked hard, clearing my head before raising the axe for the first strike. It bit into the trunk with a mighty crack, but I only heard a wet squelch, as if I’d struck flesh instead.

  “Everything all right, Ellerie?” Samuel called out after a moment went by. “It can be easier if you build up more of swing, really get some momentum into it.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “The blade is dull. Someone must have left it outside too long.” My voice was flinty, making sure there was no doubt who I held responsible.

  “Looked just fine to me,” he said, unconcerned.

  In response, I swung it again, letting anger guide my aim. I struck the tree over and over, dark bitterness seizing hold of my limbs, clinging fast like thorned ivy. My blood simmered, hot with rage and troubling thoughts. They curdled my insides until all I felt, all I saw, was a ferocious and biting slash of red. Again and again, I whacked the trunk. Chips of bark flew through the air, as mad as buzzing hornets.

  My breath hung in a dense fog around me as I gasped for air and my dress clung uncomfortably against my skin, soaked with sweat even in the chilled morning. With a final blow, the trunk gave way, splitting under the tree’s weight. I had the presence of mind to shove Sadie’s sled out, and the tree crashed onto it with a resounding thud, shaking the ground.

  Out in the open, away from all the shadows and trees, my sisters let out cheers, jumping in victory.

  Deep within the forest’s gloom, I eyed the fallen giant in silence. If Samuel were to actually help, we’d be able to carry it out in no time at all, but as I watched him toe the tree line, I knew there was little chance of it. My fingers tightened on the axe’s handle, hatred unfurling across my chest like the opening leaves of a fern.