Black Forest

by Shane Lee

  Monty sucked in cold air and let it out in a wheeze. He snapped his fingers. Shook his head. Stupid, this was all stupid. He’d sleepwalked as a kid—his parents told him so, although he didn’t remember it. That’s what had happened now, on the tail end of Terra having her own episode, and him being thrust into the past yesterday, thinking of his father.

  “Get over it,” Monty said, saying the words aloud but not really hearing them. He wrenched his eyes from the Dromm and turned back toward the house. It was almost dawn, and he wouldn’t be getting back to sleep. Might as well start the day.

  It wasn’t long after he’d gotten his boots and started his chores that his mother rose, coming down the steps from the front door and calling after him while he had an armful of hay clutched to his chest. He dropped it at the barn doors and came back to her.

  “I’ll take care of the rest,” she told him as he approached. She was standing on the final step, so she was just about as tall as him. “Can you go into town and get those chickens? I already paid. Audrey said she’d put them aside, but I’d rather you were there first thing...” Delila halted, looking at Monty. She stepped down from the stairs to get closer to him.

  “Monty, you look exhausted. What’s the matter? Didn’t you sleep?”

  “I slept,” Monty said, because it was true, and also because he didn’t know what else to say.

  “Can you make it to town all right?” Immediately, she put her hand on his forehead. “Well, you’re certainly not warm.”

  “I’m fine, mother,” Monty said, shying away from her hand. “I’ll make it to town and back. Maybe I’ll turn in early tonight if I get enough done. Are you sure you can take care of the chores?”

  Delila huffed. “Don’t get short with me, Montille. I’m not saying you look like death. But I don’t want you risking your health before the winter.”

  “It’s fine.” Monty brushed some hay off his shirt. “I’ll get the chickens, I’ll come back—”

  “I’ll make some soup,” his mother said. “Something to warm you up.”

  “I—” He wasn’t going to say no to soup. “That sounds good.”

  “Mm.” She looked him over once more, but she must not have found anything heart-stopping, because she just plucked a piece of hay off his shoulder and told him to hurry back.

  Monty got the wagon and chicken cages and got onto the road before Terra could get up to pester him to bring her into town as well. For some reason, he had a strange feeling that his little sister would take one look at him and know exactly what had happened last night. Or, rather this morning. She was young, but she knew her brother. She’d see something on his face.

  He had no plans to tell anyone where he had woken up today. It was just a little sleepwalk.

  The cages rattled in the wagon as he pulled it along the familiar path to town. Even that grating sound wasn’t enough to pull him out of his thoughts. He nibbled at his lip and kept his eyes on the ground while he walked toward Irisa. He didn’t notice Mrs. Garten on the road ahead of him until he was practically running into her.

  “Oh, hello, Mrs. Garten,” he said, coming up beside her.

  “Monty.” She turned her head to him. Mrs. Garten was a very slight and short woman; Monty suspected that she didn’t weigh much more than Terra. She had reddish-blonde hair that was always in a tight and thick braid. As frail as her body was, her hair was robust, as though all of her strength went into it.

  “Sorry for the noise,” Monty said, shrugging back toward the cages.

  “That’s quite all right,” Mrs. Garten said.

  Silence crept up on them like rising water, save for the chicken cages. Mrs. Garten was not much to hold a conversation with; she often seemed lost in her own thoughts. She would mention something, and then forget what she’d been speaking about just a moment before. Monty didn’t talk to her much, but he still tried to be nice.

  “We lost a couple of chickens,” Monty told her.

  The woman looked ahead, not saying anything.

  Monty continued, “The other day. Just two of them, thank the saints. I’m going into town to replace them.”

  Mrs. Garten turned to him and smiled, her mousy features distant. “That’s terrible.” For a few moments, she didn’t say anything else, and Monty was about to speak when she went on, the odd smile slipping from her face. “Our cow is sick. Fairy. She’s old. Older than the boys. Almost as old as me.”

  “That’s too bad.” That cow had been around ever since Monty was born.

  “It’s too late in the season to find another cow,” Mrs. Garten said. “Just hope she...makes it.”

  “Are you...getting some medicine from town?” Monty asked. Before them, Irisa grew larger, quiet this early in the morning. The sun was slowly spilling yellow light across the houses.

  “Maybe,” Mrs. Garten breathed. “If they have it.”

  That was the last she said before they parted ways as they came into town, and Monty let out a small sigh of relief as Mrs. Garten headed to the east side of the village. He always felt off while talking to her, like she was looking at something that he couldn’t see.

  The early day in Irisa was sleepy and slow, very far from the crack-of-dawn harvest mornings on the farm. The Kettles had been raised a farm family, though, and they would be awake. So would anyone else listening to the noise of Monty’s wagon and chicken cages.

  Monty looked forward to talking to Audrey, hoping that the townspeople noticed him dickering with her on his own. Maybe he’d even talk her into getting a couple coins back, if he was smart about it, or throwing in some feed with the deal.

  But when he got to Kettle’s, the door was closed. He didn’t see anyone moving around inside.

  “I guess I’m a little early,” he said, his negotiation fantasies slipping to the back of his mind. He pulled the wagon to the side of the store and up against the wall, where it rested alone. Now what? If he stayed here, it was possible Mrs. Garten would wander back in her search and bump into him, which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but if he could avoid it—

  “Monty.”

  He snapped from his thoughts, looking to the left and right. He didn’t see a soul.

  “Monty! Up here!”

  It came from the second floor of the store—the Kettle’s house. One of the children was poking her head through the window. Monty knew her face, but her name escaped him. The Kettles had five children, and the three girls especially looked alike.

  “Oh. Hi, um...”

  “Marie,” the girl said, not appearing bothered by his forgetfulness. “You’re...you’re here for the chickens, right?”

  Marie, that’s right. She was the eldest of the girls, thirteen years old, if he remembered right.

  “Yes,” he said. “Am I too early? I can...are you all right, Marie?”

  The girl was slumped in the window, and looking closer, Monty could see that she had been crying. She shook her head, but she said, “I’ll be right down for the—the—the chickens.”

  “All right.” Monty watched her close up the window, and after a moment’s hesitation, he went over to the entrance of the store and climbed the steps to the landing. He heard the bolt pull from the other side of the door, and Marie stepped out.

  “You got cages, right?” she asked him. It looked like she had hurriedly tried to clean the tears from her face before coming outside.

  “I do...”

  “Okay. Get ‘em around back, I’ll open up the coop.” Marie hopped down the steps and ran to the other side of the building before Monty could say anything more.

  A little uneasy, Monty pulled the cages from the wagon and followed Marie’s path behind Kettle’s, where she was pulling the key from the lock on their chicken coop.

  “Marie, hold on a minute,” he said, setting the cages down and coming up to her. “Is everything all right? I don’t mean to pry, it’s just...”

  Marie looked down at the ground, and when she brought her face back up to Monty’
s, she burst into tears and collapsed against his chest.

  7

  Stunned, Monty slowly brought one hand to the crying girl’s narrow shoulder. “Hey, it’s, um...it’s okay, Marie.”

  Marie sobbed against him for a few more moments before she got control of herself, pulling away and looking embarrassed. “I’m so sorry,” she gasped. “I shouldn’t be—you’re a customer, my mother would—”

  “Tell me what’s going on,” he insisted, knowing that when Terra was bawling about something, she had to be set straight in order to talk to anyone about it. “I’m listening.”

  Marie pulled in a long breath, settling the hitching of her chest. “It’s grandma Kettle,” she moaned, her voice quivering. “She—she died this morning. Mother found her on the f-floor by t-the bed. She was all...”

  “Oh, no.” Ma Kettle was plucky, but there was no arguing against time. Monty knew she was almost eighty, and though it was sad, the oldest person in the village couldn’t stay that way forever. “I’m real sorry, Marie. That’s terrible.”

  Marie just sniffed and gave a little nod. “It’s awful. I saw mama pick her up, and she just lifted her right off the ground like, like...like she was a bag of f-f-feathers.” Marie shook her head, fast, and reached blindly for the door to the chicken coop.

  “Marie.” Monty took her shoulder. “Hey, stop. You don’t have to do this right now, I can come back...”

  “No, no.” Marie shrugged off his hand. “You’re a customer, and mama—mother says the s-store comes first.”

  “Marie—”

  The young girl took the chicken cages from his hands and set them on the short table next to the coop, then pulled open the door and went inside. Monty looked up at the second-floor windows of the store like he might see the family gathered around Ma Kettle, waiting for Marie to come back.

  When Marie came out with a chicken under each arm, Monty opened the cage doors and helped her get them inside, then latched them back up.

  “I’m sorry, Marie,” he said to her while they walked back around toward the front of the store. “And...well, thanks for helping me this morning, with all that.”

  It felt insignificant, but it was the best that he could muster.

  “I have to go back inside,” Marie told him, ascending the steps and leaving him with the chickens.

  Monty departed Irisa with two plump, sleeping chickens and a grainy cloud over his head. They’d only been talking to Ma Kettle two days ago, and just like that, she was gone. It reminded him too much of his own father’s sudden illness, squeezing at his heart when he thought about all the Kettles upstairs, crowded around their eldest, a sheet covering her body.

  A morbid image, and one he couldn’t get out of his head. It perhaps didn’t help that the cages rattled considerably less on his lonely walk home with the fat chickens weighing them down.

  By the time he arrived at the farm, the chickens had awoken, but they were docile. He left the wagon over by the coop and went to tell his mother the news.

  Delila was in the field working at the harvest, the last few rows of corn slowly plucked apart by her strong hands. He called out to her before slipping through the stalks to talk. He’d been snuck up on enough times in the cornfield to know that a warning was much preferred.

  “That was fast, Monty,” she said to him, stopping her harvest to talk. A clean rag tied back her hair, keeping it out of her face while she worked, but it still let the sweat through. She must have been going at it since the moment he left, judging by the size of her bag. She looked far from exhausted, though. Monty’s mother was the only person he knew who seemed to gain more energy from hours of physical labor.

  “There was no one else at the store,” he said, suddenly unsure of exactly how to say what had happened.

  “Oh. Did it go all right?” Delila wiped her forehead, the long sleeves of her worn shirt rolled back. “You still look awful peckish, Monty. You might want to skip the harvest today. Terra and I should be able to finish the rest of it, once I can pry her away from that little doll.”

  The doll. Monty sighed. “Mom, Ma Kettle died this morning. I heard from little Marie. She was...ah, she wasn’t quite...”

  Delila brought one hand to her mouth. Whatever pep she had gotten from harvesting left her body all at once, bringing down her shoulders. “Oh, saints, that’s awful. Just this morning?”

  Monty nodded. “That’s what Marie said. That her mom—that Audrey found her.”

  Delila grabbed her son and pulled her close to him. Monty didn’t know if he looked in need of cheering up, but he didn’t fight it. He put his head over her shoulder, letting her wrap her arms around him. “I’m sorry, mom,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “She was old. I’d known her ever since I was a little girl. She’s been around a long time. It’s the way things go.”

  Monty thought about his father’s death, and how there hadn’t been a simple, comforting explanation for it like old age or frailty. How it was nice to be able to point the finger at something, even if it wasn’t a thing that could accept the blame. How it made it easier to deal with—knowing, on some level, that it was something you were prepared for, something that you expected, even if you never would have said it out loud. Ma Kettle wasn’t a family member, but she was part of their lives the same way their neighbors were, and the west-side church was on Gathering days.

  You noticed when that something like that was gone, and you’d go on noticing for a while yet.

  Delila let her son out of her embrace, still holding him by the shoulders. “Are you okay, Monty?”

  “I’m fine.” Monty let the somber thoughts slide away. That was something he’d gotten good at. “Like you said, she was old. It’s not really...I mean, it’s not a surprise.”

  “I suppose.” Delila took back her hands. “Terra’s going to be very upset. She was just telling me about how she can’t wait to see Ma Kettle again and thank her for that doll.”

  “Yeah...” Monty glanced toward the house, though he couldn’t see it through the corn.

  “We won’t tell her yet,” Delila said, with the firm confidence of a woman used to making many decisions. “Go inside and eat some soup. I’ll let her know when the time is right.”

  When? Monty wondered, but he didn’t ask, because he felt his mother didn’t quite know, either. That there wasn’t a right time, really. Just a better time, and she would be the judge of that.

  The harvest was finished just as morning spilled over to afternoon. It was Monty who plucked the last ear from the last stalk—not his first time doing it, but it didn’t feel any less special. The sun was at its highest point in the sky, bright and blinding, but the air was still brisk. He stepped out of the stripped cornfield with his final bag and hauled it to sit with the rest.

  “It’s a good harvest,” his mother told him when he came back to the house. “You did well this year.”

  “Thanks,” he said, flopping back in a chair and putting a rag to his forehead to wipe away the sweat. “I had to pick up for Terra’s slack, most of it.”

  “I helped lots.” Terra was sitting at the table as well, eyes on her doll.

  “She did plenty,” Delila said, giving Terra a little smile.

  “Must’ve been when I wasn’t looking,” Monty teased, making Terra roll her eyes and glare.

  “All right, that’s enough. I’m sure you’re hungry.” Delila was frying eggs. “Those new chickens are laying double-time. I’m almost glad we had to pick them up.” She clucked her tongue. “Monty, keep an eye on these while I bring a bucket in.”

  “You should have asked me to get it before I came in,” Monty said to his mother, but she waved him off. The kitchen was warm, filled with the smell of sizzling butter. It was always a good feeling to finish the harvest, and with a good bounty. The glow settled through the house.

  Monty stood over the pan; when the eggs were done, he slid them out onto the big serving plate they kept by the stove. His
mother still wasn’t back with the water.

  “I’ll be right back,” Monty said, dousing the small cookfire, thinking that the bucket pulley had gotten stuck. Terra just bobbed her head, her doll’s tiny wooden feet dancing noisily across the table. He pushed open the front door.

  “...brings you here?”

  Monty heard his mother’s voice as he left the house, and he went around the corner to see her standing, arms crossed, talking to someone else.

  He didn’t need to hear the man’s voice to know it was Judge Mullen. He could tell just by seeing that the silver top of his head barely came up to his mother’s shoulders. Though he had become quite familiar with Judge Mullen’s voice lately, as the man had been coming out to their farm more and more often since father had died.

  His mother didn’t like to see the Judge, and Monty wasn’t sure why. He suspected his mother didn’t like town authority, another mild clash of her marriage with his father, who respected both the cloth and the scroll. But persistent as Monty was, she never shared her concerns with him.

  Right now, he could go involve himself and learn something. She had to trust him with these sorts of things eventually. Maybe he could speak to the Judge himself, and learn a little more about his interest in their family.

  But whatever brought the Judge all the way out here, Monty reminded himself, it won’t be good.

  He rounded the corner as Judge Mullen said, “I am simply here to pay a visit to the farms, Delila. How did your harvest go?” He had his hands clasped in front of him, respectful. His eyes, dark, reflected Delila’s features: her crossed arms; her flat smile. They flicked over to Monty as he approached.

  “It was a good harvest, yes,” Delila said, glancing back toward her son and giving him a short shake of her head, which Monty chose to ignore.

  “Montille.” Judge Mullen nodded to him as he stood beside his mother. “But you go by Monty, right?”

  “Yes, sir—your Honor.” So Judge Mullen did remember him, at least a little bit.

  “It’s good to see you well,” the Judge told him. The wind caught his cape, ruffling it around the backs of his legs.