ASH THINKS THAT THEY have made the wrong decision. Every step sends searing pain through his leg, and his limp is becoming worse. When he looks behind them, the path is harder to pick out among the trees. What delusion is causing them to forsake the river?
Cedar has some tracking abilities, though she has stubbornly refuted that in the past. She insists that she knows her woods only because she spent her childhood there, and not because of any specific skills. These trees are most certainly not her woods. Regardless, she has the good sense to drag her foot, creating a line in fallen leaves.
The farther they go from the river, the more anxious he feels. He will insist they turn back if they do not find something soon. He is about to say so, but before he does, the path leads into a clearing. When they emerge from the tree cover they find themselves bathed by the sun’s light and warmth.
A small log cabin is visible across the clearing, and they can see the stone chimney built along the side. A smaller structure stands apart from the cabin with a small black pipe jutting out the roof. The yard is overgrown with weeds. No smoke rises from the chimneys. All is quiet.
They walk to the larger structure, climb the wood steps to the porch, and knock on the door. There is no answer. Ash knocks harder.
Cedar surveys the area from the small porch. “The house is in good condition, but look at all these bird droppings. There are nests in the rafters.”
She moves down the steps and walks around the house.
“The logs look to be regularly maintained, but the garden is overgrown,” she calls from the side of the house. “It doesn’t seem like there was a crop harvested this year. I’m not sure anyone lives here anymore, but it doesn’t look as if it has been abandoned for long.”
Cedar completes her circle around the cabin and arrives back on the porch at the front door. She puts her hand on the knob, and her eyes widen as it turns. She pushes the door open. Ash and Cedar reel back, assailed by a stench that hits them with the strength of a punch.
“What is that?” Ash gasps for fresh air once he is sufficiently away from the house.
Cedar is no stranger to the many different smells of poverty. “There is a dead body in there.”
He stares at her.
“Well…what do we do?” he replies, his mouth in a grim line.
Cedar looks about the yard. “Check the shed for a shovel, start digging a grave. I’ll go look around in the house, see where the body is. Open some windows.”
They both jump at a crack of thunder in the distance.
“We will have to work fast if we want to get the job done before the rain,” Ash says.
Cedar takes a deep breath and walks up the porch steps. Ash limps to the shed.
The shed is not locked, but there is a simple bolt on the outside, likely to deter animals from finding their way in.
“Impressive,” he mutters when he opens the door to reveal a clean, organized, and well-stocked workshop. There is a canoe nestled in the overhead racks. He does not take time for a closer inspection. He finds a shovel and heads back outside to scout out a suitable location for a grave.
He chooses a spot at the edge of the clearing, where a tree trunk has been stripped of limbs and carved into a totem pole. There is a relief picture of three sassafra trees carved into the pole. Over one tree, is a cello. Over another, is a carving knife, and over the last one is an arrow.
Perhaps this place had some significance to the owner. He will make this burial as respectful as he can. He is already indebted to the owner. They will have somewhere warm and dry to sleep tonight.
Cedar walks towards him from the house, carrying a jar.
“Fruit preserves,” she says, handing him a glass mason jar. He twists the top off, and she hands him a spoon.
“I think he died last fall. There is not much left of him, but his house is fully stocked in preparation for winter. The basement cellar is full.”
They take turns eating from the jar.
“There is a lot of contraband – shelves of books, at least some of them are banned. And a musical instrument,” Cedar says.
Most instruments were destroyed when King Marcus’s mercenaries invaded their country. They were singularly focused on their massacre of musical instruments and abduction of musicians. Ash’s father had destroyed his mother’s cello after her death. He knows of only a handful of musicians who have evaded capture. Or had, last he checked.
“I suppose that’s not too surprising,” he says, half to himself. “This forest is isolated.”
“I found his body on the kitchen floor. I don’t know how he died.”
“He lived alone?”
“I think so, judging from his more personal belongings.”
“You went through his underwear drawer, didn’t you?” Ash teases.
“Stop it! A man is dead,” Cedar says.
“You’re right. But it seems as though he lived a good life. Lonely perhaps, but not without comforts.” He thinks back to the musical instrument Cedar had mentioned, and more memories of his childhood break out from where he keeps them tucked away.
Cedar’s features relax, her slight, timid smile back in place.
“I’m not sleeping in there tonight. How’s the shed?”
“There is a fireplace. And a large wood pile.” He thinks of the canoe, but pushes it to the side, opting for a more appealing idea. “We could spend the winter here and have everything we need.”
He says this half in jest, but the realization that he wants this becomes startlingly clear. Cedar is quiet.
“It’s more of a workshop. Seems like a lot of tools and materials are stored there. I saw a canoe in the rafters.” His heart sinks when her face brightens.
“I’ll go check it out once we’re done.” Cedar takes the shovel from Ash, and they take turns working on the hole. It is deep enough for habitation before the rain begins.
CEDAR AND ASH WALK solemnly to the house. Cedar had covered the corpse with a blanket. They roll the body into it. Decomposition has made the burden lighter than expected. They each take an end and together they carry what is left of the man to the freshly dug grave. They deposit him into the hole less gracefully than intended.
“Should we say something?” Cedar asks.
“Yeah,” Ash says.
There is a long pause.
Cedar clears her throat. “Thank you for the care you have taken of your home. Forgive us for trespassing.”
After a brief moment of silence, Ash moves a shovelful of dirt on top of the blanket-wrapped body. Another thunder crack sounds, closer than before. A pitter-patter of rain begins.
As Ash puts the last shovel of dirt into place, Cedar turns to walk away. She pauses at the sound of Ash’s voice.
He stands there, leaning on the shovel, rain beginning to run down his hair and face. His voice moves across time and space to pierce her soul.
Go on your way,
Take to the river,
Let it carry you swiftly on.
Take no care
of who’s left behind,
we will follow in time.
She stares at him, mouth slightly open. She has never heard a song. Grandma had forbade Cedar to attend any gathering where there was even the possibility of music. She certainly did not expect Ash to have a repertoire of his own.
Aware of her watching him, he explains.
“It’s an old warrior’s hymn, from back when they would send kings down the river into the ocean on a pyre.” Almost as an afterthought, he says, “We sang it at my mother’s funeral.”
She asks no questions, but she wants to wrap him in her arms. She does not move, and the moment disappears. They turn away from the fresh grave and walk toward the workshop.
ASH WAKES LATE THE following day. His leg aches, but the noon sun streams light and warmth through the single large window. He moves quietly about the workshop, looking at the tools on the wall. Lumber is stacked on shelves along the upper wall and piled under the worktable that stands in the middle of the room. Cedar is still asleep on the floor near the wood stove.
He walks toward the cabin, cautiously opening the door. The smell is still rank, but not as overwhelming as the day before. The front door opens into the kitchen, where Cedar had found the body. There is a simple stovetop that looks like it is electrical. Ash remembers the solar panels on the roof and a generator on the side of the cabin. There is a table with no chairs and a small washbasin, but no indoor plumbing. Yesterday, he had investigated a small outdoor pump house that stands near the cabin, and suspects they will be hauling water from there. There is a small pot, and a large one, probably for boiling bath water. In the open shelves lining the kitchen walls are several plates, mugs, and utensils. A small door leads to a closet-sized room off the kitchen, where a tub sits. There are a few towels and soap on a shelf.
He pulls the trap door on the kitchen floor and walks down the cellar ladder to inspect what stores are there. The cellar smells more of dry earth than a dead body, and he takes a deep, grateful breath. The potatoes have grown eyes and gone soft. On the shelves, however, are rows upon rows of canned fruit, beans, pickles, tomatoes, and carrots.
He climbs back up the ladder and closes the door to the cellar. He opens a door that leads into another room. Here, a stone fireplace takes up an entire wall. Another door, presumably leading to a bedroom, stands in the center of the wall across the fireplace. Two sturdy chairs sit against a third wall, behind which are floor-to-ceiling shelves of books. He strides over to inspect the books, cutting short his tour of the rest of the cabin.
When he was young, his mother had often brought home boxes of books. Their previous owners were too afraid of King Marcus to keep them, but she had filled their library shelves with these same books, defiantly keeping them out in the open. She had treated them like well-loved orphans. His father had ordered them burned after her death.
These shelves in this tiny cabin hold many titles he remembers his mother and father reading to him, and others he has read during his time away from Danbarrah. There are also many he has never read before. Nearly all of them are banned.
He peruses the shelves, skimming the contents of book after book. He does not even hear Cedar come in.
He is brought back to reality by a sound that reverberates across the room. Cedar stands in the corner, her fingers clasped together in reaction to the sound that emanates from the plucked string. She meets his gaze and the expression on her face moves him with an intensity that leaves him breathless.
The sound seems to linger, and neither dares to speak until well after it fades completely. It disappears to no one knows where, but leaves an imprint on the souls of those who heard.
“What is it called?” Cedar asks. She maneuvers it out of the corner with reverence and places it in front of her.
“It is a cello,” Ash answers.
Cedar stands awkwardly behind the instrument, knowing nothing of how to hold or play it, but clearly in awe.
“Sit there.” He points to the chair nearest the fireplace.
He shows her how to nestle the cello between her legs, and adjusts the pin to suit her height. Once she is settled, she plucks a few more strings.
He looks back to the corner and sees a bow hanging there. “I’m no musician, but my mother was trying to learn while I was growing up.”
It had never struck him as strange until now. Why had she decided to learn the cello at that time? She had played piano as a child, but he had never heard her play. Was taking up the cello one more act of defiance against the ordinances?
He shakes himself away from his reveries.
“You hold the bow somehow like this,” he moves her fingers into place, “and draw it across the strings like this…”
He moves Cedar’s arm. Her body is loose and relaxed. She listens with rapt attention to everything he tells her about this instrument that has stolen her heart.