Darkness upon the Land

Saturday morning Alexia awoke with a general malaise – a slight headache would come and go, her stomach was a bit queasy, and her energy level was down. After chores, while she and Reuben were in the kitchen, she commented about not having much interest in breakfast yet.

“What’s wrong?” He immediately stepped in front of her and regarded her with that concerned and investigative expression.

“Just the blechs like I get every now and then.” She tried not to allow his observation to annoy her.

“You don’t usually get those at home.” He stared into her eyes as though he were trying to see into her inner workings. “Have you eaten something I don’t know about?”

“Am I supposed to report to you everything I eat?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what set this off.”

“No, I haven’t had anything different. And there’s no guarantee this was brought on by something I ate.”

He actually placed the back of his hand against her forehead as though he thought she might have a fever. “We have been eating a lot of fish lately,” he mused. “Maybe we need to back off of those for a while.”

“What’s fish got to do with it?”

Reuben lowered his hand and placed both upon his hips as he continued to scrutinize her. “The swamp is a big filter for everything the rivers bring down.”

“You think the fish are contaminated?”

“We’ve probably breached your tolerance levels. Well, we’ll stick to eggs and vegetarian today, and tomorrow I’ll butcher a rabbit.” He drew a deep breath. “That also means no practice session today.”

Alexia frowned. Both of them knew how an outburst during a dietary reaction exacerbated the adverse effect upon her well-being. It was one of the reasons Mѐre had become so adamant she needed to contain her ability. But if she didn’t practice more intensely than with the small trials she’d subjected herself to in the past week, this talent might remain a hindrance.

“Maybe after I drink some water and lie down, I’ll start to feel better.”

“We shouldn’t push it. You need to keep up your strength.”

“But if I’m feeling better later today, I’m out of the danger zone.” She folded her arms over her chest and locked her gaze with his. “And besides, what if those people come up our driveway in the next ten minutes? Maybe we should find out beforehand just what I can handle when I’m not at my peak.”

He studied her for few seconds before responding. “Get a drink and lie down. We’ll see how you feel later.”

Liana was his next problem.

It had been just over a week and a half since she was shot, and in that time hadn’t been out of bed. She was tired of that, even though she kept “productive” by helping with light vegetable prepping and studying manuals on other methods to preserve food. When he informed her why Alexia had gone back to bed, she wanted to go check on her daughter.

“I did that already.” He placed a hand on one of her legs and held it there because the woman had started to try to slide them over the side of the bed. “You can’t do anything more. It would just be redundant.”

“Has she had anything to eat?”

“She didn’t feel ready for food yet.”

Liana shook her head. “She should have at least had some ginger tea, not just water.”

“I’ll make sure she takes it if she doesn’t feel much better after getting back up.”

“I can make the tea while you take care of other things.”

He locked his gaze with hers. “Having a bout of amnesia this morning, are you?”

“Some exercise would do me good. I’ll get bedsores if I don’t move about and then you’ll have a mess on your hands, won’t you?”

“Liana.” He tightened his grip on her leg because he felt it shift. “You have broken ribs. And as much as you try to hide it, we can tell there’s still pain in your lower back when you breathe deeply or move too suddenly. We’ve no idea what internal injury you might have. Don’t make it worse by moving around more than you’re ready for.”

“I’m quite capable of monitoring my own pain response and whether or not I’m starting to overdo it. I need more exercise than just flexing my limbs, or I’ll wind up developing a blood clot, and then you’ll be sorry.”

“We may be in a situation of physician heal thyself, but then you doctors usually make the worst patients.”

She fixed her gaze on his again. “Don’t go New Testament on me, Reuben. That’s not fighting fair.”

He couldn’t resist smirking. He had to hand it to these Gautreaux women, they were a stubborn lot. Although after what Liana had told him last week, he understood how that stubbornness had also been used for ill by others in her family. She had been as hard upon herself as she was about them, but at least she had been motivated by love for her exploited sister. And the only reason Alexia was still alive was because of her intervention.

She continued. “At the very least I could sit outside on the galerie for a while today. The fresh air would do me good and I’ve got a door right there.”

Reuben’s conscience stirred. If she sat on the porch this afternoon that would definitely curtail any outburst practice he and Alexia might try to get in later today. And he had just been thinking about the biographical history he was guarding for Liana. Yep, he was definitely in that dreaded, unenviable position between a rock and a hard place.

“We can look into that after Alex gets up,” he replied. “I’d rather there be one of us on each side of you when you try to stand.”

“Very well.” She exhaled. “I suppose I can wait another hour or so.” As he headed back toward the hallway, she smirked while grumbling an accusation he knew Alexia had aimed at her many times. “You’re such a mother hen.”

Reuben accepted her comment in the humorous spirit it had been offered, and hesitated in the doorway as he smiled back.

“It takes one to know one.”

Late in the morning on Monday, Father Nick and Deacon Bernard arrived on their bicycles. Reuben brought in a couple of chairs from the kitchen and Liana sat up in bed as the pastors shared the latest updates from Esperanza. There hadn’t been much change as far as the council trying to overextend its powers, but both visitors looked a little pleased as they shared the next item of news.

“An underground supply line has started up.” Father Nick glanced toward the deacon and then returned his attention to Liana. “Food and a few sundries are being shuttled around from home to home, and church to church, to keep the council from confiscating everything.”

Reuben was immediately intrigued. “So you’re managing to get some new supplies from somewhere?”

“New supplies are a pretty thin trickle.” Deacon Bernard shook his head. “A couple of the outlying farmers are managing to provide a few eggs and an occasional vegetable in exchange for some merchandise.”

Reuben’s attention shot to Liana, and she briefly returned his gaze as she broke into a grin and then focused on the other two men. “Then by all means count me in.”

“We suspected you would say that,” the priest replied. “But I should caution you that the line of goods is getting pretty spotty as well. I can’t guarantee you’d be getting a fair trade for everything you’d be able to supply to the cause.”

The expression she gave him reminded Reuben of the look his mom would sometimes give to his dad whenever the latter would say something ridiculous. “I’m not concerned about getting a fair trade. I want to do what I can to help.”

Father smiled. “I confess I suspected you would say that, too.”

“We could certainly help with the meat supply.” Reuben knew his comment would dovetail with her intentions. “Rabbits are easy to transport live, and right now we have two does at fryer size. But there’s a litter of seven that’ll be ready to wean next week, and the next litter should be ready three or four weeks after that.”

The deacon smiled at Father Nick. “I suspect rabbits would be a big hit.”

“We’re also going to have to reduce the flocks to carrying capacity.” Liana nodded. “Ducks and turkeys are harder to transport under these conditions, but we’ll figure something out.”

Reuben added, “There could be a possibility in the fact we’ve got a doe that just freshened with a pair of great big bucks.”

From the blank expression that the deacon gave him as well as the priest’s slightly furrowed brow, he suddenly remembered he wasn’t speaking to farmers. So he reiterated.

“The goat gave birth to two bouncing baby boys.”

Liana and the pastors chuckled, although she stopped herself short. His attention immediately focused on her, and he noticed Alexia, who was sitting beside him, leaned a little closer to her mother.

“I’m lucky to determine which is the southern end of a north-bound mule.” Deacon Bernard shrugged as he also glanced toward the injured woman.

Father Nick was smiling, but his attention was diverted to her as well. “I know more about draft and ballast than I do about does and bucks.”

Those were nautical terms. Reuben was suddenly intrigued about what the man did before becoming a priest, but he stuck to their topic of discussion. “We’ll need to make it a priority to maintain and produce breeding stock, however.”

“He’s right.” Liana seemed to look more comfortable again and at least pretended she hadn’t noticed becoming the center of attention for a moment. “When things settle down, rabbits would be ideal for people to keep themselves as a supply of fresh meat.”

“Hopefully some other rabbit breeders will be able to contribute.” Alexia still watched her mother although her tone was pensive. “We just have one daddy and two mamas, and we wouldn’t want inbreeding to become a problem.”

The deacon smirked at Father Nick. “How considerate. She’s dumbing it down for us.”

The rest of the conversation continued to be inspiring as they made plans for that next week. The priest, and the deacon as well if he could manage, would visit again the following Monday. At that time Liana would have some produce prepared to send back with them. Reuben relished the opportunity to defy the handicaps that had been dogging them.

This was closer to the way it should be. It was still a shame they had to operate in defiance of the council’s tyranny, but it was heartening to see people come together and help each other out. Maybe some peace would begin to establish itself, and the council would realize that their selfish fears could be released. Perhaps there was reason for more optimism.

And then Wednesday morning, after chores, Reuben’s attention was drawn to the northern horizon when he spotted the black column of smoke rising from the town’s location.