All The Dark Places

16. Blink

     The garden was almost finished. It was a great achievement, but it would not feed anywhere near 200 people. Still, it would be something. Decorative barrels in the garden that were filled with soil and azaleas were replanted to yield potatoes. With any luck, each barrel would yield forty pounds of potatoes. If each household planted several potato barrels on their property, it would help them get through the season. Rosalind and Deka had just a few more plants to go, and they would be finished. Arnav Patel hauled buckets of water from the lake to add to the irrigation system. Rosalind wiped the sweat from her brow and stood still a moment, remembering working with Charlie in the community garden at home. The memory pained her, a growing ache in her chest. She tried to shake it off and went back to work, letting the work and the punishing sun drive away the heartache.

     Toby took initiative and built a huge compost box in less than a day. He had built both the falcon mews and the chicken coops at his cottage, and he was impressively handy at carpentry. Most of the villagers still looked at her as if she might be insane, but some of them were starting to come around, getting worried about watching other people do all the work. Gil and Alice Morrison, a young couple who owned a small ceramics studio in the village, came down to the garden and nervously offered their help. 

      "Well, the garden is almost done, but we could use some help building some rabbit hutches."

      "Rabbit hutches? Why?" 

     She paused for a dramatic moment. 

      "Rabbits," she smiled to soften the sarcasm. "If we catch rabbits, we can breed rabbits. Then we will have more... rabbits." 

     The couple looked at each other and then smiled. "Yes, of course, but we know nothing about carpentry." 

      "Toby can instruct you. If you can use a hammer and a saw, you should be able to be helpful. Just follow Toby." 

     To his credit, Tobias Bracks no longer objected to being called Toby, a name he at one time felt sounded juvenile, but now accepted as an affectionate nickname.The Morrisons went to work and even began to enjoy the work and take pride in the details of it. She could tell they were unaccustomed to manual labor, but they put in a genuine effort. She instructed a trio of brothers to build a brick oven, which was surprisingly easy being essentially a brick box with a few modifications.

      "Another diagram copied from your book?" 

      "Yes, I've been copying every night," she said, and finally stuck her shovel in the ground. The garden was finished. "I'm almost out of battery though." 

      "We can charge that thing on car batteries. The electric might be down but if we have keys, we can drain a car battery if we have one of them plug things." 

      "USB ports." She said and smiled. "If we can keep that e-reader going, I can keep copying useful things and it might save our asses. We just need to follow directions. Who is that?"Rosalind nodded toward a group of seven people, all walking toward them. 

     She prickled a little, and then realized that groups now posed an instant threat. The feeling in her gut was primitive. It turned out that the group was offering help. They wanted to "join the team" if she would have them. She nodded and took a look at her leather journal and ticked a few more things off of the list; things that required little or no skill, just labor. She had a list of items to scavenge. 

      "Bed sheets," she said. "to be used for fabric. Sewing supplies, strong glue, more rope, twine. Anything compostable." 

      A quake in the ground disrupted her equilibrium. The ground swayed under her, and her center of balance rocked. For a moment, she assumed it was just her. Maybe she was working too much in the sun or maybe... no. The rest of them felt it too. The ground trembled. It was a low hum of unsteadiness that lasted a full minute.