Off The Beaten Path

Can't Separate Your Sins

The cool air was a relief against the back of her neck. Her mind flitted back to the sweltering Spring days behind Wall Rose. Days of human and animal stink - putrid and ill. The lack of humans had made the empty places that much cleaner, that much more freeing. She smiled as the kids shrieked; they had darted out to the little spring they drew water from in the hot months. The water was still freezing cold, the snow piled on the shore banks had attested to it. The children didn't care. Even little Terra struggled against the carrier Bernell had fashioned for her, wanting to join in the noise of her brothers. Jennifer struggled to climb the fence that bordered the waters edge. Lisa leaned against a post, a smile splitting her face ear to ear.

This was easy. Bernell realized.

Her new family surrounded her, her children - for all of them were her children - loved her and each other. They had thrived completely isolated from the rest of humanity. With a wicked grin Lisa peeled off her heavy dress and vaulted the fence, leaving Jennifer to fall onto the damp earth with a pitiful wail. Bernell's smile widened as her friend splashed into the water, drenching the boys again. The screeching grew louder as they rough housed, splashing and dunking until they reemerged, shivering and blue lipped.

"Get into the house." Bernell ushered, picking Jennifer up as though she weighed nothing; a feat she would have struggled with previously. "Warm up. The fire should still be going from this morning."

The hardest part of transitioning from winter to spring, she noted, was the change in hours. In winter Ezra had held a pretty steady pace of getting up early and tending the farm animals - a task he had managed in just a few hours. Now that Spring had arrived the chickens needed tending, the single cow they had managed to miraculously become pregnant. Gabriel and Phillip had followed the bull's tracks, but they had vanished in the deep forest and snow banks.

Butter had her foals early; two little fillies that were all legs and awkward tripping. They had the flaxen mane of their mother; one filly had the feathery legs of her sire though she was thin and petite. The other filly was stocky and sturdy with the slim, elegant coat of their dam. They were a deep speckled brown and Bernell had fallen in love with the little ladies instantly; having harbored something of a tender spot for her stallion and mare above the other horses in their small herds. In total there had been seven new foals when the daffodils had begun to bloom, another two when the wind carried the faint, sweet smell of Summer as it danced through the pines.

With much trial and tribulation Bernell had learned how to shear the handful of sheep they kept. Lisa quickly had learned, with the help of Archer, to spin the wool to yarn. The days passed quickly with bone tiring weariness that had the children yearning for the slow pace of Winter again. As the sun turned from the weak promises of Spring to the harsh burn of Summer they began to forgo proper clothing, running around in only a pair of trousers or underthings. The only time Bernell bothered to wear the ODM gear and all the trappings was when there had been hints of titans lurking. She only had to fell three the entire year up until Autumn; when the sun was so hot and miserable that moving hurt. It was in August, towards September, when the heat doubled back in a severe way; the crops that weren't harvested withered in a 24 hour span. Over half their crops were lost to he heat despite working in shifts throughout the night to collect the harvests. Some of the wheat over-cured, the vegetables that had been harvested rotted in their containers due to sweat and exposure. The weaker animals died, quickly butchered and promptly smoked under the watchful eye of Phillip. This was the year the children truly adapted to the wilds around them; riding the horses barebacked through the fields, wrestled the rams for shearing, and eating straight from the ground. They swam like fish, climbed like squirrels, hunted wild game with crudely made traps and snares as though they'd never known the inside of the wall.