The Winter People(67)

“Thank you, Sara,” my father said. “Now you and Jacob leave us. Go out and do your chores in the barn. When you’re through with that, there’s wood to stack.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

My brother and I headed out to the barn to do chores. Jacob paced back and forth in front of the horse stalls, wringing his hands.

“What do you suppose it’s about?” I asked.

“Auntie. They will try to force him to send her away,” he told me.

“They cannot!” I exclaimed. “What right do they have?”

“Father depends on the people in town. They buy our vegetables, our milk and eggs. These men, they have power.”

I scoffed. “Auntie’s powers are greater.”

When the men finally filed out of the house, my father was pale and shaken. He said very little. He poured himself another cup of brandy, which he gulped in two great swallows. Then he had a third.

When Auntie came by later with freshly skinned rabbits to make stew for supper, Father met her outside. They did not come in, and spoke in hushed tones. Soon, however, their voices were raised.

“How dare you!” Auntie yelled.

Eventually, Father came back into the house. “I’m sorry,” he said to her before he closed and latched the door. The three of us sat in the living room, listening to Auntie.

“Sorry? You are sorry? Open the door! We are not finished!”

I rose from my seat to unlatch the door, but Father pulled me back down and held me there, his fingers digging into my arm. Jacob bit his lip and stared down at the floor, tears in his eyes.

“How dare you!” Auntie shrieked as she watched us through the window beside the door. Her face was as serious and angry as I’d ever seen it. “How dare you shun me? You will pay for this, Joseph Harrison,” she hissed. “I promise you that, you will pay.”

Later that night, after Father had fallen asleep with the empty bottle of brandy, Jacob crept into my room. “I am going to talk to her,” he told me. “I will find a way to get her back.” The fierce desperation in his eyes suddenly made me understand how deep his love for her was, how much he needed her. We all needed Auntie. I did not believe our family could get by without her.

I sat up late in my bed, waiting for Jacob to return. Eventually, my eyes grew too tired.

I awoke to Father shaking me. Dawn light streamed in through the window. Father reeked of brandy and had tears streaming down his cheeks. “It’s Jacob,” he said.

“What?” I asked, jumping out of bed. Father didn’t answer, but I followed him out of my room, down the stairs, and out the door. My bare feet padded over the damp, dew-soaked grass. I walked in Father’s shadow all the way to the barn, terrified.

Jacob was hanging from one of the rafters, a coarse hemp rope tied neatly around his neck.

Father cut him down, held him in his arms, sobbing. And then, in my shock and sorrow, I did the thing I will always wonder if I should have done—I told him the truth.

“He went out to see Auntie last night,” I told him.

Father’s eyes clouded over with a storm of thickening rage.

He carried Jacob’s body into the house and laid him down in his own bed as if Jacob were a little boy again, being tucked in.

Then Father got his gun and a tin of kerosene.

I followed him across the yard and field and into the woods.

“Turn back,” he said fiercely over his shoulder. But I did not listen. I walked farther behind, putting more distance between us. We went through the orchard, the trees hanging with unripe apples and pears, misshapen and spotted with blight. Some of the fruit had fallen and lay rotting on the ground, attracting hornets drawn to its sweetness. The blackflies found us when we were past the Devil’s Hand, swarming in tiny little clouds. Toadstools sprouted here and there, inky and poisonous. The path bent and turned, moving downhill.

Father reached Auntie’s cabin first—a crooked little house she’d built herself out of hand-hewn logs. Smoke came from her metal chimney. Father didn’t knock or call out, he simply threw open the door, stepped inside, and slammed it closed. I crouched behind a tree, waiting, my heart beating as fast as a hummingbird’s.

There was shouting, the sound of something being thrown. A window broke. Then—a single gunshot.

Father stepped back through Auntie’s green door, carrying the kerosene tin. He turned around, lit a match, and threw it over the threshold.

“No!” I cried, jumping out from my hiding place.

The flames leapt and roared. The heat was so intense that I had to move back.

“Auntie!” I screamed, staring into the flames for signs of movement. There was none. But then, from behind the roar of the fire, I heard a voice. It was Auntie, calling my name.

“Sara,” she cried. “Sara.” I lunged for the cabin, but Father wrapped his arms around me, pinning me against him, my head close enough to his chest so I could hear his heart hammering.

Black soot snowed down on us, covering my hair and nightgown, Father’s flannel shirt.

At last, when it was clear that there was no saving anyone, he let me go and I fell to the ground. Father moved in, stood so close to the flames that he soon had blisters on his face and arms. His eyebrows were singed off and never did grow back right. He stood there, staring into the fire, sobbing, howling like a man who had lost everything.