This was Luke’s household now. This bed, this room would be theirs once they were properly married. An oppressively small room with one tiny, shuttered window. A chest, pegs driven into the wall for a closet. A chamber pot. The privies were beyond the smithy, far enough away that chamber pots were a necessity, not a convenience. There was no mirror. She hadn’t seen a mirror anywhere at the Ark.
This bedroom was one of four such cubicles that together occupied two-thirds of the rectangular building. The remaining third was left to a kitchen–dining room. She wondered how these households could have contained nine or ten people as they had before the End. Now most of them housed four or five. There would be six in this one now that Luke had come home with his bride-to-be.
Tonight Luke also slept alone, and she wondered if he found sleep as elusive as she did.
The other four members of the household were doubled up in the remaining two bedrooms. She became aware of a rhythmic murmur that at first made her wonder if an odd turn of wind had brought her the sound of the sea. But it was only snoring from the next room, the room shared tonight by Nehemiah and his nephew Adam. Old Nehemiah, he was called, and he didn’t seem to take exception to it. He and Adam, a boy of fourteen, were the only survivors of a family that had once numbered eight people.
Mary had been immediately drawn to Adam. He was small for his age, with fine features and shining black hair. Quiet and shy, he seemed satisfied to sit on the margins of activity, listening avidly. That he admired Luke to the point of worship was obvious.
The other members of this household, Enid and Bernadette, were no more than thirty years old, yet they were classified as Barrens. That had been determined by the Doctor after years of childless marriages and fruitless visitations. When Enid spoke the word Barren, her large, hazel eyes filled with grief and something akin to shame.
Luke called Enid his big sister. She had come to the Ark when she was nineteen after her family was evicted from their farm in the Willamette Valley, and she was assigned to Luke’s father’s household. She and Luke were the only survivors of that household. Enid seemed quite willing to extend her sisterly affection to Luke’s bride, for which Mary was grateful. She recognized Enid as the true center of this household, and Mary couldn’t assume the role—she wasn’t yet sure what it entailed—of the Elder’s wife without Enid’s cooperation.
But Enid wasn’t even aware that she was the center here. She considered her real work to be weaving—not cooking, cleaning, and organizing the household. She was one of fifteen women expert at spinning and weaving the wool shorn from the Ark’s sheep.
And Mary was also grateful that Enid was virtually incapable of silence. Mary learned a great deal about the Ark by saying nothing and letting Enid fill the vacuum.
It was Enid who told her about Bernadette, the other Barren in this household. She was absent from the Ark when Mary and Luke arrived. Enid explained that Bernadette was sometimes away from home—alone—for days at a time. Enid clearly thought such behavior odd. Not even the men who went out hunting traveled in the forest alone. When Mary asked why Bernadette embarked on such expeditions, Enid said, “Healing herbs and roots. She’s a nurse and one of the Doctor’s students at medicine.” Not only did she venture alone into the forest, but space had been set aside in the greenhouse for her to grow cultivated medicinal herbs.
Bernadette hadn’t put in an appearance until the evening meal. She wasn’t wearing the de rigueur scarf when she arrived, and her blonde hair curled wildly around her small, squirrel-curious face. She was minimally polite to Mary, but she greeted Luke with a fondness that bore witness to long friendship. She wanted to know about his travels, but he put her off. He was going to tell all the Flock about his journey at evening service. She showed little overt interest in Mary until she brought out the seeds and bulbs Rachel had sent with her. Bernadette examined them, then eyed Mary curiously. “Where do you come from that you have all these plants?”
Luke had again put her off. “Later, Sister. I’ll tell you and everybody else about that later.”
Mary turned over, seeking a more comfortable position on the soft mattress. Then she stiffened, surprised by a sound. The creak of floorboards, footsteps moving down the hall toward the kitchen.
Was it Luke? Perhaps he couldn’t sleep, either. She waited, wondering whether it would stretch the bounds of propriety here if she and Luke were to simply talk together, even if they were alone.
She threw the covers back, shivering in the chill air despite the long granny gown Enid had given her. Pajamas, apparently, were not appropriate for a woman. She felt on the floor for her slippers. At least, they were hers, like the robe she pulled on. She made her way to the door, then out into the hall, and saw a dim, golden light ahead: a fire in the hearth. When she reached the kitchen door, she paused.
Someone was sitting in front of the fireplace on the far wall, but it wasn’t Luke. She sighed her disappointment, absently looking around at the varnished cabinets gleaming in reflected firelight; the cookstove, its cast iron densely black; the sink that had no faucets; the garlands of drying leaves, flowers, and roots hung from the roof beams.
It was Old Nehemiah who occupied the chair facing the fireplace. He turned. His face was in shadow, but his voice was welcoming. “Come in, Sister Mary. Warm yourself up. Gets kind of cold these fall nights.”
Mary felt somehow caught out, but she didn’t want to return to the solitude of her room. Nehemiah rose and dragged a chair near the fire for her. She sat down in it, smiled at him. “Thank you. I wasn’t really cold. Just couldn’t seem to get to sleep.”
He nodded. “Always hard in a strange bed.” Then he gazed into the fire, quite content to have her here, it seemed, and just as content not to talk. The fire wheezed and muttered to itself, a small fire in the big, brick hearth designed for cooking as well as heating; wrought-iron pot hooks were folded against the side walls.
Nehemiah was not, like Enid, a compulsive talker. He had said very little during the evening meal when all the household gathered at the kitchen table. He seemed as tough and hard as weathered wood, and he had undoubtedly been a man of great physical strength in his youth, but now the squared angles were rounded, his wide shoulders tended to hunch forward, his right hand was misshapen with arthritis.
He had no left hand. His arm ended just above the elbow. He was wearing a wool robe now, and the left sleeve hung loose. The absence of half his left arm had been more apparent earlier when his shirtsleeve was folded and safety-pinned at the end of his truncated limb.
She studied his gray-bearded face, in profile to her, assessing the calm steadfastness in it, and finally spoke. “Brother Nehemiah, would it offend you if I asked what happened to your arm?”
“Offend me? Of course not, Sister.” He lifted the stub of an arm. “It’s a miracle, this. A miracle that I’m still alive.”
“What happened?”
“Well, it was three years ago. I was east in the mountains with a hunting party. We’d shot a big buck, and I was boning it out. Done it a hundred times, you know, and never slipped once. This time the knife caught on a tendon, and when it let go, it ran up my left hand, laid it open down to the bones.” He frowned uneasily. “Sorry to be so… well, I know women sometimes get upset at that sort of talk.”
Mary shook her head. “If I was flinching, it’s only because I’ve boned out a few deer myself, and it always made me very nervous.”
“Had to bone out your own game, did you? Well, I admire that in a woman—doing whatever you have to.”
“Are you… unique in that sort of admiration?”
He gave her an oblique smile, then shrugged. “I suppose some of the Flock were surprised to see a woman here with pants on. And maybe I should tell you, there’s some would think it odd for a woman to be talking to a man without anything on her head.”