Mason Beck Fiction

Happy Saturday!
If you’re just joining, check out Parts One, Two, and Three !

Stay tuned for Part Five as soon as I can think it through and get it written.

Enjoy!

---

The next morning, Eliza drew the shirt from the boiling kettle, the steam curling into the chill of autumn and filling the room with the sharp tang of lye. She spread it across the table and began to scour the rusty stain with a woolen pad dipped in sand and ash. Her voice drifted in a low hum as she worked, careful not to wake her son.

She paused and glanced over her shoulder to where he lay, still and pale beneath the quilt, spent from the night before. Her brow knit with worry as she turned back to the cloth, the melody steadying her hands as much as her heart.

His insistence on carrying on, on speaking the words his father left him, filled her with a tangle of emotions. She was grateful and proud, for he had come back to her when she thought him lost, and faithful still to his father’s memory. Yet unease pressed at her, for he would not tell her what had truly befallen him, not even in the quiet of their home. And beneath it all lay a deeper fear, the sight of his frailty, the way sleep clung to him like an illness that would not release its hold.

With the stain conquered, she carried his shirt outside to wring and rinse. She smiled and nodded to the passersby, the well-wishers and concerned neighbors, the eager members of the congregation, all hopeful to hear the words he would speak that night.

She hastened her pace as the world seemed to press close around her, offering quick thanks to them and to God alike. Her breath came short as their eyes turned toward her. The shirt was clean enough.

She straightened, murmured her apologies, and said they must be ready for the evening, then hurried back inside. Closing the door behind her, she leaned against it, steadying her breath. The attention, the eyes, the voices that pressed around her were too much.

Tears welled as she thought of all they had sacrificed to claim their homestead, so far from the noise and the watching world. But there was no time for tears. She drew a deep breath, sniffed, and wiped her eyes. Then she hung his shirt on the line near the hearth to dry.

As she went about her preparations for the night’s sermon, Eliza paused. A faint sound, a soft scratching or scraping at the edge of hearing, caught her attention. She turned and searched for the source, peering beneath the table and behind the cupboard before her eyes came to rest on her son’s bed.

She stepped forward, slow and quiet, and stood beside the huddled form beneath the quilts. The sound persisted, sharper now, and she thought she saw a faint stirring beneath the cloth near the wall. The last thing her boy needed was to take sick from vermin in the house.

She caught up the broom and, holding her breath, lifted the edge of the quilt, ready to chase or strike whatever creature she found. When the coverlet rose, she saw only his hand, moving against the wall, scratching, the nails broken and bleeding.

A small gasp escaped her. She seized his hand and shook him awake. He turned toward her, eyes fluttering open, dazed and distant. She started to ask if he was well, but the words died in her throat. Upon the wall where his hand had worked was the trunk of a tree, with roots below and limbs above, and red-stained fruit upon its boughs.