Settling

Stone the Jack found her cell, second from the end, ground, first, second level, there. What she thought of as third, since she had great respect for the ground. To live up so high, that this would be her home for a long while, perhaps for her life, flustered her slightly. A lifetime on the road, digging down for safety, finding caves, no upper floors in yurts, up on a platform in boggy areas at most. But, she reminded herself again, it was time, to complete her journey, be home. To take life entire, not discarding the unliked, but learning to enjoy all.

She slid back the screen wall door, stepped over the dark wood sill, bumped her worn canvas pack through and onto the floor. The astonishingly clean, gleaming bamboo floor, immaculate even by Abby standards. Leaving the light to wander in from the Pottage, she found the winter screens closed, fumbled to find the latch, and shoved the innermost screen open. A second, cream papery shutter, which opened to a clear, double paned, greenish, glass. Those in turn levered out, booklike, onto a wide look at the valley, from the same direction, as she had seen from the rise on her approach this dawn.

Damp mossy air, chill and to her mind, friendly, entered her room. Low mists were all that remained of the sticky fog of predawn. Light suffused, more than lit, her new landscape. She peered out, more closely at the wind turbine, surrounded, she could now see, by not a circle of harvested crops, but a spiral of half fallowed earth. Green growth still clearly lining the shape and curving in to the center, winter crops, she assumed, after the first frosts.

Little movement, a few dog walkers, well, of course. All the activity will be in the kitchens and barns today, preserving and cooking, smoking, salting, drying, canning, ice housing, every known method of storing food employed against famine.

She shook, banished the fearful memories, of years without summers and scarce wild game, scrounged tubers, and the grace of Fallen Fish the only thread holding her and her fellows from starvation. Hunger on the roads, water tainted with ancient pesticides and metals, radioactive or dead with plastics. She now had a Grace Year, which she would not use up. Fowl to care for, the Abbot mentioned, goats, black sheep, she would hunt and gather, learning the wild in this unfamiliar continent. As a Jack of All, she knew best how to learn new places, new skills. No one would call her a sponger.

She walked around the space, generous room, she thought. A shower and pot room, piped water and a new pot, with a bowl of fresh mulch. A hibachi, convertible electric or charcoal, built in work board, against the inner wall. Niches with power outlets, she pulled her discharged pewter from the pack and plugged in. Out the side door to the storage space, half filled by her neighbor sealed off with a quilt, a shared, cycle powered barrel washer - no signs of water damage, so it probably worked. She considered throwing everything in, stripping to the skin, but realized she didn't have a towel or blanket, and minded being damp much more than grime.

She felt a pull on her jacket at the hip, looked down at the staring, glowing eyes of the cat she'd brought in, reaching up to her. The Inner door still open, a habit she would have to correct. Hinge the Dogger must've cleared the creature and let it go. Or, she corrected herself, not. Flthy and matted still, fur covered bones, orange and shedding madly. It let go as she reached down to touch, began circling her calves, purring madly, hardly any weight to it, eyes half closed in feline bliss. Stone huffed, and sat on the floor to stroke the cat, chuckling to herself.

"Maybe I'll just sit here awhile, eh cat? Good practice." The orange cat pushed his face into her hands, and thumped the floor with his front paws. Yeah, sitting is good enough for now. "How about George? You ok with George?" Since this was met with loud purring, the name settled.