Chapter Two
S atyr paused, turned , and took a long, leisurely look across his domain.
Mitch barked softly, barely more than a sharp breath.
He knew what the old goat was doing, he did it every night, but Mitch had his own job to do and didn’t like any goats, not even Satyr, thinking they could get away with anything.
Satyr ignored the younger pup. Then Bogie, nowhere near as old as Satyr but with considerably more seniority than Mitch, went over to Satyr, and they shared an interspecies sniff. With that, Satyr turned and completed his evening journey into the goat barn.
He preferred to be asked, not ordered.
With all the goats in her new (and improved) goat barn and everything set up for the night inside, Abigail whistled the dogs out and closed up the pasture doors. Then she turned and took her own leisurely look across her domain.
Golden hour was nearly over, and the last fingers of aging sunlight spread across the grass, trying to keep hold of the day.
Sungold limned the western sides of the buildings, and all the western windows glowed.
Ariadne, one of her pure white cats, sat on the porch railing, lifting her face for the last sun-kisses of the day.
There was just enough breeze on this sultry, serene evening to make the leaves whisper over Abigail’s head and keep the smaller of her whirligigs spinning gently, and the windchimes tinkling.
Every now and then, the thin bleat of a kid sounded from the barn, the sound of a child complaining about bedtime. In the coop, her renewed flock of chickens clucked softly as they settled into their roosts for the night.
These were among Abigail’s favorite sounds—her world easing into its rest.
Her gardens were freshly watered, and the day’s yield of fruits and vegetables now sat in two large baskets on the picnic table.
Most of that natural deliciousness would be in the dinner she was about to prepare.
It was getting late in the season; soon enough it would be nothing but pumpkins and apples and the occasional hardy carrot.
But as always, she’d done plenty of canning.
Her gardens fed her—and others—all year round.
Bogie and Mitch now sat at heel, on either side of her, waiting. Setting her hands on their heads, she smiled at her boys and said, “Okay, that’s the day.”
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O nce inside, the dogs took turns at the water bowl, slurping noisily and making their usual mess. They had fresh water all day outside, but they never failed to flood her kitchen when they came inside.
Ariadne strutted regally out of the kitchen, giving the dogs the usual wide berth. They all got along fine, but Ariadne and her sister, Lilith, thought the boys gauche. They preferred to find a high place and stare down at them with benign distaste.
Abigail slipped an apron on over her dress. Checking the bread dough and deciding it was ready, she put the pan in the oven and set the timer.
Since Granny Kate had left this mortal plane, Abigail lived alone—and out here, living alone was really alone.
She took virtually all her meals with no company but her animals, but that had never stopped her from making a good meal.
Alone was not a disease or defect. It was not a tragedy.
It did not have to be loneliness. But it could become any or all of those things if one allowed aloneness to mean that something was missing.
Abigail made sure nothing was missing from her life, so she didn’t succumb to the siren song of ‘convenience.’ There were no frozen dinners in her freezer, no pre-packaged cold cuts, no ‘processed cheese food product.’ Her only canned goods were those she’d canned herself and now filled scores of Mason jars in her root cellar.
Her breakfasts and lunches tended to be light—some fruit or a salad, with a slice of bread or a biscuit.
For suppers, she spent Sundays preparing a base dish she could portion out over the rest of the week and fix up a little bit differently each time.
Depending on the time of year, it might be a brisket, a roast chicken, a lasagna, maybe enchiladas.
She always set her table, with linens and a candle.
She poured herself a glass of tea, and she put on music she enjoyed.
There was a television in her front room—a fairly new one, in fact, purchased secondhand after there were finally no channels broadcasting in a way her old tube TV could pick anything up—but she rarely watched it.
Television seemed the entertainment twin to the food named after it: TV dinners.
Processed and bland. Too much like giving up and giving in.
Instead, after dinner on most evenings, Abigail read, or crafted, or—at some times of the year this was much more likely than anything else—she worked in the kitchen.
Hiring the goats out six or so times a year earned Abigail the bulk of her income.
Coming up a robust second was her fair booth sales: she was a regular at regional fairs throughout Missouri and into Kansas and Oklahoma.
At most of those fairs she sold goat-milk soaps and lotions, fruit jams and preserves, fresh-baked tarts and pies, and candies, too, and she normally sold out her entire stock during those weekends.
All that work served two main purposes: it covered the costs of upkeep on her property and established a solid foundation for her life, and it got her out into the world a little.
As much as she enjoyed her own company, Abigail was not shy, not a hermit.
She enjoyed people and would become lonely if she never, ever saw anyone smile at her.
There was another dimension to her work, but she was as careful as she could be to keep it separate from the others: her witchy work.
At Granny Kate’s side, she’d learned the traditional healing practices of her Ozark forebears.
She knew what herbs and other natural ingredients soothed hurts and illnesses, which could be combined for poultices and medicines—and also which might calm someone anxious or help someone shore up their resolve, and other effects on the spirit.
Abigail didn’t truck with the dark side of such work, but she’d seen what it could do.
What she’d seen with her eyes and experienced in her own body had handily answered the question of belief for her, but she took no offense with those who didn’t believe in folk remedies of the body or the spirit.
Belief was just that—simultaneously powerful and ephemeral, and deeply personal to each individual.
This evening, with the bread in the oven and a good start on a dinner that was a thing unto itself and not merely a new take on what she’d been eating all week, Abigail set two places at her dining room table. Mel Lind was sharing a meal with her tonight.
Until the day her homestead was attacked, she’d known Mel no better than anyone else in the Night Horde, and she’d known few in the Horde any better than anyone else in town.
Some of their women, particularly Adrienne Ness, Candy Kohl, Lilli Lunden, and Shannon Ryan, she knew a little better, because those four were in charge of virtually every major event in town, and the seasonal festivals were the most important events of any year.
Since she booked a booth slot in each one, she knew those women a little bit.
And she liked them all—they were wildly different from each other, but each was strong and smart in her own way, and none wielded power like a personal entitlement.
Mel, though? She’d known him only well enough to connect face and name, until that day. When she’d decided she needed the Horde’s help and called their clubhouse, Mel had answered.
She’d believed herself through the shock of it, but a burst of emotion had overtaken her while she’d described the attack.
Mel had been patient and sweet with her while she pulled herself back together, and he’d promised the Horde would fix everything.
Since then, he seemed to have taken up her cause as his own.
The damage had been repaired and the only remaining sign anything had ever been amiss was the newness of the replacements and repairs. But it remained a mystery who’d made the mess.
Though they’d not learned who’d run roughshod over her home and animals, the question had quieted from an outraged roar to a puzzled whisper in the two months or so since that day.
Abigail didn’t think the club was trying to find the culprits any longer, and she was, truly, fine with that.
She had no need for revenge, and the damage had been repaired.
She didn’t really need an answer for why anymore, either.
Once she’d worked through the initial shock, she’d understood that there would never be a satisfactory answer for why.
She’d done nothing to provoke it, she hadn’t deserved it, so no answer could fill the hole the question left.
Mel, however, remained focused on it, still determined to find what he called the ‘doers.’ He’d taken charge of the clean-up and repair work, and thereafter he’d stayed close, showing up a couple times a week to ‘check on things.’
He always asked if there was anything he could do for her, anything at all.
Raised as a barterer, Abigail never deflected that question but instead answered it honestly.
If there was help she needed, she said so, and then she worked out what she could trade in balance.
Mel was a particular fan of her strawberry rhubarb .
.. everything, so at first she’d swapped several jars of jam and a packet of fresh buttermilk biscuits, or a whole pie, or a few pints of berries, for help on the property.
She’d also invited him to share meals, when he was around at the right time.
He seemed particularly enthusiastic about getting a home-cooked meal, and it was becoming a regular thing.