Expiring Covenant (Black Lake Book 1)

Chapter 21
Wilbur

~

I pulled the reins taut to bring the wagon to a stop, looked out at the panorama below. This might be my last perspective of the Lake outside of the valley. I couldn’t imagine ever makin’ the journey over the mountains to my home village again. Our residence there is sold. No family remains. The highlands, cold and all, is our home until we die.

Bick pulled his wagon alongside, and the two of us exchanged a quick smile, before we turned to take in the valley below. There was no need for words to explain why I stopped. Figgered the tinker stopped in this spot every trip too. Only the dragons, the eagles, and summer vultures get a better view.

“Any remorse?” Bick asked after a long quiet.

“Only that I don’t find much enjoyment sittin’ in a boat anymore.”

Bick encouraged his own team forward, and I let him take the lead for the last leg of our trip. I sat another few moments.

That damn, majical cold.

The recovery had been long, and hard. Not that I’ll ever be really recovered. My mind won’t even focus on a checker move, after all these months. My fingers still struggle to pick up the tiny saucers. I shake my head and flick the reins.

~

A team of dwarves had erected the barn since Bick and I left. I smiled as I took the place in. It would stand for centuries—all granite and thousand year-old pine timbers. With a sigh of contentedness I peer over at the home Gladys and Yoso designed, with Coedwig, for us. Would last a millennium. With the local dwarves busy on the inn’s expansion and Janding’s home, my wife and neighbor struck a quirky plan. The granite the trolls struck from the quarry made Mo’sale jealous. No dragon lair was any mightier, he claimed. The only wood in the place supported the slate roof, leaded glass panes, and shuttered the doorways.

The portico may not be as broad as the inn’s veranda, but the massiveness of it is a wonder. Stealin’ the edge of the forest above Yoso and Eina’s place, it may have a more dramatic view than even the inn’s veranda.

I allowed my exhausted team to pull slowly up next to Bick’s. Gnomes already picked his wagon clean, and pounced on the new one with vigor. Oh, those earlier loads. The gnomes arranged the rugs and furniture in an odd way. They held a very different idea of sensible. Gladys and I chose not to rearrange, to what we considered a more practical layout. And now the gnome’s original placements are startin’ to make more sense, as we spend more time in our new home.

I struggled out of the wagon and watched as the gnomes took charge of takin’ the teams into the newly finished barn. I’m eager to explore it, but the effort of the last several days left me an exhausted heap. Later. With the new sun.

“Dinner’s prolly bein’ served at the inn,” Bick said. “Ya wanna wander down and get a bite?”

Hunger gripped me, but I was more tired. “Ya go ahead. I’m gonna change into clean clothes and lay down for a few minutes. Don’t forget, we have a perfectly good bed set up here for ya.”

“Ya and Gladys are good people,” Bick said. “See ya in the dinin’ room.”

In the kitchen, I ladled hot water into the basin from the buckets sittin’ on the back of the cook stove. I struggled to pull off my vests and shirts, and wiped at the day’s grime.

Even though it’s the middle of the summer, my skin prickled with chill before I toweled off and put on a clean shirt. I poured a cup of apple cider from the jug in the cold cellar, and stood sippin’ at it, lookin’ out the kitchen window into the shadowed forest.

Such a beautiful place, whether lookin’ toward the Lake or not.

Gladys would bound into the bedroom in a couple hours, her grin splittin’ her face. She’s so happy, here, now. My chest welled at the thought of her. A new woman, acted two decades younger now than her years.

This place has given her a new life.

Taken much of mine.

Gave us both new friends, worth their weight in gold.

I strolled into the bedroom finishin’ off the cider, stretched out on the bed, and pulled the knitted throw over me. The warmth immediately wrapped me in an indescribable peace. I’d hardly closed my eyes when footfalls echoed through the house. I opened my eyes and peered at the face framed in the doorway.

“Hello, Papa. No. Don’t get up.”

“What are ya doin’ here?” I gasped, leanin’ up on an elbow.

“It’s been a long time. I didn’t want ya to think I forgot about ya.”

“Ya’ve been in the Wildes for, what, five years now without sendin’ one word?”

“Ya have a beautiful place,” Timothy said. “Mama will love it here.”

“She deserves to be happy. Spent a lifetime raisin’ the three of us.”

Timothy laughed. “Three? Somethin’ ya should tell me?”

“She as much raised me, too.” I grinned.

“She’s a good woman. I’ve missed her,” my son said. His mind seemed far away. After a moment he continued. “Ya need to include a dozen others, as raised under our roof. Juliana and I had a constant stream of friends comin’ and goin’ through the side-kitchen door. Mother kept the cookies baked, the apples fresh, and the cocoa hot in the winter.”

“All while keepin’ my ledgers in order too,” I said, doublin’ up my pillow and scootin’ up so I didn’t have to lean awkwardly on my side to face my son.

“Is her tongue as quick as it always was?” Timothy asked.

“This place has mellowed her,” I said. “She told me after we’d only been here days, that she had found her place. She’s made close friends.”

“It must be a great comfort to ya, knowin’ Mama is where she’ll be cared for.”

“That’s an odd thin’ for ya to say,” I murmured.

“And ya got to play some fast-movin’ games of checkers.”

I smiled. “True.” I squeezed one eye shut. The exhaustion was wantin’ to take all of me. “Now how did ya know that?” Checkers wasn’t a thin’ back in our old village. Who had the time to play checkers—except maybe, after church.

“I can’t stay, Papa. I have to be goin’. There isn’t much time. There’s someone else here to see ya.”

“What do ya mean? Ya just arrived.”

My son smiled and gave a wave and backed away a step. Someone joined him in the dark hall, and I saw the lad give whoever it was in the gloom a kiss on the cheek before he disappeared in the shadows. The woman neared.

“Juliana? What are ya doin’ here?”

“Hello, Papa. Ya look bone tired.”

I tried to rise, but my exhaustion roped me down upon the bed. I held out my arms, but Juliana stayed by the door.

“I only have a moment too, Papa. I’m so sorry we didn’t make it home to visit any of the past summers. When ya rely on the produce from yar garden to make it through the winter, ya can’t leave it on its own for a few weeks and hope for the best.”

“I understand, sweetie. How’ve ya all been?”

“Anthony stays busy cuttin’ lumber, carin’ for the stock, mendin’ fences—there’re never enough hours in the day. Ya remember how it was.”

“I do,” I said. “We didn’t have enough time together even when we lived under the same roof.”

“Puttin’ food on the table, shoes on the children’s feet isn’t a part-time job,” Juliana said, sharin’ a sad smile. “But, though Tim and I never said thank ya, ya and Mama know we appreciated everythin’ ya did, right?”

“Of course, Julie-bug.”

“It’s been a long time since anyone called me that.”

“What about the boys?” I asked. My eyelids weighed so heavy.

“Growin’ faster than any weed,” Juliana answered. “Wish we could tie a big stone on their heads to slow ’em down.”

“Yar mama and I visited as often as we could, ya know that, doncha, Juliana?”

“As much as I loved seein’ ya, our tiny place couldn’t handle visitors. It was the reality of the situation. And it was a long journey for ya.”

“Wish ya’d married one of those towheaded fellows that hung around the kitchen door all those summers,” I said. Hope that didn’t insult. Didn’t necessarily have anythin’ against Anthony. Mostly, just hated he moved our Juliana so far away.

“Stayin’ in the village wasn’t for me, Papa. I’m sorry.”

I started to ask another question but she cut me off.

“I can’t stay any longer. I just wished to tell ya I love ya.”

She stepped back, and another wash of exhaustion flooded me. My eyes fluttered.

“Ya about done?”

I peered toward the door with effort. “Papa?”

“Ya told Gladys ya loved her before ya left for the last load. Ya remember, Son?”

“Papa? Ya bein’ here, doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

“We can’t live our regrets. We make decisions and move forward. No second guessin’ allowed. Ain’t that a hoot. Ya had a good life, Son. Chose a good woman to stand at yar side. Prepared two wonderful young people for the world. Best thin’ any of us can hope to accomplish.”

I tried to rub my face, to clear my mind, but neither my hand nor my mind would work, as I struggled to understand how it was possible for my long-dead father to be standin’ there.

“Ya can’t choose yar time, Wilbur, but if ya could, ya couldn’t have picked a better one.”

The meanin’ seeped through the fog. Tears welled.

“No misgivin’s allowed this day,” Papa said. “The heck of it is, ya only get a last chance to see those ya care about, when ya get to do what I’m doin’ today. I must say ya accomplished much more than I did. Ya were a better person too, I think. I rushed through my life too angry. Ya were a wise, thoughtful man. Ya cared for others. I think ya worked too hard though. The important thin’s in life are often the smallest.”

“Juliana, Timothy?”

“Oh, gosh no,” he said. “They have many more years before they get their visits.”

“Then, how, why did they come here?”

“It’s a last gift, Son. It’s a shame the livin’ aren’t allowed to remember it.” Papa shook his head. “Pure shame. He ought to reconsider that one, if ya ask me, but I can’t say I pull much weight around here.” He sighed, as though to recenter his thoughts. “Those left behind only retain a twinge of loss they can’t put their finger on.”

“Will I get to say goodbye to Gladys?” I mumbled through the thick fog creepin’ over me.

“Downright arbitrary I say. Children only. A shame we learn so late it’s best to kiss yar mate every night and every mornin’ as though we know it to be the last goodbye or hello we ever get.”

I remembered Gladys strokin’ my cheek the mornin’ I left. That moment, I could feel the soft, warm flesh of her hand, see the green of her eyes, smell her essence. She had said, “Ya promised to get yarself back here safe, remember?”

The image faded.

But I kept my promise. Maybe not in the way Gladys assumed.

~