Inside smelled like a blend of herbs and fresh baked bread and smoky bacon. The
Inside smelled like a blend of herbs and fresh baked bread and smoky bacon. The front door led right into a kitchen where there was a giant old wood-fired stove with a kettle resting on it, a deep cast-iron sink with a pump handle instead of a faucet, a big table covered with a checkered oilcloth, and some kerosene lamps. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling. I nearly tripped over a wooden crate near the stove that had a chicken in it. She ruffled her feathers and clucked at me. Two dogs made the rounds, sniffing each of us. One growled but Jane Shandy said “hush” and he did. A cat had taken one disgusted look and stalked out of the room.
It looked like an old-timey museum, except museums usually are full of knick-knacks and the walls are crowded with framed samplers and old paintings of scary-looking men with beards and eyes that follow you. There wasn’t anything like that here. Instead, there was a laptop and a toolbox on the kitchen table.
Jane Shandy got Wheeze into a cushiony chair beside the stove. Stuffing leaked through through the worn places on the arms. She sat on a matching ottoman and took his ankle in her lap and unwrapped the stretchy bandage. After she examined it and Wheeze made some noise she said “It’s not broken. Don’t touch that gun.”
Bree had been eying it, propped in a corner next to a broom and an umbrella. She took a step away from it. “I won’t.”
“It’s not loaded, but it’s old. The bolt assembly comes apart if you handle it wrong. Bad sprain you got there. Be a couple of weeks before you can get around. You can stay here for now. You know much about computers?”
“No.”
“You know chickens?
She turned to me. “You fix chickens?”
“Computers. I can try, anyway,” I said.
“Any of you fix chickens?” Bree and Nikko shook their heads. “I didn’t think so. Whyn’t you go out to the barn, then. Take one of the empty jars from the pantry and fill it up with nutmeats. Might as well be useful.”
As it turned out, the computer didn’t take long to fix. The insert key was jammed and some of the others were sticky. I just needed to blow out the gunk that had accumulated under the keys. Canned air is nice for this, but I didn’t have any, so I used my breath instead, which made me dizzy and made Wheeze laugh at me. Jane Shandy didn’t laugh, but her mouth showed a slight downward trend at the edges which I was beginning to recognize was the only indicator in her stony expression that she was amused. I wondered about that later, why she never smiled, but that was her business and she had a right to keep it private.
“Is that all it was?” she asked me.
“Probably. I’ll see if you need any software updates. I have a secure phone that I could use to connect—“
“No need. I’m on a mesh network.”
“Seriously? I would have thought this place was too rural for that.”
“Might not work in Wyoming or Alaska, but there’s just enough of us living close by to keep a wireless party line going. I’m not all that smart about this stuff.” She nodded at the gear on the