Chapter 53
Melisse didn't know what to make of the village men. They treated her and the others well enough, except that Lionel and Vince were forced to sleep in the stable.
The first full day, the villagers taught them to dig up a small round root, a sort of primitive parsnip, and mash them so that they could be dried as meal for the winter. The village men seemed to be planning for them to remain through the winter and needed to increase the amount of food stored. It also meant the village men didn't plan to kill them ... at least not all of them, and not right away.
Today, they were separated, and all given a variety of chores.
Melisse grew tired of shelling beans and stepped out of the community house and looked around. “Mayor” Thaddeus Kohler chopped wood some distance away. The c
