Chapter Seven
APRIL WAS A MONTH OF mud and rainfall. The forest stank of old death and fresh beginnings.
Lucas preferred to sit outside his new home. He could not stand in the low rear half of the cabin. He built a small wooden bench beside the door and planked out a table, along with two makeshift chairs, more accurately called stumps. These stumps, plus a crude sleeping platform and the crates and chest they’d salvaged from the river, served as furnishings.
The missing limb pained him the night before and yesterday as well. He sat and watched the iron grey clouds coil about the lip of the valley like steam about a simmering cauldron. He felt a certain perverse pleasure knowing he could accurately predict weather.
It was good to know his simple magic worked.
“It will rain soon,” he s
