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"The second key is to the cellar where our emergency stores are. Anyone who needs them can use them; just don't waste anything. I think bad times are here, and that's what they're for. Whoever reads this, God keep you."
The next part was probably written later; the strong bold hand was much shakier:
"I can't keep awake anymore, so I'm going upstairs to be by Joan in eternity as we have been together so long in time. Tell Joseph and John and Dave and June and Kathleen and all the children that we love them. Frank Fairfax."
Juniper turned away, clearing her throat and wiping savagely at her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Blessed be," she said softly, remembering their strained politeness, and the Christmas cookies they'd given Eilir, and the swarm of grandchildren who'd asked permission before they went up into her woods when they visited around Ostara time last year-Easter to Christians.
Silently to herself: Dread Lord of Death and Resurrection, take Frank and Joan Fairfax into Your keeping. Lead them home, that they may find sweet rest in the Land of Summer until they return, as all things are reborn through the Cauldron of the Goddess. So merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again.
De
"I'm sorry as can be about your neighbors, Juney. But we ought to take an inventory. Their family was in Idaho?"
"Farmers near Twin Falls," she said. "Potatoes in a large way; Frank said"-she swallowed-"that he couldn't live without putting in a patch at least."
She went into the molasses-smelling dimness of the barn; Fairfax had opened sacks of feed, and one of kibble for his sheepdog. There were more flats of pelletized alfalfa up in the loft, grain-and-molasses feed and baled hay-old-fashioned square bales, at that.
Not only some stock, but we can feed it, she thought, a huge weight lifting from her chest. There's plenty of grazing here and on my place, and this will keep it over the winter.
The milk would be good for Terry, and Eilir… and perhaps she could try her hand at making butter and cheese, there were descriptions in books she had. A vision of Eilir's face goblin-thin like pictures of an African famine faded from the back of her mind.
And don't Mormons believe in keeping a lot of food on hand? Maybe that's what he meant by emergency stores. The Fairfaxes took all that seriously, I think. I'll look up some Mormons to do the rites their way when I can, she promised herself.
Twin Falls, Idaho, might as well be on the far side of the Atlantic for all the good the Fairfaxes' family would get out of their stuff here, and they were probably better off than anyone on the western side of the Cascades anyway.
But Eugene isn't that far away, she thought. Dare I go and try and find Rudy? The place would probably be chaos and madness and stalking death by now. But dare I not try, Goddess? Didn’t You descend to A
Then De
She threw herself at him, and they whirled about in an impromptu dance, whooping with glee. After a breathless moment she broke free.
Thanks be, Mother-of-All. I see what You're telling me.
He was still exclaiming and waving the ax when her face went sober.
"What's wrong, Juney?" he said. "We can plant enough potatoes up by your place to keep us going all next winter, if we hurry-and there's enough to feed us all until October in style, too."
"Provided nobody comes up the road with bad intent," she said. "There's an old logging track from the back of the Fairfax place to the cabin. We'll use that up to the cabin, and get things in order. And then we'll start."
"Planting potatoes?" De
"We'll start doing what we can for the world."
"For the world?"
Juniper waved a hand at the barn. "The Mother-of-All's been good to us, De
"Whoa," Chuck Barstow said, easing back on the reins. The other two wagons and the walking coveners halted too.
It was a bright, breezy spring day; sixty or a little more, and no sign of rain, for a wonder. The big yellow school bus ahead had swerved half off the road. That was a narrow country two-lane blacktop, fifteen miles north of Eugene and a few east of the I-5. They hadn't seen anything but a few local farmers on foot and the odd horseman for hours, which was a relief.
The wagons could carry a lot, but they couldn't do it very fast or for very long at a time, not without killing the horses. He wasn't an expert-he knew just enough to put the harness on properly-but he knew that, from Juniper's tales of her team and what he'd picked up at RenFaires and Society events.
Faces came to the windows of the bus, and two small figures ran out, jumping up and down and waving their arms at the adults.
Chuck blinked again. It was a boy and a girl, both nine or ten, both in white shirts and green blazer jackets with some crest on the breast pocket, shorts and brown shoes and knee socks. One had tow blond hair and the other dark red braids and freckles.
"Please!" the boy cried. "Sanjay's sick!"
"We're hungry," the girl added. "And we don't have any more water, either. Not good water."
Chuck's eyes flicked to the bus again; Washington plates, and they'd been heading north when things… Changed. Why on this side road and not I-5, the Lord and Lady alone knew.
More children came crowding out of the bus; he counted twelve, all about the same age. Diana pulled up the second wagon, and the coveners on foot gathered around-all the adults had tools over their shoulders, long-handled pruning hooks or shovels or pitchforks. The garden-supply store manager had been willing to accept personal checks; they'd cleaned him out of most of his seed-for plants you could eat-and the tools could double as weapons at need. He thought they might have stopped a few fights already, simply by being there.
It was a new experience, being envied for his wealth; he didn't much like it. The coveners looked at the children with troubled eyes; their own children mostly glared at the newcomers with pack-instinct suspicion.
"Sanjay's really sick," the boy went on.
Before Chuck could open his mouth, Judy was off the bench with her bag in hand. Chuck hesitated, ran a hand over his receding blond hair, then shrugged and followed.
"Dorothy, would you mind watering them?" he asked, in passing.
The horses stood patiently, twitching their hides occasionally or tossing a head in a jingle of harness. Chuck's own nose twitched as Judy walked up the stairs by the vacant driver's seat. Sanjay was at the back of the bus, lying on an improvised pallet of coats and covered with more of the same; the children had made a clumsy effort to clean up the vomit, but he'd obviously fouled himself as well. His clammy, sweating brown face looked at them with bewildered hope-he was South Asian, by the name and the delicate fine-boned features.