Alice Munroe (ex_barebones985) wrote in the_colony, @ 2010-07-20 05:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 18, alice munroe, bridget mackenzie, | alice and bridget |
Week 18: Sunday Morning
Characters: Bridget and Alice
Location: The Farm
Summary: Bridget comes downstairs to take her turn cooking breakfast and finds Alice already there.
Rating: PG
Bridget yawned and stretched as she awoke for the day, trying to banish the mental cobwebs and get herself moving. The young woman untangled herself from the nest of blankets and pillows and got out of bed to get dressed, and eventually made her way downstairs toward the kitchen. It was her turn to make breakfast that morning and she was hungry anyway, which had provided additional motivation to get up and moving. But she was always hungry these days, the reason for which was blatantly obvious at the rate her belly was expanding.
Most of the house got up early these days, given their developing lifestyle. The sun was just peeking through the windows in the kitchen, sending in a hazy light. What was more surprising was that the room was already warm, giving hint that someone had either just been there and stoked the woodstove, or had just started it. It didn’t take much further investigation to find a body sitting at the table, with a notepad open and writing in it.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do if we end up going back to parchment and quill pens.” Bridget teased Alice from the doorway and then made her way into the room. It had taken her some time to get over her own issues with Alice shooting Jared out in the desert two months before, but she’d worked through it and done what she could to help her friend do the same.
“Probably deal,” Alice answered, not looking up until she finished her sentence. Her brown eyes were finally returning to their previous luster, having been cold and dark for weeks. It had been a hard journey, but having work to do seemed to be helping her find herself again. The only thing that was noticeable was that she’d gotten quieter and kept to herself a lot more.
“I made some herbal tea. It should still be warm on the stove.”
“Bless you.” Bridget made her way to the stove and the pot of tea sitting on top of it. She poured herself a cup and then waddled over to the table to sit down. There was a little time before she had to get cracking on making breakfast; there was time to talk. “What list are we working on today?”
“Trying to figure out a routine for stuff,” Alice said absently, taking a moment to sip from her own slowly-cooling mug. “Like when to raid, and when to head out to the ocean for saltwater collecting, and figuring out what we’ll need to do to preserve the food. We’re doin’ okay so far, but I think we’re gonna end up eating very seasonally.”
Bridget nodded and took a sip from her own mug. She knew she was probably the largest consumer of calories at the moment, giving the teenagers and their bottomless pits a run for their money. “Most people did, before railroads and refrigeration. Of course, once we can get a few more animals and a harvest under our belt I think we’ll be able to breathe a little easier on food and worry about other stuff.” But harvest was months away, even in a relatively mild climate like western Oregon. Until then, raiding along with hunting and gathering would probably be the rule rather than the exception.
“This year’s gonna be hard,” Alice replied solemnly. “First years always are. We have to be very careful.”
Bridget nodded as she set down her mug. Her hands went to rest on the sides of her swollen middle, feeling the new life shifting inside her. It seemed her two passengers were awake, their movements were something she’d just started to feel and recognize for what they were in the last week or so and she was still getting used to the sensation.
“I hear you on the careful.” She told Alice after a moment. “At least the wildlife is more plentiful out here, plenty of game to hunt. That should help.” Not that she envied the hunters going out this time of year.
Alice nodded in response, finishing the last of her mug before standing and going to refill it. A strong part of her really missed coffee. They’d gone through their last can of it three weeks ago, something she’d quietly mourned. No doubt they could still find it if they really scrounged around in Grants Pass, but she wasn’t quite ready to start raiding parties again. They’d be fine for now.
Thinking about all the kinds of food that were running out that she’d never be able to eat again was proving to be depressing, and she didn’t dare bring it up vocally; no doubt if anyone was suffering huge food cravings, it would be Bridget, and she didn’t want to torment the other woman.
“We should be able to harvest some veg in a couple more weeks, I think,” she said idly, adding just a teaspoon of sugar from the large jar in the cupboard before coming back to the table. They'd planted a few containers while they were still traveling so as to not be completely unprepared, and they were starting to get rather big at that point. “The horticulture book said the salad greens can be harvested continually once the leaves start showing. The root veg won’t be ready until next month, if we want them to be decent-sized.”
“Any fresh vegetables will be a godsend.” Bridget made a point to try not to mention the various cravings she’d been experiencing, and she’d been managing to gain the right amount of weight she should for her situation according to the pregnancy books so in her mind she didn’t really have any room to complain. “I’ll look forward to chopping them up for the stewpot soon.”
Alice hummed in response, eyes out the window in the direction of the field. They’d really been so lucky to have found such a huge, abandoned space. Almost too lucky; the paranoia that they’d stolen away into someone’s home was still there, even if the place had been thoroughly dusty and stale when they’d gotten inside. A few small animals had even started building nests in the attic, which they’d been quick to fix up and remedy.
All the talk about food made her stomach finally grumble, and Alice ran a hand over her face in mild embarrassment, getting up once more to make herself some oatmeal. The others would be getting up soon, and she wanted to be out of the way before then.
Bridget pushed herself up out of her chair and onto her feet to start the process of making the group’s breakfast. “So, what do you want for breakfast besides oatmeal?” It was her turn to cook after all. “That bowl won’t last you ‘till lunchtime.” It definitely wouldn’t last her that long, but she had to eat about every few hours these days.
“No preference,” Alice replied, filling her bowl with hot water from the other kettle on the back burner of the stove. “It’s all food in the end, right?” The brunette pushed herself up on her toes to reach the top shelf, finding an open bag of dried mixed fruit and pulling out a handful to add to her oatmeal. It wasn’t necessarily what she craved, but it would have to do. After putting the bag back, she brought her dish to the table and sat down again. It would be a few minutes before the water had warmed up the oatmeal enough for it to be palatable, so she resumed her work at going over her notes.
“We’ve still some of that sausage left, I thought I’d make biscuits and gravy. You can be my guinea pig before the others show up.” Bridget tried to keep the frown off her face at the other woman’s comment. If a person couldn’t find enjoyment out of food something wasn’t right, but Alice hadn’t been all right since Jared died. Hopefully she’d be able to coax the other woman back out of her shell eventually.
Alice stirred her oatmeal absently, venturing a small smile mostly for Bridget’s benefit at the little joke. “I think I can manage a few bites of that,” she said, nodding. “Did you want me to go get you some more wood to work with, or is the oven hot enough?”
Bridget checked the thermostat on the stove. “If you want to get a few logs while I make the dough that couldn’t hurt, I’d probably toss one in and have the rest lying in the pile for later.”
Alice nodded and stood, her oatmeal temporarily forgotten as she headed out of the kitchen. It didn’t take long for her to return, her skin immediately flushing pink at the change in temperature. Even a short visit outside in the early morning was cold; she still wasn’t used to it. Once the logs were deposited next to the wood crate by the stove, she returned to the table and ate her oatmeal in earnest.
Bridget finished making the dough and cut out the biscuits. The circular pieces of dough were put on a cookie sheet and the first batch stuck in the oven once she put another log in the firebox. Once she’d set the little manual timer on the counter she got to work making up the gravy.
“So have you guys decided on whether or not you wanna try to make a greenhouse up here?” She glanced over her shoulder at Alice, curious. Bridget had put in a few comments here and there about the outer structures the group thought should be built, but otherwise she’d left it to the people who would actually be building stuff.
“It’s not really up to me,” Alice said slowly once she’d swallowed. She took a sip from her mug, eyes unfocused on the notepad in front of her. “And we’ll have to look for supplies and whatever else.” Truthfully, she’d lost some of her authority when it came to most of the major decisions made for their new lifestyle, though she certainly believed she deserved not to have any. With the exception of scavenging and raiding for supplies, she made most of her requests in the form of suggestions nowadays.
“I know it isn’t, I was just curious if people had decided.” She’d been busy with unpacking and arranging in the parlor what books they’d brought with them and helping set up the interior, and hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the outside world much. Now that those tasks had been accomplished she was more her normal curious self. She worked on thickening the gravy, keeping the spoon stirring so the sauce wouldn’t burn.
Alice nodded around a mouthful, pausing to take another drink before speaking. “It’d be kinda dumb not to, yeah?” she asked. “We’ll need to be ready to plant a lot of everything, and not everything we’ll want is set up to do well here.” She remembered that from the horticulture book; that most of the country was set up in zones, and that a lot of the stuff she grew in her little planter boxes behind her old house wouldn’t survive the cooler climate.
That earned her a doubtful look over the shoulder from Bridget. The climate here wasn’t that different from the one she’d grown up in, if anything it was a bit more temperate. She had a hard time imagining something they might want to grow that wouldn’t do well here. Still, maybe they could use it to plant some items out of season and get a head start on things.
Alice finished her oatmeal in the silence that fell between them, bringing the bowl over to the sink to wash. Once it was finished she set it on a dish towel to dry, then once again returned to her seat. There was no denying that there was an awkward sort of tension building between them in those silent moments, one that made Alice squirm and remember why she generally tried to avoid everyone. It made her uncomfortable. Maybe I should go feed the chickens, she thought absently. Whose turn was it to do that anyway? She couldn’t remember, but she wished that the others would start coming down and give her a chance to slip away unnoticed.
Bridget’s stomach rumbled at the smell of the gravy now that it was really cooking, and the scent of biscuits baking was starting to drift throughout the kitchen. Soon the young woman took the skillet full of gravy off the stove and placed it on a hotpad on the counter before turning around to look at the other woman.
“You can talk to me you know,” she told Alice quietly, “I’m not going to bite you.” She let her hands rest on her belly for lack of someplace better to put them and waited for a response. Anything was better than just this casual chitchat as if they were little more than strangers.
Alice sighed audibly at the statement, her eyes settling off to the side as she shifted in her seat. She ran a hand through her hair, which she’d left down and unplaited more frequently now that they were out of the desert. It was only just one example of how much she’d changed.
“What’s there to say?” she replied at last, shrugging her shoulders a little. “I’m coping. It’s diff’rent here. I’m glad that everyone is getting used to it.” I’m just... not, she finished inwardly.
“I know you didn’t really want to leave,” Bridget told her friend softly. “Who can blame you? I didn’t want to leave my home either.” But Jake hadn’t really given her a choice, not when it was choosing between him and her home region. “But we’ve got a chance to start over here Alice, if you’ll only let yourself.”
The other woman shrugged again, chewing her lower lip and fidgeting slightly in her seat. For what could have been the thousandth time, Alice found herself wondering if she shouldn’t just steal away in the night while everyone else was asleep. Just the thought alone brought Jed’s face and words to her mind: I don’t want you to go.
“Yeah, maybe,” she mumbled.
“You, Jed and Searle are the oldest friends I’ve got left Alice,” Bridget knew what she was about to say was a bit selfish but she couldn’t help it. “I don’t want to wake up one day and find out another one of my friends slipped away in the dead of night without so much as a goodbye and good luck. I know this isn’t the desert, but it can be home if you let it.”
Just then the timer dinged as the time expired, and Bridget muttered a small curse as she grabbed oven mitts to pull the first batch of biscuits out of the oven. While she didn’t want to stop the conversation, she couldn’t let the biscuits burn either.
Is it that obvious that I wanna go? Alice thought forlornly, her hands running through her hair and tugging at the ends. She found it a little easier to talk with Bridget’s back to her, but still found the words hard to string together. “Some friend I am,” she muttered, mostly to herself. “It’s not even that I don’t like this place. It’s... nice. Good location, plenty of water, good land, all that. And it isn’t even that I miss the desert, though I do--” God, I do, she echoed in her head, “--it’s just... it’s gonna take a while. All’a this is just... so much... it’s never stopped being so much, y’know?”
“I know a bit about things being so much,” the taller brunette’s tone wasn’t quite sarcastic, but it was close. After all, she’d wound up nearly all the way across the country, in the desert, pregnant, and lost her husband and last member of her blood family to boot. She caught sight of Alice’s wince and sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Sorry.”
The biscuits were placed in a waiting bowl, covered with a cloth to keep them warm save for three, which were split between a plate for herself and Alice. Once the second batch was in the oven she topped the three with gravy and brought the plates to the table.
“I know it’s a lot, but you’ve got friends who care about you. I wasn’t the best friend I could have been right after everything happened, and I’m sorry for that.”
Alice kept her eyes down on her plate at Bridget’s last words, focusing on cutting herself a bite and eating it. She chewed thoughtfully, eyes closed and focused. “Needs a little pepper,” she said after a moment. “And maybe some sage. Do we have any sage?”
“I know we have pepper, sage I’m not sure about.” Bridget slid the pepper over toward Alice and hauled herself out of her seat to check the spice rack, allowing the subject change to go unchallenged for now. She was hungry.
A couple shakes over the plate had Alice nodding in approval and immediately thinking about getting an herb window box or two started. They could easily track down a few seed packets for those in town. She made sure to add that on a page in her notebook a few leafs back.
“Good stuff,” she said encouragingly.
“Glad you like it, I had good materials to work with.” Bridget smiled as she waddled back to the table with a container of sage. “We had some in the spice rack.” She put a forkful of biscuits and gravy into her mouth after passing the container over. “Oya,” she moaned, another forkful quickly following.
Alice smirked slightly in response, opening the little bottle and shaking a pinch out on top of the gravy as well. She stood and brought the bottle to the pan on the hotpad, giving it a shake over the contents before stirring it; she left out the pepper for preference sake, as it was possible not everyone shared her tastes. That done she once again returned to her seat, eating again in the silence that followed.
Somewhere in the house she heard the telltale sounds of a shower being used - briefly on, then off again, in a style they’d all had to get used to. Alice picked up the pace at that, only getting up briefly in order to refill their mugs before coming back to finish her plate.
“What’re your plans today?” she asked, hoping to direct the remainder of their conversation away from herself.
Bridget shrugged. “See what needs doing around the house after breakfast,” she managed between bites. “Work on that until lunchtime, then probably get a nap in. After that I dunno. You?”
Alice gave a tap to her notebook with her free hand while she chewed and swallowed, then used the side of her fork to scrape up the gravy toward the middle of the plate. “Probably gonna go feed the chickens inna bit. Maybe check out those houses down by the river to see if there’s anything worth picking out of them.” The river was less than a mile away. Close enough that she felt safe going alone, but not far enough to warrant another person having to go with her if they didn’t want to.
“I can go with you in the afternoon if you want,” Bridget offered. She wasn’t so far along yet that she wasn’t going to go out if there was a reason, and where Alice was talking was only a few minutes away. Another eight weeks or so, ten at the most and it would likely be a different story. Even if she wanted to go help out she imagined the others would sit on her if they had to.
Alice shrugged lightly. “S’up to you,” she answered, then finished the last bite of gravy and brought the plate to the sink to wash. The mug she could take with her to wherever she decided to settle for the afternoon to work on her lists, once she finished feeding the chickens. Alice tried making it a habit of only using the same glass every day and rinsing it at the end.
“I haven’t been out for a couple days, so it probably couldn’t hurt to get some fresh air.” Bridget finished her gravy and snagged another biscuit out of the bowl and spread some jam on it. It was really going to suck when they ran out of sugar. Hopefully there would be some enterprising trader who would find sugarcane growing south of the border and bring sugar up their way.
“I’ll come get you after your nap, then,” Alice replied with a nod. “Or you can find me. Whichever. I’ll probably stay on the property today unless Jed needs me for something.”
“Sounds good,” Bridget smiled after swallowing a bite of biscuit. “If I’m not up by two come get me...oof!” She made a face at a particularly strong movement from one of the twins and shook her head as she put a hand on her belly. “Dunno if I’m going to get used to this, hope they don’t start fighting before they’re even born.”
A concerned look flitted across Alice’s face, but luckily she wasn’t looking directly at Bridget when it happened. After hearing how Bridget’s sister had passed, she couldn’t deny feeling fearful of the future that was rapidly approaching them. Returning to the table, she picked up her mug and notebook, the latter of which she shoved underneath her arm to return to her room.
“Later,” she said with a nod.
“See you then,” Bridget responded, and finished her breakfast so she would be ready by the time the others came down.