Autumn Nights
by Amber Averay
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Abby sat on the verandah, wrapped in a blanket and lost in a thick book. Dusk had settled in, and a light rain was falling, pattering against the tin roof with that soothing sound she’d always loved. A gentle wind stirred, carrying in its fingers leaves a kaleidoscope of red, orange, yellow, and brown. It was magical, as if a witch had crooked her finger and twitched life to the air surrounding her home.
The vast property on which she lived was isolated, distant from town and neighbours and prying eyes. It had been in her family for generations, and when her brother made it known he had no interest in taking over from their parents Abby became the sole heiress and was tutored in every aspect of home and business.
The Mendelsson family sold firewood throughout Autumn, Winter, and early Spring until the weather turned and made the need for hearth fires obsolete. It was unfortunate for other traders in the firewood business that the Mendelsson logs were unsurpassable. They had tried to launch businesses of their own, only to fail when their product was found diseased and unusable. Somehow, the trees grown on Mendelsson land produced wood that lit easily, burned slowly, and gave off a warmth that filled an entire floor within an hour of the flame’s first bite taking hold.
Nobody could replicate it, and nobody could work out why. A tree was just a tree, right? Wood was wood? Yet it had been proven time and again that nothing was better than that sold by Abby’s family.
The secret, Abby reflected, returning inside to shed her blanket and grab a jacket, was in how they treated the soil in which the roots were buried. They nurtured the ground, not just that which grew on it, and coaxed from the earth only the best it could offer.
Now bundled in woollen clothes, she hurried through the back door and out into the cool evening. Her parents would be in the arbory, preparing the fetiliser for scattering over the ground. This was where Abby herself headed, to assist in the preparation and distribution of the specialised compost.
It was work best done at night, where they could move freely and not be interrupted by prospective buyers or traders curious to find out why their products were never good enough compared to Mendelsson’s Wood.
Lit by torches, Michael and Martha knelt at the edge of a pit digging in the fragrant soil with gloved hands. Abby wordlessly snatched up a pair of gloves herself, pulled them on, and crouched across from her parents.
The pit-work was her least favourite, though it was a necessity. It was treated with natural materials and turned regularly – something to do with equal access to soil and air strengthening the quality of the dirt. When this process was complete, the members of the family would fill buckets with the earth and wander their land, scattering handfuls of the secret fertiliser around the saplings.
Abby dug her hands in, pulling up a clump of soil. It was imperative the dirt be turned by hand – ‘the personal touch’, her father intoned – and connected them deeper to the land and the trees.
When she turned the next handful of earth, she gripped something soft and squishy and hauled it from the soil. Bile flooded her mouth, and she clenched her jaws together and fought to control her stomach. Her brother’s hand, complete with signet ring, was almost entirely grey now and well into decomposition. Out the corner of her eye she saw Michael and Martha exchange a glance, and then her mother took the fingers in her gloved grasp and reburied it in another part of the pit.
That was the real secret ingredient that her family relied upon to produce perfect quality wood – a family member was sacrificed to the earth, their bodies relinquished to the pit, its decaying corpse feeding nutrients to the soil which then nourished the growing saplings.
Only when nothing yet remained of the body was another family member surrendered to the ground. So it had been for generations. So it must always be.
Abby wondered who would be next: she yet had three siblings remaining, her parents, and paternal grandmother.
All she knew was that it would not be her. She would live long enough to enjoy the largesse her ancestors built and handed down.
No matter what, she would survive them all.
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