A Place to Write — in Autumn
Autumn is magical in a mountain cabin. The leaves are changing and when the sun sets behind the ridge temps drop fast and long shadows look spooky. Time to fire up the woodstove and write a novel.
Here is an excerpt from Witch Hammer, in which Eriks, who has fled the NKVD in Riga, has met up with Zelma at a farm.
“You ever have the feeling something swift and terrible is about to happen to you,” Eriks whispered, lacing his shoes and watching Zelma pull her coveralls back in place.
“You’re just now getting that feeling?” Zelma asked. “Something swift and terrible has already happened to us.”
“I had you wrongly pegged as a frightened little bird,” he said, admiring her dark locks before she hid them under her cap.
“I had you pegged as an arrogant, reckless playboy.”
Eriks waited for her to say that now she believed differently. In the silence, unfamiliar noises in the building made his mouth dry with anxiety.
“I mean you don’t normally seduce fugitives. Do you?”
“There’s no normal anymore,” Zelma said.
“Well, I think you’re inordinately brave,” Eriks said, feeling both swirly and serious. “Noble, even.”
“Why? For having a roll with you?”
“Yah. For following your heart despite lurking farm collectivizors,” Eriks said. He pointed to the wall as if they both knew someone in green wool with a clipboard skulked on the other side. “I’m glad you weren’t too afraid.”
Zelma looked amused. “You’re taking my mind off the scary stuff.”
“Really. What frightens you, my pretty little sandwich,” Eriks said, wrapping his arms around her.
“First of all, you calling me a sandwich has me a little worried. But mainly, since you ask, today I have to go pick up supplies at this sinister village, Patikamspils. You know it?”
“No. But I saw a sign for it from the train.”
“Picturesque little hamlet, scary as hell. Going there’s like getting caught in a spider web.”
“How so?” Eriks said, sliding his hand under Zelma’s sweater.
Zelma looked down toward his hand with a tolerant expression before continuing. “It’s home to the most rabid militia you never want to meet,” she said. “They love making examples of errant townspeople. I have to drive the sledge right past NKVD command center, this old manor house where they’re all lounging around, waiting for someone to punish.”
“Well, can’t you take a different route? There must be a back road.”
“Nay. In winter there’s only the one narrow road in and out, through deep forest. It’s the only one cleared of snow. And it’s edged with tall, frozen berms, so once I turn down it, I can’t turn around.”
Eriks nodded. “A trap.” He could visualize the situation.
“That’s only half of it,” Zelma said, lowering her voice. “The folks living there are the worst sort of Soviet collaborators, the biggest turncoats in the country. Ready to tattle on their own mother to get in good with the Ivans.”
Shaking her head, Zelma suddenly pressed her hand to her face, looking conscience-stricken.
“Last time I went, I took this boy, Daniels. He accidentally broke a glass in the pub. One of the villagers got up from his beer and ran down the road, nearly two kilometers, to tell the Cheka. Trying to win favor, you know, saying something like an anti-Soviet youth was badgering the village, and that it would be easy to capture him.”
“And did they?”
“Oh, yah! In a jiffy! Not just one or two guys, either. The whole kāpost galva outpost was raging. And guns! They came ready to take on an army.”
“I’ll go with you,” Eriks said, retracting his hand from Zelma’s sweater and smoothing her hair.
“I’ll take your mind off the scary stuff. Yah?” Eriks wanted to succeed where this Daniels fellow, whoever he was, had failed.
“Oh, no. I go by myself now. Keep my head down. You’d just make matters worse. They’d view you and your fancy coat as an invitation to trouble.” Flashing a mischievous smile, she added, “Like I did.”
Eriks felt somewhat invincible as he climbed back out the window. He leaped past the lower ladder rungs into the snow and rolled up like he’d just returned from vacation. The ladder felt light as balsa wood as he carried it back to the hayloft. Climbing up, he curled in a sun-warmed corner and slept hard, arms around a bag of oats. Hoping to conjure dreams of Zelma, instead sleep was haunted by Comrade Green Wool.
Witch Hammer is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
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