Once Upon a Clearing

By BERNICE BERGER MILLER

Once there was a Clearing. It was several acres of green grass ringed by an umbrella of lush trees with fat bushes at their roots. At one point in time the clearing sat uninhabited. And then it wasnt. Small cabins emerged and a few people appeared and occupied them.
Louis Johnson, a mountain of a man, gently led his petite wife, Lily, and their two children into Berthas cabin. As a youth, he had assumed the role of protecting his mother and little sister from his violent father. Without any formal anointment he was the designated leader of the small community. Ethan and Emily were the parents of three boys, two of whom were twins that were born in the flat bed of a wagon. And with Doc, Bertha, and her son young son Peter, the community was created in the clearing.
In the encircling woods, Kate had stumbled on a thick root that snaked along the ground. Peter, searching for rabbits, saw her and dragged her to his cabin where Bertha stood on their unpainted porch. She carried Kate to her big bed that stood in the corner of the cabins main room. Peter summoned Doc who occupied another small cabin. Doc announced that Kate had broken her hip.
The community, now twelve including the children, gathered at Berthas to see the broken hip. They had not seen one before.
Their way of life was nearly independent of the bustling controlling world from which they all had come. Their world was pristine. Louis and Lily, along with their daughter, Venus, awakened the soft slumber of their community with a decision they made. Will the Clearing still remain green with an arch of a rainbow protecting it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503594012

BERNICE BERGER MILLER

Bernice Berger Miller, author of ONCE UPON A CLEARING, has written other novels, a memoir, short stories, children’s stories, poems, and selections for private purposes. She earned her B.S. from Columbia University and her Ph.D. from the University of Florida. Dr. Miller resides in Florida and spends her summers in Vermont where she became a partner in the antique and collectible business. She is an inveterate traveler, having visited many countries. Always an ardent sports fan, she’s a loyal rooter for her favorite team, The Miami Dolphins, for which she has had season tickets for over 30 years. And when she’s not mixing it up with her five grandchildren and two children and writing her next piece, she’s watching a game.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Jeee-zus! Kate pitched the eee high and sustaining for several seconds and then snapped the zus short with a staccato punch. She had tripped, catching her toe on a thick root that crawled snakelike along the ground. She examined her knee that trickled blood and the palms of her hands scraped with parallel red lines. Dots of dirt were embedded in the lines. She hadn’t noticed the throbbing in her hip yet.

No one was in sight. How could there be? She had chosen this route to be alone, to hear nothing, to disappear. Lowering her head, her tears splattered noiselessly to the ground. I am not sad, she thought, I’m annoyed. I don’t have time for this. Her plan was to empty herself and sink into wherever she’d sink into. Empty herself of what had been her home, the grand home on a street of grand homes. Grand and vacuous. Inhabited with the usual and then not. Filled but empty. Like a spigot that had run dry. The sinking had been sneaking around, threatening for months but the quicksand gave up leaving her only half drowning. All she wanted was to wither away and not even think. Now she had to think dammit.

She sat up and only then did she feel a sharp pain in her hip. She pulled a handful of tissues out of her pocket and dabbed her knee and the palms of her hands. No big deal, she thought. But trying to stand was different. For leverage she used the root of the tree that had betrayed her and grabbing a long branch from the ground for a cane, she willed herself into a standing position.

She had been running. Running through the unfamiliar woods 1,000 miles from what had been her home. Her car sat at the side of the road, empty except for her clothes that were bunched up in the corner of the back seat. Her purse was thrown in on top. She left the car unlocked planning not to see it again. Her jeans and shirt and sandals that she wore and the small wad of bills balled up in her pocket were it. She was running from her constant hovering mother, where was she now? And her father whose very existence was undeserved. Scott and Little Bit, I’ll think of them, only them.

How could I have wasted, she thought. How could I? She leaned against a tree as tears burned in her eyes and fell in puddles on her shirt. Was she crying because the moment she put her key in the ignition not knowing where she was going should have been much sooner? When her life started collapsing around her? Was she crying for the time lost? Or the guilt of running away without a word of ‘so long’ to anyone? She had felt the slow crush around her. She had fallen into deep sleeps. There was no longer room to move around. To move around herself. To get out of her own way. When she heard that phrase over and over in her mind, she knew she was near the bottom — she hated clichés.

Resting with her back pressed against the rough tree bark, she could feel its pointed spikes reaching through her shirt. It hurt, but oddly, it felt good. A lightness began as a veil over her eyes. Heat shot through her, starting at her neck and then rising to her face. She could feel the blush. She broke out in a heavy sweat. Her legs turned jelly-like. She slid down against the spikes of the tree bark not feeling its scratches or hearing the ripping of her shirt.

The sun that had hit its apex when she stepped from her car peeked now from the western horizon. She could feel hands under her armpits. They were small weak hands. Unable to lift her, they dragged her along the bumpy ground. Her head lolled backward and forward. Her heels in their light sandals scraped along. Slowly she realized that she was no help to the weak Good Samaritan. The last thing she wanted was anyone, Good Samaritan or otherwise, to enter her enclosed world. But there it was, unbidden, a child really.

C’mon, I’ll get you out.

Mmm. Kate stiffened.

No, that’s harder.

Go away, Kate thought. Leave me alone. Alone. No, don’t. Just for now.

I’ll get you out. Don’t worry.

Who’s worried? I want to stay in. Inside. Inside myself.

My name’s Peter. What’s yours?

Peter? I thought he was a girl. So light, so weak. Young. Must be very young.

Peter dragged her. With momentum she felt lighter to him. He hoisted her a little to get a better hold. What’s yours?

Kate. She whispered. That’s all the strength she had.

Where are you taking me?

When he didn’t answer, she realized that she only thought it. She was too weak to speak. Why am I so weak? A little fall, very little blood.

She took a deep breath and summoned all her strength. Where are you taking me?

Home, he said. My ma’s home. She’ll know what to do.

Is your father home too? Kate wished for no people at all, especially a mother and a father.

Pa’s gone. Been gone for three years now. Ever since the fire.

Good, Kate thought.

Good, Peter said. No more hollering and screaming. No more punching my ma. She couldn’t take it no more. But she’d smile to me and say it’s okay it’s okay. I knew she was doing that to protect me. But I knew all along that she was crying on the inside. I couldn’t protect her but I swear if he ever comes around to hurt my ma I’ll beat him up because I’m strong now. See? And he hoisted her again, this time getting a stronger grip.

Kate tried to take her weight off him and soon they stopped outside a small cabin. It was badly in need of paint which was the least of it. A few window panes were shattered and the low roof showed too many areas without shingles. The rain gutters were gone except for one that hung crookedly to the ground. Oddly, the front yard was tended and a small kitchen garden sprouted the beginnings of lettuce, cauliflower, and shoots of several green herbs. Upright sticks had tomato plants clinging to them. Potatoes hid just below the surface. Watermelons and cantaloupes sat big in the weeded dirt. All kinds of berry bushes skirted the outside of the garden. Pumpkin were getting ready for Hallowe’en. There was still plenty of time. The contrast of the tilted sadly neglected cabin and the carefully tended garden could have been the subject of a painting. The painting took on life with the appearance of a stout woman at the front door.

Well Peter, what did you bring home this time? Hmm? Her firm voice ended with a chuckled ‘hmm.’

Kate thought, I guess I’m another one of his birds with a wounded wing or a rabbit with a broken leg that he brings home for his ma to fix.

Well little lady, c’mon in before the dark settles in. She stepped outside extending her ample arms and lifted Kate easily, cradling her. The pain in her hip shot through her. Well I see we’ve got a little trouble here.

Kate didn’t want to intrude and she didn’t want to be intruded upon. But one didn’t mess with this no-nonsense woman. It seemed to Kate that in the past three years without the Pa that Ma had re-established the strength that was in her all the time.

The inside of the cabin was scrubbed and smelled of fresh pine. The open hearth in the main room had its share of newly vigorous brushing. A shiny pot hung over a fire that seemed to obey the rule of the house and never go out. The mantle, slightly askew but nevertheless dusted clean, held an iron lighting device that was hand-wrought. The candle holder was crooked and rough in spots attesting to its worker’s unsteady dedicated hand. But it was a dedicated hand, and if the holder weren’t so functional and honest, it would be termed charming. But Kate was sick to death of charming and felt instead the warmth of this home.

Ma’s big bed stood crisp and clean in the corner of the room. Ma laid Kate gently in it. Kate was waiting for a What happened? Where does it hurt? Where were you? How could this happen? Oh my God. Call 911. But this Ma silently took off Kate’s sandals, covered her, and in no time appeared with a cup of tea. She turned around and put three bowls on the table and big pewter spoons with their accompanying knives and forks at each place. She placed the round loaf of bread that seemed to appear from nowhere against her breast and with effortless care, sliced thick slices. She piled them up in a wooden bowl and placed beside them a hunk of yellow aromatic butter. She stabbed the butter with a rounded knife and left it there.

Kate said nothing and Ma said nothing. As Kate was finishing the last drops of tea, the front door opened and Peter entered followed by a ramrod straight man with an unkempt graying beard.

Hello, Bertha.

Doc. Tea?

Nothing stronger?

Yup, but not for you.

Anybody broke here?

Take a look for yourself.

Kate touched her hip.