Eel River by Shannon Page

Author:Shannon Page [Page, Shannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: hippie, horror, dark fantasy
ISBN: 9781611385229
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Published: 2015-09-22T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

The Dad awoke, rolled over, and looked at his sleeping wife. She was so peaceful, her dark brown hair strewn across the pillow, her mouth slightly open, her forehead smoothed in slumber. She had seemed particularly uptight lately, as if she had never quite gotten over her unpleasant acid trip. He’d hoped that the chore redistribution would give her some relief. She and Evening Star had some sort of dust-up, he could tell that much, but neither of them were talking to anyone else about it. Whatever it was, Evening Star was doing basically no work at all, and the Mom wasn’t complaining. Not out loud, anyway.

For a while there, the Dad had been thinking that his wife was finally getting accustomed to life in the country, to the different pace, to the lack of television and modern comforts, but now he wasn’t sure. Now he felt a bit guilty for dragging her out here, but he told himself that she had been just as enthusiastic as he had. It was true that it had been his idea, originally, but she had embraced it at once, when he had broached it. Well, not at once, but soon enough, after he had explained all his thinking. And she had never complained about the idea—just the reality. She had plenty to say about the little day-to-day inconveniences, the minor things that got in the way of seeing the larger vision. It was a lot of work, and they fell into bed exhausted every night, even still, and probably always would. But she still agreed with that vision. Now that the community was growing, they faced new challenges, of course. But the Dad was hopeful that it would all get worked out in time.

He was particularly worried about Weed and Astrid. They were getting the bare minimum of their chores done, but then they were spending lots of time in their camper, hardly emerging even for meals, this last week or so. At first he had thought they were rushing down there to ball all the time, and that that was why Junior was hanging around the house so much more, to give them some space, some privacy. But then the tension coming off of them when he did see them caused the Dad to rethink his theory. Tension: especially Astrid. Something was going on with her. Maybe they were getting ready to move on. Maybe community life was not for them. Maybe they were having troubles in their relationship. People were complicated, that was for sure.

The Dad gave his wife one last look and considered waking her up, but then decided to let her sleep. He could get the breakfast ready. He didn’t have much else on his plate today in terms of chores.

The whole community was getting geared up for the big Land party this weekend. They’d gone to town and put up fliers, talked to the other community they sort of knew down in Vaughn’s Corner, and done everything else they could think of to get the word out.

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