I looked at the stack of boards. I counted them. 14 good boards, 12 feet long, 8 shorter pieces, some scraps. It was not enough lumber. I knew it was not enough lumber. But it was what I had.
The forest had given me barely enough to survive those first weeks: chickweed growing in the lee of the cabin wall, a rabbit I caught in a snare made from a bootlace, acorns that I cracked and leached in the spring and ground into something that was almost flour. But the forest could not give me lumber. The forest could not give me the skill to build what Silas had designed.
I started anyway.
I set the first boards on the stone footings, bracing them with rocks. They fell over. I tried again. They fell over again. I sat in the leaf litter and looked at the boards and thought about going back to the road.
“You’re doing it wrong.”
The voice came from behind me. I scrambled to my feet, my heart slamming. A man stood at the edge of the clearing, old, 70 at least, 1 eye clouded with cataract, the other bright and sharp. His hands were white in the creases, stained with something powdery.
“Lime,” he said, seeing me look. “I was a stonemason once.”
“Who are you?”
