The Door Unopened

“It's too dangerous,” you say, looking at the fence line where five patient shadows sit watching the tree. “If it goes wrong, it goes wrong for the whole farm. For the whole town.” And no one argues with you, because you are not wrong.

So the door stays shut, and you fight the long defensive fight instead: honey poultices and iron nails over the doorframes, comfrey by the fences, Sera husbanding her strength in the cellar like a banked fire. Aunt Bee teaches you to ring the bell properly — wrist, not arm — and the wolves keep their distance, and the grey keeps its slow patient pace, fence post by fence post, and everybody is safe, and nothing is mended.

Some nights you sit with the diary and read the first of September entry again. I waved until the light was gone. I am going to be happy about this, I have DECIDED. Aunt Bee decided her door shut fifty years ago, and built a good life on the deciding — but you've seen her check the orchard window, four minutes by four minutes, ever since the storm.

Shut doors keep out the wind, Madison. They keep out the rain-smell and the healers and the help, too. The tree is still there. The bell still rings true. Come back another day, when the wanting is bigger than the weather.