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They listened to the sound of Mrs. Gaines’s car engine accelerate onto the dirt road beyond, fading toward the highway. The rain had stopped and beams of sunlight appeared on the misty droplets of low, lingering clouds.
They all turned to face each other, Asher and Leah and their grandfather. “I wonder,” Asher said, “if you might have a chessboard.”
“I don’t. I’m sorry,” Rhys said. “No one to play up here.”
“I play games by myself sometimes.”
“I’ve heard people do that,” Rhys said.
Asher nodded. “I usually open with the Ruy-Lopez. Or the Sicilian Defense. I can only play a few moves in my mind. After four or five, I either need a board or pen and paper to keep track. I’m not very good at notation. Eventually, I’ll be able to play entire games in my mind, though. All the best players can.”
“Well, until then, I have plenty of pens and lots of scratch paper,” Rhys said.
“What’s scratch paper?”
“It’s paper with something on the other side.”
“What’s on the other side?”
“Various things. Reports. Bills. It’s just a way to use paper twice.”
“Oh. That’s smart. Can I use your bathroom?”
Kinnick scratched his head. “Well, about that... I have a compostingtoilet, but I’ve been having trouble installing it and I ordered the wrong chemicals, so it still isn’t working.”
“What does that mean?”
“Oh. Right. It means you can either go outside or try the big drop.”
“What’s the big drop?”
Rhys started toward the outhouse. “Come on, I’ll show you.” He unlatched the door and opened it. “I apologize for the smell.”
Asher walked over and stuck his head in. “It doesn’t stink too bad,” he said.
“I sprinkle wood ash to help with that.”
“What’s wood ash?”
“Ash from the fire.”
“Oh. Right.” Asher came in farther and looked around. It was a toilet seat over a dark, scary hole in the ground. “How far down does it go?”
“Six feet.”
Asher went all the way into the outhouse, closed the door, unzipped, and gave it a go, dappled sunlight coming from screened openings on either side of the tiny building. He liked the way his pee disappeared into the dark hole, and he liked the deep trickling sound of it hitting water down below, but then he started imagining what might be living down there and the stream immediately stopped. There was nowhere to wash his hands, so he just zipped his pants and left the outhouse.
It was quiet outside. Leah and Grandpa Rhys were standing there, hands in their pockets. The three of them made an awkward triangle near the back of the house, each waiting expectantly for the next move. Who knew quiet had its own sound? Wind running fingers through the trees, the burble of nearby water, even the ground seemed to make tiny crackling sounds. Asher looked all around his grandfather’s place, the sad house on this knob, and the two outbuildings, the hillside behind the house covered with mountain grasses and thin, scraggly pine trees, mostly green, with a few reddish and yellowish ones thrown in.
“The trees with the orange needles,” Asher finally asked, “are those sick?”
Kinnick turned and looked up at the hillside. “No. They’re mostly tamaracks. Larches.”
“They look like candles,” Leah said.
“They do, don’t they?” Kinnick smiled at Leah’s keen observation. “Like lit matches surrounded by all that green.” He squinted one eye. “They make good firewood, too, if you catch them at the right time. Just after they’ve died, before the bugs and rot set in.”
“Didn’t you used to have a barn?” Leah asked.