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Havenwood Seventeen Years Ago

Calliope kissed her beautiful girl on the top of her glorious red head and laughed. “Oh, Riley, it’s a beautiful day!”

She swung her daughter around in the meadow, laughing at the fit of giggles coming from the five-year-old.

They collapsed in the meadow and looked up at the clear blue sky. Riley asked questions. Always, lots of questions! Calliope knew that was normal for a young child, but some questions she didn’t want to answer. She didn’t want to explain why she never went with Daddy Robert and the others when they sold their crafts. Why she never went to town to buy goods they couldn’t grow or make here in their valley.

Some things couldn’t be explained to a child.

To avoid more questions, Calliope said, “Can you keep a secret?”

Riley sat up, crossed her legs, and nodded her head up and down vigorously. “Tell me, Mommy.”

“No one knows yet except your daddies,” Calliope said. “You’re going to have a little brother or sister.”

Calliope put Riley’s little hand on her stomach. “There’s a baby inside.” Her best estimate was that she was four months along. Naked, she could see the small bump. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret. She planned to announce her pregnancy at community dinner next week when everyone was back in Havenwood. She was always nervous when they were spread out, her nights filled with bad dreams thinking about everything that could go wrong outside Havenwood. Craft fairs and hunting trips and supply runs—they were all dangerous. She needed everyone under the same sky so she could be at peace.

“Really?” Riley said, eyes wide. “A baby?” She smiled. “Can I hold him? Can I feed him? I’ll share my dolls if she’s a girl, I promise!” She crossed her heart.

“You’ll make a wonderful big sister. Now, find your basket, we’d better head back so we can make pies.”

Riley carried a small basket and Calliope had a larger one. They’d gone to collect early apples from the orchard. Though the apples weren’t quite ready for harvest, with a little sugar and butter, and her mother’s delicious piecrusts, the tart apples would be perfect for pie.

September and early October were the busiest times at Havenwood, as they worked long hours to harvest all the fruits before winter. They grew apples, plums, and pears. Many people didn’t think fruit could grow in the Rocky Mountains, but some varieties did extremely well.

Havenwood had the orchard, a large garden, and a greenhouse. Two barns for animals, and a large enclosed chicken coop attached to a small shed they kept heated when temperatures fell consistently below freezing. The enclosure was to protect the birds from coyotes and other wild animals—years ago, they’d learned the hard way that they couldn’t let the chickens roam in the valley.

Riley, an inquisitive child, kept stopping to pick flowers, telling Calliope what kind of weeds and plants she saw. Her daughter loved nature and she would grow into a kind, generous soul. Calliope and the other residents of Havenwood made sure to encourage that interest. Havenwood children were collectively schooled and Calliope put their education above all else.

Perfect, Calliope thought. A perfect home, a perfect child, a perfect life.

Havenwood had become the utopia her mother had envisioned and Calliope had cultivated.

Calliope heard a truck—then another—coming down the road from the east. It was too early for the group to return from the Labor Day craft fair in Flagstaff where they sold their crafts and specialty jams. They weren’t expected back until Tuesday. Maybe they sold out on the first day and were returning? She wanted to see Robert—she missed him so much. It would be wonderful if they were home, but she didn’t think that likely.

Havenwood was built in a hidden valley deep in the mountains. Occasionally they encountered campers, usually lost or who hadn’t seen the private road signs that clearly marked the boundaries of Havenwood property. Never day hikers because there were no maintained trails near Havenwood, but the occasional deep woods backpackers.

Calliope didn’t like strangers to know of their slice of paradise, and her mother and William too often befriended people, inviting them to camp in their valley for a night and share a meal. So far, no one had done anything to hurt them, but Calliope kept waiting for people to return, expecting hospitality in exchange for nothing. Calliope also despised listening to stories of corruption and violence outside of Havenwood. It seemed life Outside had gotten worse in the years since they founded Havenwood.

Calliope had seen enough violence as a child, before her mother met William and they decided to move here with Calliope. She’d been nine, but the minute she stepped into the valley, she knew it was home.

She hadn’t left since.

When Calliope and Riley reached the village—the grouping of homes surrounding an ancient tree around which Havenwood had grown from two families to four to now over one hundred people with a common dream—she saw that the two trucks weren’t filled with strangers. Todd and Sheila were there. They’d come back to Havenwood, and for a split second Calliope was thrilled—she knew they would return, that they would miss utopia as soon as they lived in the filth and decay of the outside world.

Then Calliope saw they had brought others. Three large men with guns.

“Mommy, who are those men? Is that Sheila? That’s Todd!”

“Shh,” Calliope said sternly.

Glen ran around the back of their home and stood by her side. He took the basket from her arms and put it on the ground. “We need to get out of here,” he said. “Let me take you and Riley to the house. You don’t want to get upset, not with the baby. Athena can handle this.”

“They have guns,” Calliope whispered, her heart racing. Todd and Sheila brought strangers with guns to their home. Their sanctuary .

Her mother approached them, but Calliope didn’t move. She couldn’t. Every fear she’d had for the last twenty years since her father was murdered in front of her bubbled to the surface, all at once.

Glen said, “Please, for the baby, for Riley, come with me now.” He scooped Riley up in his arms. She clutched her small basket, eyes wide, scared because she didn’t know what was happening.

These people were scaring her child. They’d brought fear to her daughter.

“Daddy Glen? What’s wrong?” Riley said, her voice shaking.

“Where’s Thalia?” Calliope demanded.

“Her group is still at the lake,” Glen said.

Thalia and a half dozen others were fishing and wouldn’t be back until sunset. Peter and his larger group were hunting and not expected back until end of day tomorrow. They had most of the guns. Havenwood stocked up on food from April through September so they didn’t have to worry about hunger during what could be harsh winters.

“Secure Riley and the rest of the children in the schoolroom,” Calliope told Glen. “Get as many people and shotguns as you can. Find Anton.” She detested guns, but they needed rifles to hunt deer, and shotguns to scare away wild animals. “Anton will know what to do. We need to send these people away.”

“Calliope, we can’t fight them. And if they go, they’ll just come back, maybe with more people. Let Athena find out what they want, she’ll convince them to leave.”

Would her mother be able to fix this? Calliope didn’t know. But Todd and Sheila wouldn’t be here threatening them if they hadn’t been allowed to leave in the first place. Her sanctuary had been invaded by evil.

Like the evil that killed her father.

Never.

Calliope was scared, but more than the fear, she was angry. She approached her mother. Glen tried to stop her, but she looked pointedly at him, then at Riley. “Protect her with your life,” Calliope said in a low whisper, then turned away, trusting that her partner would comply.

“Mommy?” Riley said. “Mommy!”

“Shh,” Glen said and walked briskly with Riley toward the schoolhouse. Calliope breathed a bit easier. She loved Glen, but he was the weakest of her men.

“We don’t want trouble,” Calliope heard Athena say as she neared. Worry clouded her mother’s expression—a concern Calliope rarely saw in her. “I will sell you twenty percent of our harvest, and then ask that you never return.”

“That’s not going to work for us,” Todd said with arrogant confidence. “Come now, Athena, we’ll take it all, as I said, and then maybe we won’t come back.”

He was smiling, but it was a dark smile, a cruel, lying grin that made Calliope’s blood run cold.

Todd nodded to Sheila, who started to walk toward the barn where Havenwood dried and stored the marijuana they grew in their greenhouse. The marijuana sales gave them enough money to pay property taxes, buy medicine and fuel and other goods they couldn’t make or grow. Twice a year, in late spring and early fall, a small group would deliver product to a distributor. It was an arrangement they’d had for as long as Calliope could remember. Then Robert would clean the money using their craft fair business.

Without the fall sale, Havenwood would be at risk. They couldn’t survive on what they made at the craft fairs. They needed the revenue from the marijuana.

“No,” Calliope said. She blocked Sheila. “How can you betray us like this?”

Sheila backhanded her. “I bought into your mother’s pathetic ideas for too long, Calliope. Grow the fuck up.”

Athena stepped forward. “I am reasonable, but do not touch my family.” She had a calm, soothing voice, though Calliope, who knew her mother well, heard the tension.

“This is how it’s going to go,” Todd said. “We’ll fill our trucks with as much product as we can fit. Whatever is left you can keep. We’ll be back in May with four trucks. Be prepared to fill them.”

Calliope laughed. These people would tarnish Havenwood like this? “You are the grasshoppers and you think we are the ants?”

Sheila grinned. “Yeah, I think you are.”

Calliope shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “No.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Todd said. “Who are you going to tell? The authorities? You’re going to call the cops? Oh, boo-hoo, someone stole your marijuana crop. We all know you’re not telling anyone. This arrangement will suit me, and you’ll adjust.”

Her mother had invited Todd and Sheila to live with them. Taught them how to live off the land. Treated them as family. And for two years, they were family...until they left in April, as soon as they could get out of the valley during the first snowmelt. They left and Athena didn’t stop them. She asked why, and they said they were bored.

Now they were back, to steal from the community who had taken them in.

“Most of your men are gone this weekend,” Todd said. “Can’t have the testosterone and guns around to cause a fuss.”

“You’ve been watching us,” Athena said.

“Of course I have. You’ll stay here by my side, Athena, just in case someone gets a foolish idea to try to stop us.” To Sheila he said, “Go, I want to get out of here quickly. I’m sure someone has gone to the lake to get help, but it’ll take them at least an hour to get back here.”

“No!” Calliope screamed and lunged for Sheila’s weapon.

The man closest to her hit her in the stomach with the stock of his rifle before she could disarm her former friend. Calliope collapsed to the dirt, unable to breathe, a horrific pain tearing through her body.

Athena rushed to her side. Sheila was about to hit Calliope again, but Athena screamed, “Don’t touch her!” She squatted and held Calliope in her arms. “Darling girl, it’s going to be okay. I promise.”

It would never be okay. Not if Todd was allowed to leave. Calliope knew that, why didn’t her mother see it? She tried to move but her stomach ached and she wanted to weep. But instead of tears, she gathered her strength and rage. She would need both.

“Watch them,” Todd ordered one of the men. He looked down at Athena and Calliope with a scowl, shaking his head. He, Sheila, and the other men headed to the barn.

Calliope clutched her stomach as she watched them walk away.

“It’ll be okay,” Athena murmured in her ear.

“They betrayed us!”

“We’ll find a solution. When everyone is back, we’ll find an answer. Just stay put. I don’t want anyone hurt.”

“They’ll come back with more people! Take everything we have! Tell others where we are and destroy Havenwood. We have to stop them.”

As Calliope said it, she realized the only way to save Havenwood was to make sure the interlopers never left.

“Help me up,” Calliope said. “Please, Mother, please help me.”

Athena did.

“Stop,” the stranger guarding them said.

“She’s hurt,” Athena said. “Let me take her inside to lie down.”

The man looked torn, then said, “I’ll follow you. No funny business.”

Calliope walked with great pain, but she would do anything to protect her home.

Anything.

Her mother’s house was closest, and that’s where they went. Calliope mentally prepared herself for what must be done.

Havenwood had the numbers. Against five armed people, they would win. As long as someone took charge—someone like Calliope because her mother was weak. Her mother was capitulating to these evil people. Letting them walk away with everything. Condemning Havenwood to a life of fear and servitude.

As soon as Athena walked Calliope across the threshold, Calliope reached behind the door for Athena’s shotgun. She used it to scare foxes away from the chickens. She’d never shot an animal with it.

Or a person.

There was a first for everything.

Calliope racked the shotgun and, without hesitation, shot the man on the path. He staggered back, raised his gun to fire, and she racked the shotgun a second time and fired again. Athena screamed.

“Calliope! Stop!”

Though she’d never killed a person before, she didn’t see them as people—they were predators. Evil creatures, monsters, demons who would destroy Havenwood like the people who destroyed her family all those years ago.

The company who laid off her father because they were cutting back.

The men who beat him up one night when he was working as a security guard.

The man who killed him in front of Calliope that rainy day in February, on her eighth birthday.

“No,” Calliope whispered, trying to push those awful memories far away. She hadn’t thought about her father in years. What she saw. What she heard. The smell of blood. But it came back now, washing over her. Suddenly, she embraced her feelings of helplessness when she was a child and couldn’t fight back.

She was no longer helpless. She had a world to save.

“Mother, they will return with more people. Don’t you see? They will take everything. If we can’t protect ourselves, everyone will leave because they won’t be safe. We’ll have nothing and no one.”

“You can’t—”

“They came here . They are the attackers. Why can’t you see the truth?”

Calliope saw indecision and weakness in her mother’s eyes.

“Mother,” she said firmly, “we must protect Havenwood today, or there is no tomorrow.”

Athena nodded.

The shotgun blasts had Todd and the others running back to the center of Havenwood. Todd was enraged. “What have you done?” he screamed and raised his gun.

Calliope laughed, partly hysterical, but feeling so very free. What had she done? What should have been done months ago when Todd and Sheila said they were leaving.

She shot at Todd, but he was too far for the buckshot to hit him.

Then she saw Anton run out of the barn with a rifle, Glen right behind him. Anton fired multiple times, hitting Todd, then one of the armed men started firing back at him. Glen fell down. Calliope didn’t register his collapse, not at first.

Todd’s men looked for cover, but Todd had brought them into the open. There was no cover. Sheila started to scream.

Garrett came out of his workshop, gun in hand. Calliope had never been so happy to see him. He was supposed to have gone on the hunting trip, but had broken his ankle at the beginning of the summer and couldn’t handle the long trek. He was also former military. Best, Todd and Sheila didn’t know about him. Garrett had joined Havenwood that summer after Robert and Athena met him at a craft fair.

Garrett looked at her across the clearing, his mouth open as if in shock. Then he fired his handgun at their attackers; one by one they dropped.

Todd’s men fired back but they went down fast now that a man who knew how to shoot had come to stop them.

Calliope fell in love with Garrett in that moment.

Athena screamed at them to stop.

Silence descended across the valley as the echoes of gunfire and screams subsided.

“What have you done?” Athena asked, shaking. “What are we going to do?”

Calliope looked at the fallen.

“Bury them,” Calliope whispered.

Suddenly, a cry from Annie’s house pierced the quiet.

Bobby came running out. He was ten, a happy, joyful child who now had tears running down his face. “My mommy—she’s bleeding.”

Calliope stared at him, not quite registering what that meant. Athena ran to the child, rushed inside to help. Calliope stood where she was, then began to sway.

Garrett rushed to her. “You’re bleeding. Where are you hit?”

She looked down, saw the blood pooling in the dirt at her feet. “My baby.”

There were three Havenwood casualties that day. Glen, Annie, and Calliope’s unborn child.