The Charcoal-Maker

The snow had been falling for the better part of an hour, but not a single flake survived its descent to the charcoal mounds. They mounted a brave assault, numbering in the thousands, each one drifting slowly through the evening breeze, sparkling in the failing light. Heat and smoke clawed up into the air from each mound like hungry beasts. Any flake unfortunate enough to float into their path was devoured, sent back skyward as a wisp of steam.

The pitstead sloped gently to the west, allowing water to drain from the bare packed earth, darkened from years of absorbing char and ash. Three mounds rose from this scorched ground. The eldest barely troubled the air, just thin wisps of near-transparent smoke drifting from its crown. It squatted low and settled like a sleeping giant, its surface smooth save for a few lumps, a dark outline against the tree line. The two younger mounds still burned hot and hungry, thick blue-gray smoke billowing from their domed surfaces. They jutted up like small mountains, hints of orange light peeking from cracks in their earthen domes, growing brighter in the burgeoning night. Snow melted in wide circles around them, turning the earth to black slurry, while the older mound allowed flakes to venture within a few paces before claiming them.

A deep track was already forming in this slush, worn low by the repeated footfalls of the restless collier. It wound around the base of each mound and between them, then east into the forest where a chimney could be seen peeking through the tree line.

Opri glanced up at the chimney as he began his third round of the mounds in the last hour. He should have been inside with her, holding her hand while she slipped away, but his hands only knew how to grip an ax handle. He quickly looked away, teeth clenching, and focused on the youngest of the three mounds.

His trained eye noted several spots where less smoke leaked from the surface. “Needs to breathe here,” he muttered to himself, though he had checked this same face not twenty minutes before. He lifted a small stick and carefully drove it into the side of the pile in a few places. Air rushed in through the new vents and the fire drank of it greedily. He watched it for a few moments to make certain smoke began to thicken. It did. He had no more adjustments to make.

He moved off a few paces, then halted. He took a slow, deep breath. Sharp, acrid smoke filled his nostrils, but he barely noticed it anymore. Snow landed on his shoulders and didn’t melt—he’d stepped too far from the mound’s heat. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, he stared right at the chimney. He meant to walk down that path, but his feet refused to carry him. He flicked his eyes away, finding the stacked cordwood waiting to be split. Wood for the next burn. Work that needed doing.

He turned sharply and stalked towards the woodpile.

He set a log on the chopping block and lifted the ax in two hands. The sharp crack of the wood splitting cut through the cold air and low crackling of the mounds. Chop. Breathe. Don’t think. Chop again. It was the only rhythm Opri trusted anymore. But now, even that fled him.

The ax bit into another log, splitting it clean. His mother had taught him to read the grain, to find where the wood wanted to break. She’d stood behind him in this very clearing, her hands guiding his on the handle. “Let the wood do the work,” she’d said.

She’d been the first.

He tossed the split wood onto the pile and reached for another log, but his hand stilled on the bark. Two years since her passing, no more. It began with a cough that would not stop, then the black lines crawled up her skin like vines seeking sunlight. By the end she no longer knew his face, just stared at her own hands like they belonged to someone else.

He banished the memory with another swing of the ax, another split log. Pausing for a moment, chest rising and falling heavily, he let the ax drop to the ground. He wiped a hand across his soot-and-sweat-covered forehead. He watched the charcoal mounds for a few moments—looking, hoping, for anything amiss. But he knew he would find none. His eyes flicked to the tree line. He should return home, should check on her. He should—

He bent, retrieving the ax from where he dropped it. With mechanical precision he turned and placed another log on the chopping block. He forced his shoulders to loosen, forced his grip to steady. Another log. Another swing. The rhythm would return if he could just keep moving. But the thoughts weren’t done with him.

His fingers traced the smooth lines of the ax haft. It had been a gift from Mara on their wedding night. She’d carved it from the wood of a stout and stubborn ash tree. Said it reminded her of him. When he closed his eyes, he could still see her clear as day: hanging laundry in the morning light, one hand pressed to her swollen belly. Young Bran peeking from behind the trees, then bolting with laughter when she caught him watching.

Opri’s hands curled tightly around the handle. Mara had followed his mother. First the cough that strangled her beautiful voice. Then black roots that drained every ounce of strength from her frame. It had not even been a season ago when they laid her to rest in the ground. He had stared forward, unflinching, as they lowered her into the grave. Others had seen this as strength in the face of adversity. Each laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder, held him close, and whispered comforting lies in his ear. When he was alone before her grave Opri fell to his knees and began to shake, tears welling in his eyes. It had been a calm summer day, one Mara would have enjoyed. He felt it unfair that the rest of the world basked in this sunlight while his wife entered her final cold slumber in the earth.

He reached for another log, hands moving by habit. Split it. Stack it. Reach again. If he could just maintain the rhythm. But nothing could distract him from Mara.

The children needed their mother. Bran, now nearly grown, still sometimes looked for her in doorways. And Tellis—

The log slipped from his grip, tumbling to the ground.

Tellis. His daughter. Already following the same dark path. The cough had started three months ago, soft at first. Just a tickle in her throat, she’d said. Then the black lines appeared, thin as spider silk threading beneath the skin of her wrists. Within days they clawed up her arms, growing to the size of tree branches. Now she lay in that bed, breath rattling in her chest, mind held in a permanent slumber. A slumber she would never awake from.

The same way. All of them, the same way.

He snatched up the fallen log and slammed it onto the chopping block. The ax came down hard, biting deep with a sound like breaking bone, and Opri brought it down again, harder this time, as if violence against wood could somehow stay what was happening. He wrenched it free and struck again, harder. And again. Wood split and flew, but he didn’t stop to stack it. There was already more wood than he needed. Had been for days. But he couldn’t stop. He just kept swinging, each impact jarring up through his arms.

Why his mother? Why Mara? Why Tellis?

The ax came down with all his strength, driving through the log and deep into the chopping block itself. The handle shuddered in his hands.

He stood there, chest heaving, staring down at the blade buried in the wood.

His lips formed a single word. “Why?”

A simple question. Though he intended it as a prayer, no god came to mind as it slipped from him.

Nor was there any god to hear.