Samuel Vale had watched Clara slice the cabbage himself.
Not half of it.
Not most of it.
All of it.
He had stood less than three feet away while she set the heavy green head on the scarred oak table, steadied it beneath one broad hand, and drove the kitchen knife down through its center.
The blade struck the board with a hollow knock.
Once.
Twice.
Then again and again until the cabbage became a mound of thin pale-green ribbons.
Samuel chopped the onions beside her.
He cut the last strip of smoked bacon from the crock near the stove.
He watched Clara sweep every ribbon of cabbage from the board into the enormous black skillet.
Nothing remained.
Not a leaf.
Not a core.
Not even one loose scrap worth saving.
That was why, four hours later, Samuel could only stand in the pantry doorway and stare.
A cabbage rested on the middle shelf.
Whole.
Fresh.
Green.
Perfect.
For several seconds his mind refused to give the object a name.
It could not be cabbage.
A cabbage had no business being there.
The cabin contained no second cabbage.
The nearest settlement was sixteen miles away over a mountain road now buried beneath nearly four feet of January snow.
The outer door had been bolted since sunset.
The shutters were latched.
Samuel had checked them himself before supper.
Yet something unmistakably alive and green sat between the flour sack and the jar of dried beans.
His hand remained suspended in front of him.
Behind him, the cabin fire cracked softly.
“Samuel?”
Clara’s voice came from the kitchen.
He did not answer.
“Samuel?”
Still nothing.
He heard the heavy wooden floor complain beneath her careful steps.
Clara never moved quickly when she did not have to.
At nearly four hundred kilograms, her enormous body demanded planning from spaces that had never been constructed with someone like her in mind. Samuel had widened the path between the table and stove during the first month after she came to live with him. He had reinforced two chairs, lowered a pantry shelf, and replaced the narrow ladderlike steps to the sleeping loft with broad stairs and a handrail.
Clara had protested every modification.
Then used every one.
Now those steps approached behind him.
“Did you find a mouse?”