The two halves had been placed twenty feet from the cabin.
Only a shallow depression remained.
No animal tracks.
No peck marks.
No pieces.
Wind had blown heavily, but not enough to erase every sign of something dragging away two dense cabbage halves.
Samuel returned with the apple.
Clara was kneading cornbread dough at the table.
“The cabbage is gone.”
She looked up.
“Animals?”
“No tracks.”
“Snow covered them.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
Clara pressed both hands into the dough.
“Neither do I.”
Samuel placed the apple beside her.
“What now?”
“We do not tell anyone.”
“Who would we tell?”
“The mountain?”
He smiled faintly.
Clara continued.
“If we go into town saying vegetables are appearing inside a locked pantry, we will become entertainment until spring.”
“You already are entertainment when you argue with the butcher.”
“He deserves it.”
“Usually.”
Clara wiped flour from her fingers.
“We watch.”
Samuel looked at the pantry.
“For what?”
“Whatever happens next.”
What happened next was a potato.
It appeared two nights later.
Then three carrots the following night.
Then nothing for four days.
Samuel began marking the pantry shelves with charcoal.
Clara scattered a thin layer of flour across the floor each evening.
No prints appeared.
He tied a black thread from the pantry knob to a nail in the wall.
Every morning it remained intact.
Yet twice, food appeared inside.
Once a small onion.
Once a handful of dried beans wrapped in linen Samuel had never seen.
Clara examined the cloth carefully.
“Handwoven.”
“Everything we own is handwoven.”
“Not like this.”
She held it toward the window.
The weave was fine.
Tighter than anything made locally.
A faint blue thread ran through the edge.
Samuel frowned.
“Recognize it?”
“No.”
Clara folded it.
They kept it.
The mystery would have been easier if the food had been threatening.
A dead animal.
A symbol.
A knife.
Something clearly meant to frighten.
Instead the pantry gave them ordinary things.
Food.
Always food.
Never luxury.
Never enough to make them wealthy.
A potato.
An apple.
Carrots.
Beans.
Once, half a small wheel of cheese.
Clara refused to eat any of it.
Samuel agreed.
They stored the objects separately in a wooden crate outside the cabin.
Animals eventually took some.
Others froze.
The only thing they kept indoors was the linen wrapping.