All Things of Grace and Beauty

The falling ash settled on the yellowed leaves of the rowan tree like fragments of Logan’s past life. How many days had it been since he’d last seen the sun? He’d stopped counting at a hundred and had lost track of the passing days since. A hundred and fifty? Two hundred?

However long, Logan feared Kayleigh’s tree wouldn’t last much longer.

Kayleigh had planted the rowan tree the year she and Logan had bought the off-grid cabin. She had been six months pregnant, but the baby, a girl who was to be called Rowan, was never born, and with her died Kayleigh’s ability to have children.

Logan had been much younger then, both in years and wear.

Lighting flashed, followed by a rumble of thunder. Another storm brewed atop Rounder Peak and would soon roll down onto his homestead.

Logan ran his gloved hand down the trunk, the bark smooth from his frequent caresses. “Hang in there, Katy-kay.”

Kayleigh had been away in Chicago giving the keynote address at a conference on green carbon when the asteroid had vaporized half of the Siberian taiga and triggered an impact winter. She might still be alive, but Logan had growing doubts. She spoke to him now through the tree she loved as much as him.

Logan adjusted his respirator mask and turned back to shoveling the ash blocking the intake of the smudge pot. He couldn’t risk the pot failing to light if the night got too cold. The last time that had happened, the tree’s smaller branches had frozen when the temperature dipped below minus forty.

The ash fall had eased in recent weeks, but before everything had gone silent, the newscasters had said it would be years before it all settled from the atmosphere. At the time, Logan hadn’t appreciated such a timescale, but he quickly learned life didn’t like perpetual cold and darkness. All the trees up Rounder Peak had died months ago, and the gnarled trunks of the Douglas firs and spruces stood like matchsticks in the strange afternoon twilight.

A gust of wind carried a faint sound, like a low groaning, not the usual clattering of the dead trees. Logan pushed aside his hood to better hear it. An animal? Maybe a person?

Logan retrieved his shotgun and worked his way cautiously upslope. The groans were coming from one of the many springs on the property where deer had once gathered in the evening. As he approached, lightning lit the scraggly twigs poking up through the gray drifts. If not for the lightning, Logan would have missed the body half-buried in the ash.

Was he too late?

Another flash of lightning illuminated a backpack next to the body. The pack clanked as Logan yanked it over to him. It likely carried something useful, but this wasn’t the place to open it. He slipped a strap over his shoulder and backed away.

The body emitted a faint groan.

Logan froze, his shotgun raised. He realized now the body was a woman. Her ski goggles had come dislodged, and tawny strands of hair had fallen free of her hood. If not for her youth, she could have been Kayleigh’s sister.

“Leave her be, Logan,” he warned himself.

The asteroid had changed the world. Logan knew it was dangerous to look out for anyone but himself. Yet, Kayleigh would have never left anyone or anything that needed help. How could he?

“Hey, lady.” Logan poked her hip with the tip of his shotgun. “Get up or you’ll freeze to death.”

She didn’t move.

Lightning crackled, followed by a thunderous boom that startled Logan off his feet. He scrambled to his knees, his heart pounding. The storm was close; he couldn’t stay any longer.

He grabbed the woman’s hood and pulled. She slid across the ash with surprising ease, and he dragged her down to his cabin. Logan got her into the mudroom and then sat on the wooden bench, his lungs burning from his efforts.

The woman had not moved, but her shallow breathing showed she was still alive. Her skin was ice cold. If he could get her core temperature up, she might recover.

Logan stripped off his parka, dirty coveralls, and boots. He carried the woman to the couch near the cabin’s potbelly stove. He pulled a blanket over her and put a kettle of water on the stove’s top. When the kettle whistled, he filled a hot water bottle and placed it next to her feet.

Soon, she started to shiver, which Logan took as a good sign.

Having done all he could, Logan collapsed into the lounge chair opposite the couch. He stood the woman’s backpack between his knees and unzipped the main compartment.

Inside was an empty canteen, two cans of green beans, a Swiss army knife, a silvery thermal blanket like those once used by mountain rescue teams, and a small stuffed unicorn with one of its glittery, pink wings missing. In a side pocket was a pistol. Logan removed the magazine and cleared the chamber. The magazine went into his shirt pocket — he’d return it when she left — and the pistol went back into the pack along with everything else.

# # #

An hour later, Logan realized the woman was only pretending to be asleep.

“I’ve got no interest in hurting you,” he said, “and I hope you intend the same.” The cool light of an electric lantern reflected off the shaft of the baseball bat laying across his lap.

Thunder cracked with enough force to rattle his bones. Pebbles and ash skittered off the windowpanes as the electrical storm raged outside.

Logan looked up at the ceiling. “Worse than usual.”

Giving up the pretense, the woman opened her eyes.

“That’s better now,” Logan said. “Mind explaining why you’re on my land?”

She licked cracked lips that were stained gray from the ash. Logan was amazed she was here at all, given she had no respirator and how far up Rounder Peak they were. “Passing though,” she said, her voice raspy.

Her response implied a journey from one place to another, but what place was there to go anymore? In the hours following the impact, things had unraveled with a dizzying quickness. Rioting, looting, violence — human society had quickly come apart.

“I’ll be on my way,” she said.

“On your way to dead if you step out that door right now. But I’m not going to get in your way if that’s your desired destination. You can stay until the storm settles. The water is free to use, but nothing else.” Kayleigh had insisted on a well-provisioned pantry because access to Wodsford, the nearest town, could be cut off at any time by snow, tree falls, or washed-out river crossings. With grow lamps and a smudge pot, Logan had kept the greenhouse running, bringing in a rolling harvest of potatoes, carrots, and kale. But that didn’t mean he could afford to give them away.

“I’m Logan,” he said, deciding to try civility. Kayleigh would have wanted that.

“This your house?”

“For the past thirty-two years.”

The woman nodded toward the backpack at Logan’s feet. “That’s mine.”

“It is.” With his foot, Logan pushed the pack closer to her.

“You went through it.”

“I did.”

The contents clattered as she dug through them. The horn of the unicorn poked out above the zipper.

“You’ll get your bullets back when you leave; otherwise, everything is there,” Logan said. “I don’t recognize you.” Wodsford may have been two-hours down old logging roads, but he knew everyone there.

“Just passing through,” the woman said again.

Logan sighed. He could tell Kayleigh he had tried, but this woman wasn’t interested in civility. Looking at her, he couldn’t blame her, either. Yet here she was on his couch, living and breathing, so she was tougher than he could ever be. That also made her dangerous.

“You come from the east? Do you know what happened to…to Chicago?” He almost didn’t ask the question, afraid of the answer, but not knowing was worse.

The woman shrugged. “I’m going that way. My mom lives in Peoria.”

Logan noted her choice of words — her mom lives in Peoria. The world didn’t allow for that type of certainty anymore.

The woman dug out one of her cans of beans and pulled off the tab-top. She placed the can on the stove. While it warmed, she wandered around the cabin’s living room looking at the paintings on the walls.

She stopped in front of one of them, an abstract portrait of Kayleigh. “Did you paint this?”

“I did.” Throughout his career, Logan had had his share of gallery showings, but other than guests into his home, no one had ever seen that painting. To his dismay, Kayleigh loved that picture, even as Logan found it infinitely inadequate. He had tried to capture what he loved about Kayleigh, but he never found the right combination of hues and shapes that embodied the grace and beauty of her soul.

The woman said nothing and returned to her warmed beans. Using her flannel sleeve as an oven mitt, she moved the can to the breakfast counter separating the kitchen and the living room.

Logan followed her and leaned against the kitchen sink. “Peoria’s a long ways away.”

“What’s it to you?”

Logan tired of the woman’s rudeness. He could have let the storm finish what the cold and ash had started, so a little civility should have been in order.

The woman stopped eating. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to make small talk, and I was never good at it to start with. Maybe we can start over?” The woman extended her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Logan. I’m Shannon.”

Logan stared at the offered hand, wondering whether to take it. He felt guilty at his hesitation. What had the world come to that he did not automatically shake an offered hand? Kayleigh would have been disappointed.

“Good to meet you, Shannon,” he said, taking her hand into his.

# # #

The room lit up and the crack of thunder that followed was so close Logan dropped to the floor, afraid the cabin had been hit.

Shannon screamed, and her can of beans landed on the floor next to Logan. Her wide-eyed face appeared over the counter. “Jesus H. Christ, that was close!”

Logan pulled himself up using the edge of the kitchen sink and squinted out the window. He could see nothing through the swirling ash. His heart thumped as he tried another window in the living room. “Oh, no!”

Logan rushed into the mudroom and pulled on his mask and parka. He didn’t bother with his boots or gloves. A gust ripped the outer door from his grip as he opened it. He leaned into the wind and forced himself out into the swirling ash and around the side of the cabin.

Logan reeled back in horror. The lightning had struck the rowan tree, splitting the trunk down the middle, and exposing the heartwood. Half the tree lay on the ground, the splintered wood smoldering. The other half leaned against the side of the cabin.

“Kayleigh!” Logan fell to his knees. The world went dark as ash swirled around him, pelting the eyepieces of his mask. He hoped this was a nightmare, but when the swirl of ash shifted, the broken tree remained.

A roof shingle ripped free in the wind and flew toward him. Logan turned away, but the shingle hit him in the head, knocking him to the ground. When he touched his temple, a warm stickiness coated his fingers.

“Logan.” A hand touched his shoulder.

“Kayleigh?”

Shannon held the electric lantern to his head. “You’re injured. Can you walk?”

“Yes.” Logan nearly fell as pins and needles shot through his feet.

Shannon caught his arm and steadied him.

 “My feet are a little numb.”

Shannon held his arm and helped him back to the mudroom where he collapsed onto the wooden bench. She wrestled the outer door closed, and the air in the room fell still.

Logan’s head throbbed. He could barely feel his hands and feet. Yet, none of that mattered because the lightning had split Kayleigh’s tree and burned its core. Surely, it was dead now.

When Shannon tried to check his wound, he slapped her hand away.

“Sit still,” she chided.

Chagrined, Logan didn’t move. “There’s a first aid kit on the wall.”

Shannon pulled on latex gloves. “I’m a trained responder, or I was before…well…” She searched through his thinning hair. “Looks like a superficial laceration. I’ll need to flush it, but I don’t think it needs stitches.”

“Small miracles,” Logan mumbled.

He let her wash the wound at the kitchen sink. He then sat in the lounge chair pressing a gauze pad against the cut.

Shannon rewarmed her can of beans and sat on the sofa to finish them. “Who’s Kayleigh?” she asked.

Logan didn’t like the sound of his wife’s name on Shannon’s lips. More importantly, that Shannon had to ask made it painfully clear that Kayleigh wasn’t there, that Kayleigh was an unknown, a hypothetical. How dare she?

“Who’s stuffy is that?” Logan asked, nodding toward the backpack at Shannon’s feet. He watched with satisfaction as the color drained from her face.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Same to you.”

“Asshole.” Shannon snatched up her pack and sat on the floor in the kitchen where Logan could not see her.

He listened to the wind and rubbed at the ash ground into the creases of his palm. His anger burned like a terrible road rash, but after a time, its edge bled away, much like the strength of the storm.

Shannon’s question about Kayleigh had been innocent, his response cruel. The stuffed animal must have belonged to her child, and the fact that she traveled alone told Logan everything.

No one still alive was untouched by loss. He had known this when he chose to strike out at Shannon. His intention had been to hurt her for showing him that Kayleigh wasn’t there.

When he had first let Shannon into the cabin, he never intended to let her out of his sight. That seemed unimportant now. With the storm’s passing, he had to get out.

Logan took the time to dress fully: coveralls, parka, respirator mask, boots, and gloves. Once outside, he just stood, the ash fluttering down through the twilight like snow flurries.

He was afraid to go around the side of the cabin. By standing there, he could cling to the hope that his memory of the damage was wrong. The minutes passed, and the knot in his stomach drew tighter.

Slowly, he went around the side of the cabin, and even though he had prepared himself, he let out a gasp. Surely, the tree could not survive this. Perhaps, if this had happened a year ago, before the asteroid, it might have had the reserves to come back, but in the cold and dark, Kayleigh’s tree had barely been hanging on. What the lightning had not killed, the falling ash would finish.

Logan’s mask steamed up as his tears dripped to the bottom.

“It’s just a tree,” he said, trying to lie away the pain. But Kayleigh had planted this tree, watered it, and cared for it when it had been infested with gypsy moths. Like Logan, this tree was a product of her love.

And now, the world had taken them both from him.

Boots crunched on the ash behind him. “Looks like it was a beautiful tree,” Shannon said.

Logan couldn’t speak around the lump in his throat.

“Before I leave, I can help you cut it off the house.” She started to remove her backpack.

Cut Kayleigh’s tree? The half against the cabin was still attached to the roots. If the tree had any chance, it would come through that piece.

“No.”

“It’ll damage—”

“I said no.” No one would lay a hand on Kayleigh’s tree if it had any chance to recover. Perhaps he could give it more fertilizer and move the grow lights from the greenhouse.

“It’s gone, Logan.”

“She’s not gone!”

Shannon stumbled backwards, tripping over a downed branch. She scrambled back to her feet and retreated away from him.

“Go!” Logan pointed away from the cabin.

“Give me back my bullets.”

Logan dug the pistol magazine from his shirt pocket and slapped it into her outstretched hand. In her eyes, he saw the hardness of a survivor, someone capable of putting one of those bullets into his head. At that moment, Logan didn’t care.

Shannon stared at the magazine. With a shake of her head, she pushed it into the pocket of her parka. “Good luck, Logan.” She backed away several steps before turning and fading into the falling ash.

# # #

The way Shannon had dissolved into the ash left Logan wondering if she had been a hallucination conjured to torment him. Surely, no one was left in the world to appear on his doorstep. Yet, he was certain she had been there, as certain as he was that Kayleigh had once been there, and would, one day return. He believed that, or what reason did he have to go on?

If there was a chance to save the tree, he had to try. He had some lumber in the shed and bolts left over from when he’d made a dozen planter boxes. With some old-fashioned elbow grease, he could pound together some supports to carry the tree’s weight while it regained its strength.

He retrieved the keys to the shed from the mudroom, and as he came back around the cabin, he drew up short at the unmistakable sound of a bullet being chambered.

“Not a peep,” the owner of the pistol said. The man stepped away from the wall of the cabin where his dark jacket had blended into the shadow. He wore a ski mask and goggles and had a bandanna tied around the lower half of his face, making him the look like a two-bit, western outlaw.

Logan raised his hands. “Don’t shoot me.” He could barely say the words.

“Don’t give me no reason, then. How many are here?”

Logan’s mind raced. He could barely understand the man’s question.

“How many?” the man asked again.

“Just me.”

“If you lie to me, lots of people will get hurt.” The man raised a walkie-talkie to his lips. It looked military grade to Logan, but then he was basing that on what he’d seen in the movies. “Come on up, Colm. He says he’s alone.”

The walkie-talkie crackled, but Logan could not make out the response.

A second man, Colm, appeared from the ash. He was shorter but stockier than the first. “You’re sure no one else is here?” Colm asked, as he patted Logan down.

“Just me.”

“This yours?” The man with the pistol held up a stuffed unicorn in his offhand. It was smudged with ash, but the single, glittery pink wing was unmistakable. It must have fallen out of Shannon’s pack when she tripped over the fallen branch.

“Not mine,” Logan said. “Where did you find it?”

Colm took the unicorn from his partner. “Did you see the woman?”

Logan’s senses tingled. These two didn’t just arrive by chance — they had been following Shannon. But why?

That didn’t matter. If they were interested in catching up with her, they might leave him be if he told them which direction she had gone. Logan knew where she was going, assuming she had told him the truth. Yet, telling these two anything, didn’t seem right. They hadn’t followed Shannon through ash and storms to exchange pleasantries. They intended harm.

Logan swallowed hard. Shannon had caused him no trouble and had even left peacefully after he had treated her poorly. “What woman?”

Colm made a sucking sound behind his bandanna.

“She can’t have got far,” the first man said. “The stuffy wasn’t even buried.”

“It’s taken us days to get this close. I don’t want to go the wrong way.” Colm stared menacingly into Logan’s eyes. “How about we go inside, Sweens. Have a little chat with our friend.”

Sweeney chuckled. “I could stand a sit beside the fire.” He motioned with his pistol towards the front of the cabin.

Inside the mudroom, Logan paused to remove to his parka and boots, but Sweeney nudged him forward. Logan didn’t resist, but shed his gloves and respirator mask as he stepped inside.

“Daaaamn,” Sweeney said as he followed Logan into the living room.

Colm pulled down his bandana and peeled off his ski mask. A mass of unruly red hair tumbled forth. He pushed it back out his face.

Both men were twenty-or-more years younger than Logan and hardened by their very survival. Logan didn’t like his chances if this came down to a fight.

“What’s your name?” Colm asked.

“Logan.”

“Sit down, Logan.” Colm motioned him toward the stool at the breakfast counter. Colm shed his pack and removed a pair of handcuffs from a side pocket.

“Whoa,” Logan said. “We’re all friends, aren’t we?”

“No, Logan. We ain’t.”

Sweeney steadied his pistol with his offhand. He had dead eyes, and the coldness of his gaze made Logan more afraid of him than of Colm and his handcuffs.

“See, friends help friends.” Colm snapped one of the cuffs onto Logan’s wrist and yanked his arm across the top of the counter, bending Logan’s torso painfully across its surface. “We could still be friends, but that’s up to you now. Comprende, amigo?”

Stretched across the countertop, Logan could not see either man. He feared that even if he told them what they wanted and they left, they’d want to come back after they finished their business with Shannon. If they did, things would be easier for them if Logan wasn’t here.

Colm placed the stuffed unicorn on the counter where Logan could see it. “Now, anything you want to say about this?”

“Will you leave if I tell you what I know?”

“So, you saw her?” Sweeney asked from somewhere behind him.

Colm leaned into view. The skin around his mouth where his ski mask did not cover was stained gray from the ash. “We’re going to leave either way. You see, that bitch cut one of our friends real bad. We have business to settle.”

Logan didn’t know Shannon well, but she didn’t seem the type to bring violence for no reason. She could have harmed him — she had opportunity — but she didn’t. Maybe she still held old notions of gratitude. About Colm and Sweeney, he wasn’t so positive.

“Sorry about your friend,” Logan said.

“That’s why we need to find her,” Sweeney said. “Justice. Ya see?”

They spoke of justice, even as they had him handcuffed and were threatening him with violence. Was this the justice they would extend to Shannon?

Colm’s gaze narrowed as his patience ran thin. “She’s getting farther away,” he said.

If they wanted to scare him, it was working. “You’re going to kill me.” Logan’s knees wobbled, but most of his weight was already spread atop the counter, so it didn’t matter.

“Sweeney and I ain’t killers,” Colm said.

Yet he spoke with the coolness of a killer. Logan could tell them everything he knew about Shannon, but he doubted it would save him. In that same moment, Logan also decided he would not give in to his fear. He would tell these two nothing.

Kayleigh would have been proud of him.

“Never seen that before,” Logan said, struggling to keep his voice steady. “I thought I heard something outside a few hours ago. Maybe—”

Colm yanked hard on the handcuff, nearly dislocating Logan’s shoulder. “Sweeney would love to put a bullet in your face.”

Logan clenched his teeth against the pain. It had been so long since he had seen Kayleigh, that her face had begun to fade from his memory, as if the raining ash were washing her away. But this time, when he closed his eyes, her gentle blue eyes materialized from the blackness. She slowly blinked at him, the way she did when she had reached a calm resignation about something he intended to do, but to which she disagreed. And like always in those moments, that look of resignation was followed a small, gentle rise of the corners of her mouth into a half-smile that told Logan she would see him when he got back from whatever adventure he was about to set out upon.

“We’re wasting time.” Sweeney sounded agitated. “Maybe we can find her trail in the ash.”

Logan prayed they’d just want to be gone, and that dealing with him would take more time than they wanted to commit.

“You’re right, Sweens, time’s wasting.” Colm came around the counter and pulled Logan up by the back of his parka. He pushed him toward the mudroom.

“We’re not taking him, are we?” Sweeney asked.

“Nope.”

They didn’t let Logan put on his mask or gloves; he wouldn’t be needing them.

Colm opened the outer door letting in a swirl of ash that made Logan cough. “Out.”

Logan stumbled out into the twilight, squinting to keep the ash out of his eyes. They were going to kill him if he did nothing.

Colm followed him out, still holding the handcuff. Behind him, Sweeney waited for his turn at the door.

As Colm stepped down, Logan dodged to the right and yanked hard on the handcuffs. Caught unaware, Colm slipped on the stairs. He let go of the handcuffs to catch himself on the doorframe.

Logan sprinted around the side of the cabin. The ash in his eyes obscured his vision, and he did not see the downed branch of the rowan tree. His ankle buckled as his boot landed on it, and he tumbled to the ground.

His lungs felt like they were going to explode, and as he tried to get up, coughs wracked his body. Sweeney pushed him back to the ground, and as Logan rolled onto his back, the man’s boot pushed into his chest.

“Wait, Sweens,” Colm said, coming up beside his partner. He held up Logan’s shovel. “Don’t waste the bullet.”

Sweeney tucked the pistol into his parka pocket and took the shovel. “Last chance,” he said.

Last chance for what? His fate would be no different if he told them which way Shannon had gone.

The burning in his lungs went away, and a calm settled over him. To his left, where the rowan tree should have been, Kayleigh nodded reassuringly. He was ready to hold her again. “Go to hell, Sweens.”

# # #

“Have it your way.” Sweeney raised the shovel.

“Don’t!”

Logan could not see the owner of the new voice, but he recognized it immediately. “Gun,” he yelled. He hugged Sweeney’s boot to his chest and rolled as hard he could to his left.

Sweeney cried out as his ankle popped. The shovel thunked into the ash next to Logan’s head.

A pistol popped.

Logan curled into a ball and covered his head as Sweeney fell on top of him.

Another shot. Colm cursed. Feet scuffled in the ash. Before Logan could comprehend what was happening, the noise stopped.

Sweeney’s dead weight rolled off him.

“You okay, Logan?” Shannon asked.

He wiped at his eyes but could not clear the ash. “Been better, to be honest.” The burning in his lungs had returned, confirming he was still alive.

“Looks like you reopened that cut. Let’s get you inside.”

Face down in the ashes to his left, Sweeney lay motionless. Shannon picked up his pistol from where it had fallen from his pocket and handed it to Logan. She collected Colm’s pack, which lay nearby. “He ran off,” she said about the pack’s owner, “but I wounded him pretty bad. He won’t last long out there.”

With his adrenaline rushing, Logan hadn’t noticed the cold. Now, he started to shiver.

“You need help getting inside?”

Logan coughed and pulled the collar of his shirt over his mouth. His fingers and ears burned painfully, but he couldn’t go inside yet. He zig-zagged his way back toward the front of the cabin, his eyes scanning the ground.

Colm had been carrying the stuffed unicorn when Logan had broken free at the door. Surely, he had dropped — and there it was, half-buried in the ash near the corner of the cabin. “I think this is yours.”

Shannon took the stuffed unicorn from him and carefully dusted the ash from it.

Logan knew Shannon had not come back for him. He realized now that she had also not come back simply for the unicorn. She had come back because she was not ready to give up on the world that used to be, the one where humans were decent and helped each other. She could have walked away or simply let Sweeney bash his brains out onto the ash. But she didn’t want to live in a world where life was transactional, and everything came down to kill or be killed.

She wanted to live in Kayleigh’s world.

So did Logan.

The old world may be gone, and Kayleigh with it, but that didn’t mean a better world couldn’t rise from the grief and ashes of the old.

Shannon had been right about the rowan tree. Logan realized pruning it back from the cabin would not be an affront to Kayleigh. She may have loved that tree, but she loved him more, and she would have wanted him to move on to a better place, a new beginning.

“Maybe we can start over,” Logan said, extending his hand to Shannon. “I’m Logan, and it’s so nice to meet you.”