Ashwood Read online

  Ashwood

  Cynthia Kraack

  North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

  St. Cloud, Minnesota

  Copyright © 2010 Cynthia Kraack

  ISBN-13: 978-0-87839-450-8

  First Edition: September 2010

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by Terrence Scott.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published by

  North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc

  PO Box 451

  St. Cloud, MN 56302

  http://www.northstarpress.com

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  For all leaders struggling to rebuild a world where

  people can live together with hope for the future.

  1

  All that remained of the life that had been mine could be packed in my mother’s leather suitcase. Just a carry-on size bag held the bits and pieces gleaned from carefully maintained rooms of furniture, walls of meaningful art, and boxes of the stuff that made memories. And I counted myself among the lucky to have that much.

  At least traveling light made the transfer from jet to train to chauffeured transport easier. Moving out from the curb at the train station, I felt the eyes of the conscripted workers, guilty of nothing more than not having a job, watching the vehicle, hoping for a look inside to see who could afford such extravagance. I kept one hand on the suitcase while bringing my document bag closer.

  “They can’t see you, miss. One-way, strike-resistant windows.” The middle-aged driver kept his eyes forward as he spoke, large work-scarred hands on the transport steering stick. “Anyways, this stretch is pretty tame, not like travel in the northeast Twin Cities area.” His voice, marking him as a transplant from one of the Dakotas, implied more could be said.

  Thirty minutes later we sped up, light gravel and bits of broken tar spitting out from under the transport’s treads as we approached the southern Twin Cities estates region. Gates opened to the secured lands. With one gentle bump, the transport continued accelerating, now on a road as smooth as those from the times before adversity struck. Cityscapes disappeared into government-created country lanes of what formerly had been known as the outer-ring suburbs.

  Nothing made these roads different from others I’d traveled. Nothing, except I grew up in a house on a curving street in the subdivision bulldozed to create the fertile ground beneath these very government estates. Trees and corn and grains now grew on the lands where my parents drove us to soccer and dance, to dinners at fast food places, to church on Sunday. This new order erased the life we knew and dropped us back to start over on grounds where historical markings no longer existed.

  Buses of workers drove past us back to the city at the end of the main shift—gardeners, carpenters, cleaners traveling six days a week from their homes to daily assignments. A country of workers we are, no place for those who do not labor. With all the deaths due to flu pandemics and long-standing economic depression, there were fewer of us with work skills to keep the nation from sliding back to hunger and darkness.

  Riding today in a private transport, I remembered how it felt to be on those buses and am thankful again for being caught in the early unemployment sweeps. At the time I knew only shame for being tossed into the same system with the men who played dice on a corner all day, the poverty-afflicted moms separated from their kids, the immigrants stranded in a country with no jobs. All I wanted was to return to the comfortable classrooms of the school where once I taught. All so long ago.

  “I hear life’s pretty decent on these estates,” the driver volunteered. “Don’t know too many people who want to leave for places back in the cities. What will you be doing at Ashwood?”

  “I’m the estate’s new matron.”

  “No offense, I didn’t take notice of ‘Matron’ before your name.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry, no disrespect intended. You don’t look old enough to replace old Matron Barbara. The place has a bit of a reputation.”

  I saw him look in the rearview mirror and dipped my head before our eyes could meet. Estate walls zipped past, but I knew he had focused on the gold communications earpiece I wore instead of the inner ear model worn by most people allowed to use such devices. Depending on one’s political leaning, others admired or reviled women who earned the earpiece for service as government-sponsored surrogates for the intellectual class. He cleared his throat again before asking, “Boy or girl, Matron?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” I didn’t know if I told the truth, didn’t want to talk with this stranger about that phase of my life. “How far are we from Ashwood?”

  “Right ahead of us,” he said, pointing to my right. “See where the darker walls begin? That’s the place.”

  I peered up the drive at gates sculpted of durable metal. My brother, an architect who died during the first great flu pandemic, would have called the residence’s design ugly. While some estates used retro-fitted old homes as residences, most of the thousands of government-owned compounds featured one of a couple dozen of exterior designs created during the early stages of reconstruction. The designers seemed to feel a residence could look like a firehouse or school house or something short of a people warehouse.

  As we stopped, I could see through the gates where the sprawling gray stucco house sat silent. Dark wooden doors stood as forbidding sentinels warding off strangers from the outside world. Pine trees taller than any human, planted every eight to ten feet, created a natural army dressed in shades of green. Twenty miles from a major metropolitan airport with the city’s hub an equal number of miles away, the residence appeared to be challenging something or someone to breach its isolation.

  “Here’s your new mailing address: Ashwood, MN.” The driver turned in his seat to face me. “The gates aren’t going to open, Matron. I’ve been told these folks aren’t always the friendliest.” Squinting, he peered beyond my shoulder into the gathering early twilight. “Sorry you only got a pass for the walker gate, because I got to leave you here with your stuff. Is that old suitcase heavy? I’m not really supposed to step away from my transport vehicle.”

  “I’ll do fine. Perhaps you can wait until I’m in the front door?” I held out a gold-tipped coin. “I know you’ve been paid for the drive, but maybe this will keep you here for a few extra minutes?”

  He hesitated then reached out his hand. “Thanks, Matron. Not many folks are generous with anything gold today.”

  The transport door opened. “I don’t think I’ll be spending many coins here in the country.”

  From the end of the drive, the house looked almost majestic against a purpling skyline. Last summer’s sticks of shrubbery spoke of general dormancy. No dogs patrolled the house’s entrance, no cats lay between curtains and window panes. The house seemingly expected no visitors. Picking up my suitcase, I felt an odd sense of indifference emanate from those within.

  Feeling blanketed by the general stillness, I startled as the driver leaned out to say, “When I see you walk through those doors, I’ll be on my way. You got the dispatch number if you need us back. I’ll be coming for the old matron day after tomorrow.”

  The evening’s cold wrapping around my ankles, I walked up the long drive, looking toward the house, wondering if someone would remember the new matron’s arrival and turn on lights. I stood on the long front porch, one hand in my coat pocket fingering a residence security card, the other holding my mother’s bag, wondering what the driver meant by the estate’s reputation.

  My card worked on its first pass t
hrough the entrance scanner. As doors began opening, I turned and waved to the driver, then carried my things into the first passage then through the opening of a second inner set.

  In the empty foyer, I inhaled the purified air of Ashwood’s residence. Lingering scents of cleaning products, a slight hint of kitchen activity, the comforting fragrance of expensive woods defined the building as different from other residences where I lived during training. Like beautifully-appointed judges’ chambers in ugly cement court houses, Ashwood’s rich interior was not unusual for an estate.

  This would be my work, my residence, another step away from the life I wanted and deeper into the life I was now assigned. Far from the city, even farther from the few people I still knew in the world, as far away as possible from Anne Hartford, wife and daughter.

  2

  According to Bureau protocol, I expected Matron Barbara to be waiting in the hall for a formal greeting. Monitors within the house announced my entrance, should have stirred the curiosity of at least a worker or two, perhaps triggered an alarm in the control room. Standing still for an excruciating sixty seconds, I waited for some form of acknowledgement.

  Soft light warmed Ashwood’s slate tile floors, a graceful front hall bench, and old grandfather clock which reported atomic time of sixteen hundred hours. All I heard was silence until I tuned into the muted sounds a house produces, stronger than a baby’s breath but softer than that of an adult. As if connecting to Ashwood, my own breath adjusted to its pulse, a kind of contradictory racing calm before something big happens.

  Months of virtually touring the house paid off. Closing my eyes, I could place the workers’ sounds. Irritated by the lack of greeting, I decided not to look for Matron Barbara, but to carry my bags to my quarters.

  The house’s work spaces ran along the east side with skylights and sun tubes providing adequate light most days. Walking the long central hall, I turned toward the now dim public rooms filled with custom-built furnishings. I knew the procurement date and price of each piece and optimal placement in the room as determined by the directors’ personal feng shui consultant. In the semi-darkness a tall mirror reflected an outside winter garden, silk drapes covered the northern wall’s energy quilts, an over-stuffed reading chair and foot rest waited in the far corner where a person could watch the yard and residence while remaining almost unseen by others.

  Reaching my suite of rooms, my hand moved instinctively around the corner to touch the light switch, as if I had entered here hundreds of times. I looked to the gooseneck floor lamp across the room a half second before it lit, then to a desk lamp near the windows. I closed the door for the first time.

  The distance to the book shelf behind the gooseneck lamp was approximately twelve steps. I opened doors above a desk unit to access the residence’s security system, tapped in my code then pressed my thumb to the screen and moved toward a retinal reader.

  While the system processed, I turned to enjoy my new space. For the moment I was not Matron, just plain Anne, excited about changing this underperforming estate business.

  The residence security center booted slower than expected, building gradual images of the staff within their work spaces. What appeared to be a sleeping woman in one of the guest rooms, possibly Matron Barbara, surprised me. The system was dated, screens refreshing in a staccato fashion. I adjusted monitoring within my suite so that the guard station would track movement here as merely a soft glowing dot.

  Across the bottom of the screen, “Welcome Matron Anne to Ashwood, MN” confirmed my access and system control. The words were replaced quickly, too quickly, by my profile in a small pixilated image. I had official control of Ashwood. The woman, sleeping in a visitor space, would have forty-eight hours to complete transition before stepping on the transport to her next assignment.

  The residence’s computer system appeared to use original factory-installed programming with the thinnest of invasion protection. I filed my first report to the Bureau of Human Capital Management about the need for a security update. Each time I wandered from my filing to check Matron Barbara’s room; her sleeping image rekindled my irritation. Was Ashwood deteriorating because of her inattentiveness or was managing this business too taxing for an ill-prepared individual?

  Hoping she’d awaken on her own, I explored my quarters beyond the sitting area. A standard bed filled one end of the sleeping room with shelving built into the wall at its head. The bathroom had a small shower, a basin and toilet using Ashwood’s unique water reservoir and reclamation system patented by one of the resident directors. Warmth rose from the floor.

  Security alerted me of a person in the hall outside my door. Transition time was beginning. One knock, rather small and timid, sounded as I turned the polished aluminum handle.

  “I’m called Amber.” The thin worker, dressed in oversized clothes, bowed her head slightly as she spoke.

  Rituals existed for this first meeting of worker and estate matron. Amber dropped her head further, bending from the waist, hands clasped over her chest. “I am to be your worker. Is this the time to unpack your bags?”

  “Thank you for knocking and your offer, Amber,” I said, while raising one hand, palm upwards, to release her from position. Bony elbows showed through her light knit shirt, a look I recognized from teaching a classroom of undernourished students. “Matron Barbara must think well of your work to send you to be the first person to greet me.”

  “Nobody sent me.” Curious eyes looked straight into mine. “You are my new assignment. Lana set the timer for when I should announce myself.” She stumbled on large words, but maintained visual contact. “I’ve passed my five year, you know.”

  “Open your mouth.”

  The worker did as told, displaying a combination of small children’s teeth, one empty space, two molars and one incisor. Like a terrier following a prized toy, she maintained eye contact, hands held at her sides. Desperate parents were known to fake birth certificates to pass children as young as three into training. This child was merely petite.

  I smiled, wanting to ease what I was going to say. “Yes, you have passed your five year, and I’m sure you are a good worker, Amber. I’m not sure if I will need a helper without advanced reading skills. Maybe you can read the thirty words?”

  “Most of them. Reading isn’t my best work.” Two small creases formed between Amber’s eyebrows as she appeared to think. “I clean things good,” she announced, then smiled and eased into the room.

  “Well, Amber, if you prepared these rooms, you do clean things well.”

  “Thank you, Matron Anne.” Her head bobbed again, she almost wiggled with pleasure at my simple compliment. I wondered about the mind frame of the person who decided the youngest worker in residence was the person to be sent as official greeter.

  “Right now, I need to meet Matron Barbara. Perhaps you can show me where she is?”

  “I’m a cleaner, so I do have security to open inside locked doors,” the child said, holding out her left hand, palm up, a dark bead barely visible in the pad of her index finger.

  “I’ve reset my entrance. New protocols will be established.” I stepped aside to leave Amber pass, then followed her.

  She was someone’s young daughter, apparently well-adjusted to living as a worker in a federal government estate. Somewhere a family received her wages, fed their other children slightly better with an enhanced food grant, and worked long days without worrying about her safety. I didn’t know her background story, but guessed that in spite of her thin frame, she had probably never known debilitating hunger. The older worker children would have some memories of the near-famine years when grains were made into fuel, incomes didn’t match food price inflation, and birthrates plummeted.

  “Do you have siblings,” I asked as we walked, curious how she would share the data I already knew.

  “A big brother who’s mean and a baby brother who has a sick heart.” She spoke with sincerity. “It’s nicer here. I was in the way at my mom’s.”<
br />
  I thought how her mother might be sad to hear her daughter speak this way, wondered if the woman found it difficult to sign the forms that gave the Bureau of Human Capital Management responsibility for this child. With no children of my own, I didn’t know how women had acclimated to this new-order way of providing stable environments for their offspring. Living outside the Twin Cities’ protected neighborhoods meant danger from gang activities with victims including children. Living inside the protected neighborhoods cost more than many young people could afford. Estates living was often an attractive alternative.

  In the hall all remained quiet, and we turned left, heading toward the door of the room where Matron Barbara slept. Amber hung back.

  “Go ahead, open the door.”

  “Matron is resting,” the child said. “We should come back.”

  “Isn’t it evening meal preparation time in the food area? Let’s visit with the cook.”

  The child stuttered, perhaps confused by my changing subjects. “We don’t have a person called cook.”

  She confirmed a gap in Bureau’s files. “Who’s in charge of the evening meal if matron is resting?”

  “The directors left this morning, so Lana will feed us.”

  An older kitchen child feeding at least a dozen young household workers, plus a generous handful of adults, made me think less of the sleeping woman. “You’re right, Amber. We’ll leave matron rest. I’d like to meet Lana.”

  “She’s good with soups and breads and keeping things tidy.” Amber stayed a few steps behind me as we walked back through the residence to the food preparation area. I turned quickly, let her scurry to keep up.

  Inside the food preparation area, workers gathered around the cooking surface. They wore standard daily clothing, but in colors of a bright pastel rainbow, a shocking sight. Turning, they began the greeting ritual. Nine heads bowed with shoulders bending. While training on a handful of estate assignments I never saw child workers looking undernourished. Nothing in the Ashwood’s files hinted at food problems.