Her first throw hit the bullseye. She felt a tingle in her chest. She couldn’t hide the smile on her face. Her second throw hit just left of the bullseye. All she had to do was get close to the bullseye with her third throw and Paul would be cleaning the outhouse for a week. She took her breath and let the knife fly.

  It hit the bullseye - handle first. It bounced off and dropped to the ground.

  Paul jumped two feet into the air. “Yes!” He threw his fist up.

  Jaden looked at Will and rolled her eyes.

  “Well, the good news is,” he said. “If that had been a bad guy, you would have knocked him out.”

  “Tough luck,” Paul called.

  “Whatever.” Jaden flicked her wrist toward Paul.

  “Your majesty,” Paul reminded her.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  This new life proved to be tougher than Jaden expected. Even spending a week saying ‘your majesty’ to Paul every time she addressed him wasn’t as hard as getting all the way upstairs before remembering that she needed the Luci light that sat charging in the window below.

  It was a chilly morning in November when Jaden carried the Luci light to the outhouse to clean. Wind from the north whipped along the barn causing her to shiver and pull her jacket tight to her neck. The women’s privy had a crescent moon on the door, the men’s sported a star. Mary had said this was a practice that came from colonial times when many people could not read. The moon and the star identified which privy to use.

  In one hand she held the Luci, which brightened the outhouses enough to make cleaning easy. In the other hand she carried a plastic five-gallon bucket of cold stove ashes to fill the buckets sitting in each of the outhouses. After each use, a scoop of ashes was sprinkled into the hole to cover the latest ‘deposit.’ This helped to keep the smell down.

  The outhouses faced north. On the south side, a four-inch PVC pipe ran from inside the hole to the outside. It ran up the outside of the outhouse, ending about two feet above the roof. This PVC pipe, as well as the wall of the building six inches on either side, had been painted black. When the sun hit the black paint, it heated the pipe, causing the air with the odor to rise out of the outhouse. This also kept most of the flies out of the outhouse as well.

  Now that the weather had turned colder, spiders weren’t a problem. Jaden shuddered at the memory of the first week of chilly weather. Every time she went into the outhouse, she saw at least one spider. Allison brought a container of a white powder and told Jaden to ‘dust the corners of the outhouse.’

  “It’s Diatomaceous Earth,” she’d explained. “Any insect with an exoskeleton, like spiders, will die when they come in contact with this.”

  So, Jaden used an old paint brush to dust the corners until the weather turned cold. It did help.

  She used a broom to sweep the walls and floor in each privy, checked the old coffee can to ensure there was plenty of toilet paper, and sprayed a light bleach solution on each toilet seat. Then, satisfied that the privies were clean until tomorrow, she picked up the broom, the Luci, and the empty ash bucket. She turned to head to the barn but came to a halt when she came face to face with Erin.

  “Hello,” she said.

  Erin raised her head so she could look down her nose at Jaden. She narrowed her eyes. “You make a good Cinderella,” she smirked.

  Jaden bit her tongue to keep from blurting out a sarcastic retort. She smiled and stepped to the side, waiting for Erin to walk past.

  Entering the bunkhouse, she was reminded of another simple pleasure the chilly weather brought. The bunkhouse smelled much better than it had when the days were warm. The smell of sweat still lingered, but it didn’t assault as it once had.

  The men had an outside shower. It was a frame built with eight-foot posts that had been sunk into the ground. It was about four feet wide by six feet long. Three sides were 1X8’s nailed to the posts to a height of about five feet. If one of the men was taking a shower, anyone could see his head above the walls. A tarp was hung just inside the open wall.

  A black stall mat fit inside so that the men were not standing on the gravel next to the barn.

  A flat roof had been added and a two hundred-and-seventy-five-gallon IBC tote had been mounted to the roof. This was filled each morning using a ladder and the garden hose that was connected to the well pump. After sitting in the sun all day, the water was at least lukewarm for the men to take showers.

  But, now that winter was upon them, very few men were taking their showers outside. Instead they used the tack room that had always been reserved for the women and children. But since the tack room was not heated and had no way to heat, even that was getting uncomfortable.

  This day, Will Mead, Shane Riley and two other men were sitting at a back table with paper and pencils. Jaden watched as they bent over the table.

  Will walked to the back wall and used a yellow contractor’s tape measure to measure the space next to the last room.

  “Twelve foot deep,” he said. He then measured the space where the classroom had been set up. “Twenty-two foot,” he called.

  He walked back to the table. “I think we could take about five feet off that classroom and put two showers in. They would be roughly five feet by six feet.”

  Riley tapped his pencil on the table. “That’s plenty big enough, but where do we drain the dirty water?” He threw the pencil down. “This isn’t going to work!”

  “What isn’t?” Allison closed the door to the stable behind her and walked to the table.

  “We’re trying to figure out how to build an indoor shower area. It’s too cold to take showers outside anymore and the tack room is getting too cold for the women and children.”

  “Easy solution.,” Allison said with a smile. “Let’s use the showers in the house. I’ve got three.”

  “So, we carry hot water from the barn to the house and set up showers inside?” Will commented. “I guess that would work better than anything we can come up with. The house stays warm enough with the fireplace, but we can’t heat water on that. It’s too small.”

  Allison crossed her arms over her chest. “We do laundry twice a week. We turn the generator on for that. We usually have the power on for a couple of hours each time. That would be plenty of time for at least half of us to get showers. If we limit ourselves to just one shower a week, or limit the shower time to just a couple minutes each, we should all be fine.”

  Jaden scrunched her nose. “I can think of a couple people who are going to stink if they don’t get more than one shower a week.”

  Allison sighed. “I agree. Well, how about we issue each room a one-gallon bucket and a wash cloth. Anyone who needs a quick sponge bath can do it in the privacy of their room. They can always get hot water from the stove here in the barn.”

  Will looked at Riley and raised his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

  Riley picked up the pencil and scribbled numbers on the paper in front of him. He looked up at Will. “If we limit showers to three or four minutes, and get people in and out as fast as possible, it would take about three hours for everyone to get a shower. Would the hot water last that long? Especially if we are using it for the laundry as well.”

  “So, here’s a thought,” Sam Smith said. “Do you have any empty shampoo or conditioner bottles?”

  Allison nodded. “I have a bunch that have been cleaned out.”

  “Okay, what if we filled bottles with water and a little liquid soap. When we get in the shower, we turn it on long enough to get wet and get our washcloth wet, then we turn the water off and squirt the soapy liquid onto our washcloth. We clean up and then turn the shower back on to rinse off. We should be able to stretch the hot water that way.”

  Riley bit his bottom lip. “I think that might work,” he said. “Want to give it a try?” He looked at Allison.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” she said. “We’ll be doing laundry tomorrow so we can bring it up at supper tonight. It will take some logistical work so we don’t have thirty people sitting around the house waiting for their turn. Maybe we can start with the women and children and schedule a dozen people per hour. That will give each person about fifteen minutes to undress, shower, dry off and get dressed.”

  “I think we can do it in less than fifteen minutes,” Will said.

  “Well, maybe the men can, but I’d prefer that we let our showers be a treat for everyone. Not something that they are forced to rush through.

  “I’ll arrange for the women to go first,” she continued. “We’ll start at about two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. By four o’clock, the men should be ready to take showers. If that goes well, we can have showers twice a week.”

  Jaden cleared her throat. “I don’t think we have enough towels.”

  Allison’s face fell. “You might be right. Let me go count them.”

  She returned five minutes later. “We would be short by six towels if everyone used a fresh towel. I can share a towel with James so now we are short five towels. Maybe a couple other family members can share.”

  “Or,” Jaden held a finger in the air, “after the first hour, we can throw the dirty towels into the washer and they’ll be dry by the time the last groups are ready for their shower.”

  In the end, Jaden’s suggestion allowed everyone in the group to enjoy a shower with clean, dry towels.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The morning sun beat down on the metal roof of the arena. Jaden pulled the bow string back and anchored it to the corner of her mouth. She took a slow breath and then let the arrow fly. A small smile formed when she heard the satisfying thwunk and saw the arrow quivering in the very center of the target.

  Greta had given Jaden the opportunity to try out several bows. Jaden had fallen in love with this simple recurve made from walnut. Greta had cleaned it until it shined. She’d showed Jaden how to measure and cut a new string.

  “We don’t store a wooden recurve with the string tight,” she’d said. “We need to take the tension off the limbs after every use. If we don’t, the bow will get weak and won’t shoot very well.”

  She showed Jaden how to loosen the string from the notch and how to connect the string when she was ready to shoot. She’d spent time on something she called a ‘brace point.’

  “If we brace this too low,” she’d said, “the feathers will hit before your arrow is launched. If we brace this too high, it will be harder for you to pull and your arrow will lose some of its energy before hitting the target. If we have to make a mistake, it’s better to make it on the high side.” She’d grinned. “But I’d rather not make a mistake.”

  Once the brace had been determined, she dug a little round bead out of her archery toolbox. “This is called a nock. Once we have our brace figured out, we set our nocking point. The nock makes sure we set our arrow into the string at the exact same spot every time.”

  She slid the nock onto the string and gave it a little pinch to keep it in place. “If the power doesn’t come back on, we will eventually run out of nocks, but we can just as easily use a piece of string as a nock. The only thing the nock does is show us where to place our arrow.”

  She dug a t-square out of her tool box. “We want our nock to be about a half inch above the arrow shelf.” She moved the nock a little lower and handed the bow to Jaden. “I’m going to stand off to the side and watch you shoot. If the arrow flies straight, we will leave the nock right there. If it wiggles up and down a little, we will move it a tiny bit until your arrow flies straight.”

  The nock did not have to be moved. Greta used a pair of pliers to tighten the nock onto the string.

  And, now Jaden practiced every day.

  Mary had found an old quilt. She cut it to size and added buttons to make a bow case. The case had a strap that Jaden could sling over her shoulder to carry the bow either on her back or over her shoulder. It also had a long pocket that held her arrows.

  Jaden sat her bow on the hay bale while she walked to the target to pull her arrows. All five stuck in the center bullseye. Greta had promised that they would go bow hunting very soon. Jaden was confident that she was ready.

  She turned to walk back to her bow before realizing that Erin stood next to the bale holding the walnut bow. She had a glint in her eye and a grin on her face.

  “Hello, Erin.” Jaden kept her voice low and friendly. “How are you today?”

  “Why don’t you like me, Jaden?” Erin’s smile remained on her face, but her eyes hardened.

  Jaden reached the hay bale and stood with the arrows in her hand. She kept her eyes on Erin. “I don’t dislike you,” she said.

  “Why do you avoid me?” Erin flipped the bow into the air and caught it. It slipped and threatened to hit the ground, but Erin caught it by the string. She grinned when she saw Jaden’s mouth open and her eyes widen.

  “I asked why you avoided me.” Erin’s voice hardened.

  “Because you are mean to me.”

  “Why am I mean to you?” Erin tossed the bow into the air again and caught it.

  “I don’t know,” Jaden said softly. She looked at the ground. She couldn’t bear to see Erin destroy her bow.

  “I don’t like how perfect you are. Little Jaden,” Erin spat. “You were the perfect child at school. Everybody loved Jaden. Poor Jaden. Let’s treat Jaden better than everyone else. I thought I was done with you the day the power went out. But then I get dragged out here and it starts all over. Jaden is better than everyone else. Jaden can do no wrong. I’m sick of it.”

  “I never thought I was better than you.” Jaden tried to keep the quiver out of her voice. “I wasn’t perfect. You were smarter. You were prettier.”

  “Yeah,” Erin sneered. “And look what that got me. Nothing!”

  “What do you mean? Everybody liked you.”

  “Sure, they did. Until poor Jaden got all the attention.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jaden took a step to the side and dropped her arrows next to the hay bale as far from Erin as she could.

  “Do you remember the day that your mom died?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “Do you remember the celebration we were supposed to have the next day?”

  Jaden stood looking at Erin. Confusion filled her head. What was Erin talking about?

  “No, I don’t remember.”

  “The Miss Princeton award? I was supposed to be crowned Little Miss Princeton. I had a new dress. I had practiced my song. Everybody said that I was beautiful and someday I’d be famous. Then, because of you, they canceled the celebration.”

  She threw the bow high into the air and let it drop to the ground.

  Jaden cringed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Erin dashed forward and picked up the bow. She held it over her head, pointing toward the ceiling. “I hate you, Jaden!” She brought the bow down, jamming the top end of the bow into the deep arena sand.

  “Hey!” Greta’s voice filled the arena. “Put that down!”

  She strode across the sand. When she reached Erin, she grasped her by her forearm and yanked her back. Erin released the bow and let it fall to the sand.

  Greta spun to face her. “What is wrong with you?” She shook the girl who burst into tears.

  “What’s going on out here?” This was from Allison who hurried across the arena followed by Mary and Lisa Grant, Erin’s mother.

  Greta glared at Erin before turning to Allison. “I heard something out here and came to check. I found this one…” she shook Erin again. “She had Jaden’s bow and she was trying to hit Jaden with it. She could have killed Jaden.”

  Lisa Grant approached her daughter. She raised her eyes to Greta’s. Greta dropped Erin’s arm.

  “Is what she said true?” Lisa asked Erin.

  Erin nodded.

  Lisa’s forehead wrinkled. “Why?”

  “Because I hate her.”

  “Oh, honey! No! You don’t hate her.”

  Erin turned her head and looked into her mother’s eyes. “Why do you always tell me how I feel? You don’t know how I feel. I hate her. But I wasn’t trying to hit her. I was trying to break her precious bow.”

  “Why, honey?” Lisa wrapped her arms around Erin and pulled her close. She raised her head. Her sad eyes darted from Jaden to Mary, and finally to Allison.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to think. We will pack our things and move back to town. I understand that you won’t want us here after this. I’m so sorry.”

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  “No,” said Allison.