Then more.
Samuel went first.
Clara followed slowly.
The passage was narrow, but manageable.
The stone floor descended beneath the cabin.
At the bottom sat a small underground room.
Shelves lined two walls.
Mostly empty.
But not completely.
Two carrots.
Three onions.
A sack of potatoes.
And another cabbage.
Clara stared.
Samuel touched it.
Fresh.
He looked toward her.
“Someone’s using this.”
Clara’s skin prickled.
A blanket lay in one corner.
Recent.
A candle.
Tin cup.
Small knife.
Mud on the floor.
Samuel crouched.
Boot marks.
Narrower than his.
Larger than Clara’s.
“Man,” he said.
“You know?”
“Likely.”
“Could be woman.”
“Yes.”
He corrected himself.
“Adult.”
Clara appreciated that.
At the far wall stood another door.
This one stone-framed.
Samuel opened it carefully.
A tunnel extended perhaps twenty feet before ending at a wooden hatch.
He raised the lantern.
“You stay here.”
Clara folded her arms.
Samuel looked at her.
“Clara.”
“I am not staying alone in the room where our invisible cabbage supplier sleeps.”
Samuel considered.
“Fair.”
They moved together.
The hatch opened into darkness beneath trees.
Outside.
Behind a fallen stone wall fifty yards north of the cabin.
Snow covered the entrance almost completely.
But beneath an overhanging rock, the ground remained partially sheltered.
Tracks.
Fresh.
Samuel knelt.
One person.
Boots.
They led uphill.
Then vanished where wind had blown snow.
Clara looked toward him.
“So someone has been entering our cabin.”
“Yes.”
“While we sleep?”
“Possibly.”
Her face changed.
Samuel stood.
Immediately his body became protective.
Not possessive.
Alert.
“We bar this tonight.”
“With what?”
“Table.”
“The pantry table?”
“Yes.”
Clara looked toward the dark woods.
“Why bring food?”
Samuel shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
That question became worse than theft.
A thief taking food made sense.
Someone leaving food did not.
They blocked the hidden pantry door from inside.
Samuel placed bells on the outer hatch the next morning.
Small trapping bells tied to cord.
Anyone opening it would make noise.
They also spread ash across the cellar floor.
Clara checked the cabbage.
Real.
She cooked nothing from the hidden room.
Not yet.
“You think poisoned?”
Samuel asked.
“No.”
“But I don’t know whose hands touched it.”
“Reasonable.”
They spent the day pretending normal life.
Samuel cut wood.
Clara repaired shirts.
Both listened constantly.
Nothing.
Night came.
They ate beans.
No cabbage.
Samuel mourned privately.
Clara noticed.