The First Year Begins
After barely managing to stop an overexcited Monia from tearing into the freshly caught rabbit raw—complete with a string of curses—Chester and Monia scrambled to get a fire going.
Monia gazed at the rabbit carcass, still bearing the deep bite mark she had left on one haunch, with the rapturous expression of someone beholding a masterpiece of the ages. Ant drooled steadily the entire time.
Catching a rabbit, however, did not mean they could eat it at once. The preparations were far from over. Suddenly forcing greasy food into bodies that had shriveled on nothing but dry rations for so long would be a heavy burden. In the worst case, it could make them sick enough to die from the very meal that was supposed to save them.
Knowing this well, Chester had brought a pot and some grain before they even set out after the rabbit. The pot had come from the sailors; the grain was seed stock they planned to plant once the weather warmed. He meant to turn it into thin oatmeal.
Chester poured the grain into the pot and roasted it for a long while, then crushed the toasted kernels with a stone. He added a generous heap of snow and set the pot over the fire.
Snow was more than water; it held air as well, which made its volume large. Once it melted, the air escaped and the quantity naturally shrank.
Whenever the snow turned to water he added more, repeating the process until he had a satisfying amount of liquid. Only then did he stir in the roasted, crushed grain and begin to boil it.
Before long the pot was full of thin oatmeal. Chester and Monia ladled it carefully into cups and began to eat with deliberate caution.
“Ah.”
“Mm.”
The moment the warm, moist food entered their mouths, their bodies sent up dizzying signals of pleasure. Ant used his tongue to scoop snow into the hot oatmeal, cooling it so he could gobble it down in a frenzy.
“Ah, damn… ah, damn…”
Monia muttered the words while chewing the oatmeal slowly, carefully, never gulping it down.
“…Good.”
They still had to worry about the days after winter ended, so even knowing they possessed grain they had never dared eat it through the cold months. Potatoes, pepper, chili—everything that would go into the ground once spring came had been left untouched.
“Aaaah. It feels like my body’s melting. It was frozen solid.”
“Tell me about it. I ran so hard after that rabbit my legs cramp.”
The cramps barely registered as pain; both of their bodies were that thoroughly wrecked.
The three of them spent more than an hour eating the oatmeal at a leisurely, drawn-out pace. After a short rest, once their bodies felt a little looser, they ate another round of the thin porridge.
They woke their systems gently, taking their time. Gradually they thickened the oatmeal and stirred in the tiniest scraps of meat so their stomachs could adapt.
Only after an entire day of reviving themselves on oatmeal were Chester and Monia finally ready for the meat they had worked so hard to catch.
They had left the carcass untouched for a full day. Yet the island was still cold, and they had not skinned it, so a single day had done no harm. Meat spoils rapidly only once the hide is removed.
“I’ll get the rabbit!”
The moment morning arrived, Monia—looking nothing like the half-dead woman of the day before—laughed brightly and ran to dig the rabbit out of the snowbank. Chester prepared the fire for roasting.
He skinned the rabbit cleanly and set the whole carcass over the flames.
“Ooooh.”
“Aaaah.”
Why did the sight of fat melting and dripping from the roasting meat look so beautiful? Why did those running rivulets of grease feel so sweet? Chester and Monia swallowed hard.
When the rabbit was fully cooked, Chester carefully divided it into three equal portions.
“Ahhh…! Mine’s smaller!”
“They’re the same! And you already ate some yesterday!”
“Ant ate more—he got the guts!”
“…! That’s… true. Then Ant doesn’t need a share, does he?”
—Kiiing! Kiiiiiing!
“Kyaa, so cute! But Ant, if you get more, Mommy gets less! You’ll just have to sacrifice, okay?”
“That’s not something a parent should say to a child. You’re never having kids.”
“You don’t want to make a baby with me?!”
“I do want to make one.”
“…Heheheh.”
Leaving Monia to her strange little laugh, Chester picked up a rabbit leg. Monia snatched one up just as quickly.
When the bony, meat-poor ribs landed in front of Ant, he glared at the two humans with eyes full of hatred and resentment. Selfish bastards, hogging all the good parts! Filthy humans! Then he wagged his tail so hard it nearly flew off and devoured every scrap of rib meat.
“Waaaaaah!!”
The instant Monia sank her teeth into the rabbit leg, every sorrow and hardship she had endured through the brutal winter burst like a dam. She began to sob in great, heaving gulps.
“Huuueeeng! Meat! It’s meat! Hic! Hic!”
“Ahhh… this is good.”
Chester closed his eyes quietly, savoring the way his body came back to life with every bite.
It truly had been a long time since he had felt this.
After a winter that seemed to suck the life out of everything, spring arrived, the frozen ground thawed, and new shoots pushed up. That was when the preserved stores of winter had to be finished off. Meat, fruit, and vegetables that had dried out from curing and long storage were prepared in every clever way possible so they could be eaten with as much pleasure as remaining.
It was both a practical way to restore strength to bodies weakened by winter and a cultural ritual that prepared people for the work of spring.
In Chester’s village they had called it the Spring Welcome Feast—a kind of festival. Every year he had gone hunting in the mountains with his father.
The dizzying sensation of eating freshly roasted game before anyone else, of putting greasy food in his mouth after so long… he was feeling it again at last.
I missed this.
While Chester drifted into memory over his rabbit leg, Monia finished hers with wet, hiccupping sobs and, still unsatisfied, began crunching the bare bone. Ant pounced on her, trying to snatch the bone away.
“You little brat! Trying to steal your mother’s food?! You unfilial beast! Come at me!”
—Woof! Woof! Woof!
“You never do this to Chester! I’m just the easy target, aren’t I? Easy! You little—!”
Listening to Monia scold Ant, Chester thought,
Where do mothers learn to say things like that?
Her words brought back a memory of a mischievous little boy whose favorite hobby had been flipping up the skirts of the neighborhood women. Once he grew a bit and fell in love for the first time he had quieted down outside, though Chester had heard the boy simply started causing trouble at home instead.
I wonder if he’s all right.
The last letter they exchanged had said he was leaving the village for the city.
He wrote that he was going to become an adventurer there. I hope he’s safe.
Chester popped another piece of rabbit into his mouth. Thoughts of a friend he had known only through letters, whose face he barely remembered, vanished in an instant. Every nerve focused on the meat. The light reflected in his eyes seemed to leap and cheer.
Once the rabbit was gone and strength had returned to her limbs, Monia sprang to her feet with energy.
Power flooded back into her body. Vitality surged. It felt like the moment a young man, freshly recognized as an adult after his coming-of-age ceremony, takes his first bold step into the world—full of burning youth and fearless courage. Her heart brimmed with life.
“I want more rabbit!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah! Let’s find some!”
Monia truly felt as though she had been waiting quietly at death’s door only to be pulled back to life.
“Mm. I definitely want more too. But this rabbit might just have woken early from hibernation…”
While Chester was still speaking, Ant suddenly stared off in one direction and gave a signal.
—Grrrr. Grrrrr.
At the soft growl both Chester and Monia looked the same way. That sound meant Ant had found prey.
They quickly packed up and rose.
“Ant.”
—Grrrrr.
“Let’s go.”
Ant shot forward; Chester and Monia raced after him.
Across an island turning to mud as the snow melted, the man, the woman, and the wolf chased a startled beast that fled for its life.
Before long the animal met its end when a cunning human’s slingstone found its mark.
“Got it!”
“This one’s big! It’s huge! Yes! Meat! Meat!”
“Start a fire! Get a fire going!”
“Kyaaaa! Meat!”
“If you’re not lighting the fire then start butchering already!!”
The snow melted away. The cold retreated. New shoots appeared on the earth and in the trees, and life began to return to the island once more.