SEEDS AND HOT COMPOST

Episode 16 from The Ghost Girl
Illustration by Carlos Uribe
SEEDS AND HOT COMPOST
Abby awoke with a cool breeze coming through her window and golden sunlight shining on the floor. After a cup of Breakfast Mixture she walked outside and looked around – at the weather, the grass, the trees, the leaves and branches on the ground. She observed the open spaces that received sunlight, and the spaces in shadow. Soon she hammered a few sticks into the earth, marking off the corners of a garden that she would create in the coming week. The soil was hard-packed with stones, and needed fresh compost. Following this train of thought, Abby walked over to the mulch pile, the mountain of leaves contained in the privet hedge. She carved out a hole with her hands, and found a layer of damp leaves and sticks, mown grass and plants. Going deeper, the soil became a decomposing mixture. Worms slithered out of the way. Centipedes darted into hiding. And deeper still lay pure dark fluffy soil, the most nutritious food for plants on the planet.
“Yes!” said Abby to herself. “I thought so! Oh baby, the things we can do!”
“Abby!” called Jeremy, walking toward her. “I was afraid I’d missed you.”
“Jeremy! Are you coming from the haunted house? Did you find my things?”
“Yes and yes!” he replied. “No problem.”
“Oh, I’m so happy! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

They walked to the tool shed and Jeremy pulled Abby’s bike, sleeping bag, guitar case, and backpack out from behind the canvas and set them on the grass. With a trembling hand she unzipped the backpack and poured an overflowing pile of seed packets onto the unrolled sleeping bag. They both sat down to examine them. Each packet was just a sheet of paper folded into a sort of envelope, and filled with seeds.
“That’s amazing,” Jeremy told her. “There must be at least fifty of them.”
“More than that,” returned Abby. “At least a hundred.”
Jeremy picked out an envelope at random and read the name scrawled on paper. “What’s Old N. Amaranth?” he asked.
Abby hesitated, and finally said, “That’s a very special variety, passed down over… thousands of years. It’s named for the people who lived in the forest. They were a part of the Half Moon People, those who farmed this area long ago.” Abby’s eyes glittered. She glanced up at Jeremy, and felt both pleased and distressed that he was attending to her every word.
“I’d so like to know more,” he said. “In a way it’s a part of my new education, my studies in the forest. And maybe, just maybe, I could teach you some things too.”
“And what might those things be?” asked Abby with a smile.
Jeremy looked away in confusion, blushing around the neck and cheek.
“Oh!!” thought Abby. “I didn’t realize it would sound like that!” Looking down to ease his embarrassment, she wondered if she’d done it on purpose, and worried that these feelings could soon lead to conflicts.
But Jeremy quickly resumed his normal air of passionate intellectual interest and emotional detachment. “Well,” he said, “I realize you know almost everything about plants and trees. But just as an example, how’re you gonna heat this place?”
“I do have the wood burning stove,” Abby replied.
“That cabin isn’t even insulated. You’ll be freezing on a cold night unless you wake up and feed the fire. Your pipes will freeze and break.”
“So spell it out for me,” returned Abby. “What are you thinking?”
“Hot compost,” replied Jeremy. “All we would need would be a chipper. I think you’ve got enough wood and leaves and greens to make a compost pile, say eight by eight by six. We’ll run a plastic pipe from your cabin at floor level, up through the pile, and turning back into the cabin at ceiling level. The pipe will suck out cold air, heat it as it runs up through the compost, and send it back inside as warm air.”
“Who’s teaching you?” asked Abby.
“It’s the Energy Project in the forest.”
“Let’s try it,” said Abby, clapping her hands. “I’ll learn from you, and I’ll teach you about gardening. God knows I need help. How much time do you have?”
“Whoa, that’s a problem. I really want to do it, but give me a day to think about my job and talk to Jim. And then there’s the band.” Jeremy looked off into the distance. “Very hard choices,” he said.