Fiela's Child [antikvár]

Chapiter I The day the child disappeared, the fog came up early and by midday it seemed as if the Forest was covered in a thick white cloud. Elias van Rooyen put down his axe and went to sit in the shed on the pile of yellowwood beams that had already been finished. It was no good working when the fog was that thick -the wood got damp and would not yield to the axe. And besides, he did not believe in a man working himself to death, as the woodcutters did. He believed in a good plan and a bit of luck, although luck was rare in the Forest. 'Barta!' he called towards the house, 'bring me some coffee, I'm done for!' The fog was really thick. He could only just make out the house from the shed; just enough to see that he would have to fix the roof before the coming winter, before the whole lot collapsed on top of them. Somehow he would have to get hold ofa few second-hand sheets ofcorrugated iron. The winter before Barta had kept on moaning about the children sniffing and coughing because of the damp in the wooden house. Of the four families that had built houses on Barnard's Island, he was the only one who was not a woodcutter. And he was the only one that earned real money instead of having to barter for everything with the two wood buyers in the village. Not that he thought himself much better off than the woodcutters for the money he made from the beams he cut was only just enough to live on if he trapped the meat for his pot himself But making beams was far easier than cutting wood and it also meant that you could sleep in your own bed every night instead of in a shack somewhere in the Forest.