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The Svensonn family owed the old hotel. They were a big family; a dad, a mom, and a whole mess of kids. How many, it was hard to say. It all depended on the accuracy of one’s counting – it took Grey a few days to finally decide that they had thirteen children, aged from baby to young adulthood.

Grey learned that in the old days, the Christian House had been packed with people. He had no idea how many could live there, but he thought about the rows of empty rooms, and was thankful that there weren’t people living in them now. As lonely as those long rows of empty rooms made him feel, it was better than living with hundreds of strangers.

Downstairs, at ground level, there was a huge dining hall. Long tables stood in rows, surrounded by wooden folding chairs. This would be where they would eat – all together, like one big family, even though they were two separate families. The Svensonns were a whole family; and Mom had one small, partial family. All together, they were dwarfed by the dining hall. Grey could not imagine what it must have been like when it was full.

Mom told him that the Christian House held seventeen families, last time they were there.

“Don’t you remember?” she asked.

Grey was puzzled. The scar under his eye twinged as he scrunched his face in thought. What was Mom talking about?

“We visited this place once when you were little. We were thinking of living here.”

Grey must have had fuzzy spots in his memory, because he didn’t recall this. They went a lot of places when he was younger. The Svensonns hadn’t forgotten; they knew Grey by name.

The introductions were many, going on for minutes. Grey stood, staring and mute. There was no way he’d ever remember all of their names, especially the stranger ones. That big family was from the distant country of Norway, and some of the names were quite unique, like names out of a story book.

Under the palpable pressure of strangers’ gazes, Grey forced a few polite hellos, the bare minimum required. He didn’t want to be rude. Thankfully the painful introductions did not last forever; the Svensonns kindly noticed that Grey and his siblings were in no condition to produce small talk.

Grey, Asher, Mom, Bethany, and Malachai were going to live on the second floor, in three rooms at the top of the large stairway. There were plenty of unused rooms in the old place. Grey stood in the hallway, gazing down the row of doors, all paneled in the same dark wood. It was silent up there. The thirteen Svensonn children lived downstairs, their voices muted by distance and ancient wood construction.

Later that first day, when it was dinnertime, Grey and Ash were called inside, soaked to the waist from playing in the creek. Mom frowned and made them change into dry clothes. They washed their hands in the bathroom. It was in that moment when Grey appreciated that he would no longer have to haul water from a distant spring. They were town dwellers now. It was a strange new thought, now that he considered it. He missed the mountain.

The first dinnertime was just as uncomfortable as Grey knew it would be. They all had to sit in the big dining room with the Svensonn family. They ate, not saying a word unless spoken to. A bystander might have mistakenly assumed this was because they were model children, but their behavior was a product of being the subject of everyone’s interest – the target of all eyes in the room. Grey and his siblings were not used to being in the company of strangers. They shrank down small on their hard chairs and had nothing much to say.

A wooden clock on the wall ticked softly, echoing in the big dinner hall. Plates and silverware tinkled. The children silently nibbled their food in between probing questions asked by the adults. Grown-ups enjoyed such a direct manner of getting to know other folks. This was in stark contrast to the ways of children, who learn about each other slowly and naturally while playing – gradually becoming friends without even being aware of the process.

Questions were awkwardly and politely answered until the meal ended. At last! Grey thought. Relieved to get out of sight, he and his siblings slipped out of the great hall, going upstairs to help Mom finish unpacking.

Grey and Ash came to know the Svensonn children better during the first few weeks at the Christian House. It was fortunate that there were children their own ages, but not surprising; since there were thirteen of them. Soon they were well on their way to becoming good friends in the natural childlike manner.

The hotel had what was an unusually large back yard, for being in town. The yard was patchy with dying, sun-starved grass, and it contained a swing-set, a sandbox and a few metal benches. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence, and a garage stood like a wall at one end. A creek ran along the back – a city waterway, its brown water moving slowly, choked with thick green water weeds.

All Grey and Asher wanted to do was to play in that creek, and they jumped in as soon as they were allowed. It was not as big as the Kettle river they used to swim in when they lived on the mountain, but it was so close – not even twenty feet away from their new home.

Best of all, there was a raft!

The raft was a homemade platform of boards fasted to four empty barrels. They were allowed to play on it whenever they wanted. It had been built by the oldest Svensonn boys, who had ingeniously added a kid-powered paddle. Greyson gazed in amazement at the incorporation of half of an old bicycle, attached to the raft’s deck. Anyone could sit on that half-bike, hold onto the handlebars, and pedal with his feet. This made a big paddle spin, pushing against the water with a clop, clop clop. It was actual propulsion! Sure, one couldn’t steer the thing, but it moved. Grey was sure he could have invented it himself, if he had the parts; and maybe a welder.

Some of the Svensonn children played in the creek with Grey and Asher, and showed them how to dredge up the green water weeds. Lots of creatures made their homes in those weeds.

“I’ll show you!”

Hannah, a Svensonn girl about Grey’s age, hopped deftly onto the raft, inviting Grey and Ash aboard. They climbed up after her. Grey felt an awkward strain at having to learn about this raft from a strange girl, but he badly wanted to use it. He was not accustomed to speaking to or playing with girls, and Hannah made him feel self-conscious and uncomfortable.

Grey watched her. Hannah was about his height; with long, shiny hair. Her nose was freckled. She had a kind, gentle manner about her and Grey thought that he had not known any girl like her before. She noticed him staring, and he glanced away; assuming a serious, thoughtful look that he imagined made him appear to be mature. Making friends didn’t come easy for him, and he had never had a girl for a friend before.

Hannah knelt on the edge of the raft and reached a slim, pale arm down into the murky water. She pulled hard, dragging a large load of weeds up from the bottom. She plunked them up onto the deck with a splat. The dark green plants had a muddy smell that was not too pleasant, but the ability of children to ignore and even forget bad smells is well-known.

Hannah sat back on her heels, satisfied with the haul. She smiled at the boys.

“Watch this,” she said, pointing to the mass of water weeds.

Grey and Asher stared in wonder as crawdads, large and small, emerged from the weeds, unhappy and panicked about being drug up into the daylight. Their hard, pointed feet clicked as they scuttled out onto the boards, their tails flipping. Some of them were quite large – as long as Grey’s hand, and had dangerous-looking claws. Others were so tiny that the Svensonn kids often brought them inside to live in bottles. Grey had caught small ones before, but never saw more than two or three in one place. Back in the Kettle river, you had to flip over lots of underwater rocks to find them. There were no crawdads anywhere on the mountain. Here there was so many!

Grey tried to look only slightly impressed as Ash eagerly snatched up two fleeing crawdads. There were basically two ways to pick one up: grab it carefully behind the claws, or if it was pretty big and scary, one could stick a twig into its claw. The crawdad would clamp down tight, and you could carry him anywhere. Crawdads were great fun, and loads of them were here for the taking, hiding right under them in the water weeds. They were doomed to be ruled by two new tyrants.

***

Something like hope began to chase away the darkness from the last few weeks that had taken up residence in Grey’s heart – perhaps living here wouldn’t be so bad after all. Hannah seemed nice, and her brothers were very friendly boys. Ash was destined to be close friends with them, as they were about his age.

Mr. Svensonn had a funny accent, and didn’t speak all that often. Grey liked this about him. He would have been perfectly content never to speak to Mr. Svensonn, and had no reason to do so except for common politeness; until the day he showed Grey his underground workshop.

The ancient hotel had a basement, and one day Mr. Svensonn beckoned for Grey to follow him down. The old stairs groaned. Cool air greeted him as he descended into the gloom. Mr. Svensonn led the way down a hall, with gaping door-less openings leading off to one side. Some of these dark rooms held nothing but boxes and crates. Others contained furnaces, pipes, and dusty things that supplied the old building with water, electricity, and heat.

The dim hallway opened up into a large room at the end. It had a dirt floor and smelled like something burning. Grey’s eyes adjusted, and he noticed what must be an old coal chute and hopper in the corner, draped in lacy spiderwebs. Mr. Svensonn opened a heavy wood door, and the dark gloom was washed away by a new scent of fresh cut wood. They entered the workshop, treading over sawdust, which lay sprinkled everywhere. The floor was made from honest, well-worn boards that had been smoothed by years of countless feet. A large workbench dominated one side, and a window looked out at street level. Anyone working there could look right out onto Main Street. People’s ankles passed by on the sidewalk, a mere two feet from Grey’s nose. Sunlight slanted in and warmed the room, bathing the workbench in a golden glow, starkly contrasting the rest of the dim basement.

The walls of the workshop were lined with chisels, mallets, squares, planes and other woodworking tools. Grey recognized most of them, but some he had never seen before. Mr. Svensonn pointed out the various items, naming them as they hung neatly on the walls. Grey nodded politely. He did not have to fake interest here, these were tools he had read about. I want to use this stuff, he thought.

“You can come down here and use the tools, as long as you clean up after yourself,” Mr. Svensonn said with a smile.

“Thank you,” Grey said solemnly, trying not to look too excited. His fingers twitched.

His mind bloomed with ideas. His brain clogged up in an instant with wooden things. It was a wonder his head didn’t make clunking noises when he moved about. He figured that he could make anything using the tools in this room. Anything at all!

Boats! He wanted to make boats for the creek out back, and his hands itched to get started.

Mr. Svensonn and Grey got along just fine after that. They still had little to say, but Grey grew to trust old Mr. Svensonn. Working side-by-side in a wood shop together tends to make friends out of strangers. The older wood worker repaired chairs and made functional items, and the younger made boats and toys.

Aside from owning such a huge building, having many family members, and speaking with funny accents, the Svensonns were not so strange after all. Eventually the cold unfamiliarity faded, as it tends to do over time. Mom appeared to enjoy talking to Mrs. Svensonn, and the little siblings played in the big playroom downstairs, with the other small children. Grey and Asher played mostly in the creek of course, surrounded by the quiet hum of the little prairie town.

The year passed as the children became friends. Grey and Ash started school, this time at home – just as when they were young. Grey was glad to be doing homeschool again, it was much simpler not to have to deal with other kids. The little school in Canada was too far away anyhow, and their old car would not have made the trip. It spent most of its time broken in the parking lot. Mom said they couldn’t get it fixed unless Dad sent money.

“What’s Dad doing?” Grey asked one day.

Mom looked up from her sewing with a distinct pause, as if preparing the appropriate words.

“He’s working a new job, one that requires him to live in Seattle.” She said, looking at him carefully. She wondered how much of the truth he knew.

Grey understood that it was a difficult topic for her to discuss, and dropped the subject, but not before he felt a hard stone forming inside him. He went back to his studies, but found it difficult to concentrate. He knew that he should practice thinking about other things – good things – like the Bible verse said. Impossible, he thought. It seemed like he was never able to turn his thoughts around, once he started thinking about his parents’ separation.

With a grimace, he stared at his worksheet, smudged with eraser marks, and started again to work through his remaining math problems. He aimed to finish up about the same time the Svensonn kids did, so they could all go out and play together. Today they planned to ride out to the big hill at the end of town, to set up jumps for the bikes. He wanted to be the first one out the door.