Yolk
by Rebecca Gransden
Out back of Nan’s place I perch on a lumber pile and inhale five am air. The yard overflows with planks, but by the afternoon they’ll be gone, sold for below their value in order to facilitate a quick turnaround. Don’t want to hang on to them for too long, considering their provenance. Once the money from their sale comes in, there’s nothing to trade. Nan’s usual source isn’t coming through with favours, so the supply of random construction materials she’d sell on has dried up. Boot fair season starts soon, which will now be our only source of income for a while, and Nan needs fresh stock. I check my backpack. Its dark green canvas is tough, the straps sturdy even after years of supporting scavenged goods. Nan appears at the back door and comes out into the unloved back yard to give me some sandwiches she’s made. This year, there is a frailty about her, the first time I’ve ever seen her that way. I tell her to go back inside out of the cold, and she doesn’t argue, urging me not take any undue risks. “Yeah,” I say.
One of Nan’s regular guys also provides me with steady info on fresh places to scope for junk. I don’t know how he discovers these buildings or why he shares their location. All that matters to me is these places are usually abandoned and overlooked, which means they are unpicked, leaving me with first dibs. His latest tip will send me farther out than I’d usually go, but he gave me a wink and a nod when imparting it, and I rarely receive either from him, let alone both. It’s a joke or the way to a junk-mine. At the side of Nan’s place, I hitch a small trailer to the rear of my bike, and ride off in dawn blue.
Past an industrial estate I’m not that familiar with, the landscape moves from disused buildings to cracked concrete foundations in the process of subsummation by wasteland foliage. Tracks that were once roadways criss-cross open space, littered with roaming detritus and wind-gnarled grasses. My bike and its trailer rattle along, the track holding itself together against time and elements. Sunrise sends the first real light of the day, warm on my back, golden dapples on the way ahead. My eyes catch sight of a rounded promontory of trees ahead that protrudes from a haphazard and forlorn thicket. The place looks old.
Away from battered concrete the ground is clumped and uneven, potted with holes that could be vacated rabbit burrows. I take to walking, and shake the bike forward, fearing the stress could rattle the trailer from its bonds. Forgivingly, the journey across open ground is short, and I arrive at the tree line with surprisingly little effort. Close up, the thicket appears more like the entrance to a wood, trunks wrapped in shawls of ivy, a quiet canopy sheltering mulchy patches of earth between haggard trees and briers. I spy the remnants of an aged path, strewn with twigs and catkins, and push the bike onto it, testing if the trailer can handle the mess under wheel.
Enclosed by the trees is a building, disused as I’ve been led to believe, a two-storey brick-built dwelling, wooden front door ajar, windows without their panes letting in shards of sunlight that fight through the branch cover. From outside in my position among the trees, I see glimpses of the interior rooms at the bottom front of the house—everything within looks like rust under sunlight, but there appears to be wood furniture and paneled walls.
It is warm to stand at the gate of the house. Unseen things crackle. To look around is to take a view of the stillness of this place. My bike will remain unbothered if I leave it here.
Bright periwinkles peep from broken panels beside the house’s front stone step. The entrance door is stiff, with its bottom edge wedged into weather-warped floorboards, requiring me to lean in and force it with my shoulder. With effort I make enough space to get me and my backpack inside, and near stumble into a murky hallway. Light does appear, however, through open doorways at both sides of the passage, so I twist to a room on the left. It’s near empty. Only wilting floral wallpaper covered in faded rosebuds and a rolled-up rug smothered by mould greet me. I start to think I’ve received bad intel on the place. I check the rug, but it’s unsalvageable.
A brighter room awaits across the hallway, and I already see promising signs of sunshine-washed furniture. I step to the room and this time I’m rewarded with an untouched space. A table sits in the centre, and faded pictures decorate blanched wood-paneled walls. Despite being open to the elements, the room remains reasonably well preserved, and light bathes the place. A sideboard graces one side of the room, scattered ornaments littering its top. The ornaments are so covered with dust it’s difficult to figure out what lies beneath the muck. I retrieve a carrier bag from my pocket and collect the trinkets together, letting my mind wander in anticipation of the time when I’ll be in Nan’s yard, with a lukewarm bowl of water, cleaning the dirt from these objects, knick-knacks that once held value for whoever lived in this place and will be valuable again under my hand. By the time I’ve finished with the sideboard the carrier is half full. I move around the room, making note to come back for some glassware on my way out of the house. My habit is to leave the collection of the most breakable items until last, if possible, but only if that doesn’t conflict with the first rule of scavenging—to be in and out quickly. I place the plastic bag on the table and rush upstairs.
The landing creaks as I walk it. Inside a large bedroom I find a dressing table, still full of its contents. I realise that this place is going to require more than one visit. I hunt for the valuable items, the ones I should take first. A jewelry box, old purses, some items that look like silver, all hurried into the backpack.
I speedily investigate the remaining rooms and move to the end of the landing, and instead of finding a wall I encounter three low wooden steps, leading to a raised portion of the second floor, not quite an attic but another part of the house. Up the steps, I move into a small room that seems like a loft space, but it’s in such disrepair I have difficulty getting my bearings. The floorboards are springy, and low wood beams lean in unconventional ways. Holes in the roof let in early sunlight. There are boxes along one wall, and a low window, open like all the others, under the slope of the roof. It’s in far more ruin than the rest of the building, with corners obscured by debris, and greenery sending exploratory fronds into the room.
The building extends even farther back, as a dim opening at the opposite end of the room appears to lead to a darkened passageway. I wonder how far the second floor extends, but coarse sprigs of vine weave densely about the space to bar the way and prevent me from exploring beyond my current limits, at least on this visit.
A breeze tinkles leaves and a soft whistle slinks through the rafters. The vines shudder. A low, throaty noise emits from the shadowed place behind. Reflexively, I step back, then stand still, my eyes probing the vines in an attempt to focus into the murk beyond.
A whiteness blasts from the vines. The noisy crack of the sprigs shocks my ears, and the motion of a creature makes me stumble. I end up on the floor in a corner, dry twigs breaking my fall. Despite my panic, I instinctively stretch out a hand to check my backpack, and the brief touch reassures me that I haven’t crushed the contents. With backpack awkwardly wedged against one side of me, I freeze and take a first look at the animal.
Its whiteness confuses me for some seconds, but my head clears. A badger stands, legs apart in a tense stance, anchoring its gaze at mine. It is creamy all over apart from yellowish stripes, like a yolk broken in egg white, which sweep back from its snout and run across its short-furred frame. Morning light illuminates its body, and it huffily breathes. There are daisies, dried and curled, fixed in a dead chain around its neck.
Dark eyes watch me. I’ve fallen into an ungainly position and my foot loses traction, scooting forwards out of my control over the bare floorboards. At this the badger flinches and turns, heading for the opposite corner. Sunshine bathes the centre of the place and a warm glow settles about. The badger tucks itself against a box under exposed wooden struts that bookend the window.
After a while its breaths calm. I dare to shuffle my backpack to the front of me. The badger stares warily but does not move. I edge my back into a slightly better position and, very slowly, unzip the bag. Nan’s sandwiches are near the top of the bag’s contents, and I remove them in slow motion. My stare locked with the animal’s, I take a sandwich and methodically eat it. The badger blinks and moves its eyes to dart around the place. I decide to take a risk and throw the remaining sandwich onto the floor in front of the creature.
The badger remains and the sandwich sits in sunlight. A warm breeze pleasantly brushes the space. Shadows turn while high day warmth seeps into the room’s wood. A scent, of sweet timbers and new growth, permeates. There is a clarity to the air that calls forth sleepy drifting.
When I’m nearest to falling into a nap, the badger stirs. I raise drooped eyelids but keep the rest of me still. With small steps the animal ventures forwards. It sniffs the sandwich and tenderly searches the bread with its soft snout. Its daisy chain swings gently. With ginger moves, the badger takes a bite.
Great gulps disappear the sandwich and the badger chases down every crumb. My enjoyment at this releases a low chuckle, and the animal hurls itself past me, down the few steps and out of sight into the landing space. With a quick twirl I get to my feet and head after it, catching sight of the creature as its behind bounces in a frantic scuttle down the main stairway. The oddness of the sight stops me, and I hover at the top of the stairs. The badger runs to a place unseen, and I hear it scrabbling through the open front door, then along the pathway outside the house.
When all noise of its departure ceases I tread carefully down the stairs, alert for the animal, although my instinct tells me it’s gone for good.
I return to collect my backpack, then retrieve the carrier bag I’d left in the ground floor room, and head out. At the end of the pathway, outside the gate, my bike and its trailer lie tumbled over, victim to the badger’s panic.
With the trailer loaded up, I walk the undamaged bike through the trees. The cawing of corvids draws in from wide waste fields ahead of me.
BIO: Rebecca Gransden lives on an island. She is published at X-R-A-Y, Burning House Press, Expat Press, Bruiser, BULL, and Ligeia, among others. A new edition of the novella Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group is released May 2025 at Tangerine Press.