Rust & Starlight
Chapter 34 : Wren Destroys the Chicken Coop
The first week without Mason was the hardest.
Wren woke each morning to an empty bed, made coffee in a silent kitchen, and went through the motions of farm life without feeling any of it. She fed the sheep. She milked Clarabelle. She checked the orchard for buds. She answered Mabel’s daily check-in calls with monosyllables.
She was functioning. But she wasn’t living.
The second week was worse.
The loneliness settled into her bones like a cold she couldn’t shake. She found herself talking to the animals more than usual — not the casual chatter of a farmer, but real conversations, the kind you have with someone who might answer. Clarabelle was a good listener, but her responses were limited to lowing and the occasional judgmental stare.
Mason called every night, sometimes twice. His voice was a rope thrown across the miles, and she clung to it. But when the calls ended, the silence rushed back in, louder than before.
On the tenth day, something broke.
It started with the chickens.
The coop had been falling apart for years — Wren knew that. The roof leaked, the door hung crooked, and the wire mesh had rusted through in a dozen places. She’d been meaning to replace it, but there was never enough time, never enough money, never enough energy.
That morning, she went out to collect eggs and found that a raccoon had gotten in during the night. Three of her hens were dead — not eaten, just killed. The raccoon had slaughtered them for sport.
Wren stood in the coop, the bodies in her hands, and felt something inside her snap.
Not sadness. Not grief. Rage.
A hot, white, blinding rage that had been building for years — at Luke for dying, at her mother for leaving, at Clive Hanson for circling, at the frost for killing the orchard, at the distance between Kansas and Nashville, at herself for being so goddamn tired all the time.
She dropped the dead hens, walked to the barn, and picked up an axe.
The axe was old — her grandfather’s, from a time when men cleared land with their own hands. The blade was rusted but still sharp, and the handle was worn smooth by decades of use. Wren had never swung it in anger. She’d used it to chop wood, to clear brush, to split kindling for the stove.
Today, she swung it at the chicken coop.
The first blow hit the door, splitting the rotten wood clean in two. The second blow took out a window frame. The third, fourth, fifth — she lost count. She swung and swung and swung, the axe blade biting into wood, sending splinters flying, reducing the already-dilapidated structure to rubble.
She didn’t stop when her arms burned. She didn’t stop when her hands blistered. She didn’t stop when tears streamed down her face, mixing with the dust and the feathers and the blood from a cut she didn’t remember getting.
She swung until there was nothing left to swing at.
And then she collapsed.
Mabel found her an hour later.
She’d driven out to check on Wren — the daily calls had been shorter than usual, and Mabel’s intuition was screaming that something was wrong. She parked the truck, walked to the barn, and stopped dead at the sight of the wreckage.
The chicken coop was gone. Not damaged — gone. Reduced to a pile of broken boards and twisted wire and white feathers floating in the air like snow.
And in the middle of it all, Wren sat on the ground, the axe across her lap, her face buried in her hands. She was shaking, her shoulders heaving with sobs that had no sound.
“Wren.” Mabel’s voice was calm, the voice she used with spooked horses and frightened children. “Wren, it’s Mabel. I’m here.”
Wren looked up. Her face was swollen, tear-streaked, covered in dirt and blood. Her eyes were wild, unfocused.
“The chickens are dead,” she said. “A raccoon got them.”
“I see that.”
“I killed the coop.”
“You did.” Mabel knelt beside her, ignoring the dirt and the feathers and the splinters. “Are you hurt?”
Wren looked down at her hands. The blisters from the fence had healed weeks ago, but now there were new ones — fresh, angry, bleeding. She didn’t remember swinging the axe hard enough to blister. She didn’t remember a lot of things.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
Mabel gently took the axe from her hands and set it aside. Then she pulled Wren into her arms and held her.
It was not a gentle embrace. Mabel was not a gentle woman. She held Wren the way she held a bucking gate — firmly, immovably, refusing to let go until the fight was over.
“You’re going to be okay,” Mabel said.
“I don’t feel okay.”
“You don’t have to feel okay. You just have to keep breathing.”
Wren clung to her, sobbing into the older woman’s shoulder. The tears came in waves — grief, rage, exhaustion, loneliness. She cried for Luke, for her mother, for the orchard, for Mason, for herself. She cried until she had nothing left, and then she cried some more.
Mabel held her through all of it.
When the tears finally stopped, Mabel helped Wren to her feet.
“You need to clean up,” she said. “And you need to eat. When’s the last time you had a meal?”
Wren thought about it. “Yesterday. Maybe. I don’t remember.”
“That’s what I thought.” Mabel put an arm around her waist and guided her toward the house. “I’m making you soup. And you’re going to eat every bite.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Eat anyway.”
They walked slowly, Wren leaning on Mabel, her legs shaky. The dead chickens lay in the rubble behind them, but Wren didn’t look back. She couldn’t.
In the kitchen, Mabel sat Wren at the table, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, and set about making soup. She moved through the kitchen with the ease of someone who had been cooking for fifty years — chopping vegetables, adding broth, seasoning by instinct.
Wren watched her, numb.
“Does Mason know?” Mabel asked.
“Know what?”
“About the chickens. About the coop. About you falling apart.”
Wren shook her head. “I haven’t told him. I don’t want to worry him.”
“Mason is a grown man. He can handle worry.” Mabel stirred the soup. “You’re not protecting him by hiding your pain. You’re just making yourself lonely.”
“He’s in Nashville. He’s working. He doesn’t need to hear about my breakdown.”
“He needs to hear about your life. The good parts and the bad parts. That’s what partnership is.” Mabel set a bowl of soup in front of her. “Eat.”
Wren picked up the spoon. The soup was good — hearty, warm, the kind of food that reminded you why people bothered to eat at all. She took a bite. Then another.
“He’s coming back,” she said between bites. “The tour starts in four days. I’m flying out for the opening show.”
“That’s good. You need to get off this farm.”
“I love this farm.”
“I know you do. But you’ve been hiding here for three years. It’s time to see the world again.” Mabel sat down across from her. “Nashville isn’t the world. But it’s a start.”
Wren finished the soup. She was still tired, still raw, still aching. But the numbness had receded, replaced by something else. Something that felt almost like hope.
“Thank you, Mabel.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank yourself. You’re the one who picked up the axe.”
Wren looked down at her blistered hands. They hurt. But the pain was real, tangible, a reminder that she was still alive.
“I need to call Mason,” she said.
“Yes. You do.”
She called him from the porch, wrapped in the blanket, watching the sun set over the dead orchard. The pile of rubble that used to be the chicken coop was visible from the house, a dark mound against the fading light.
Mason answered on the first ring.
“Hey,” he said. “I was just thinking about you.”
“I destroyed the chicken coop.”
A pause. “What?”
“The chicken coop. I destroyed it. With an axe. A raccoon killed three of my hens, and I just… lost it.”
Mason was quiet for a moment. Then: “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I think so. Mabel is here. She made me soup.”
“Good. Mabel makes good soup.”
Wren laughed — a weak, watery sound. “You’re not going to ask why I destroyed the coop?”
“I don’t need to know why. I just need to know you’re safe.”
“I’m safe.”
“And the chickens?”
“Three dead. The rest are traumatized.”
“I’ll buy you new chickens. Better chickens. Chickens that know karate.”
Wren laughed again, stronger this time. “There’s no such thing as karate chickens.”
“There will be. I’ll make it my mission.”
She leaned her head against the porch railing, the phone pressed to her ear.
“I miss you,” she said.
“I miss you too. Four more days, and I’ll see you at the show.”
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of seeing you on stage. Of realizing that you belong to the world, not just to me.”
Mason’s voice softened. “I don’t belong to the world. I belong to a farm in Kansas. To a woman who destroys chicken coops when she’s sad. To a cow who judges me.”
“Clarabelle does judge you.”
“She has opinions. Strong ones.” He paused. “Wren, listen to me. You’re not losing me. You’re not losing us. I’m doing this tour so I can come home and never leave again. Do you understand?”
She closed her eyes.
“I understand.”
“Good. Now go inside. Take a shower. Get some sleep. And tomorrow, start building a new chicken coop. One that a raccoon can’t get into.”
“What if I don’t know how?”
“You’ll learn. You’re Wren Calloway. You can do anything.”
She smiled. “I love you.”
“I love you too. Now go.”
She hung up and sat on the porch for a long time, watching the stars appear. The rubble of the chicken coop was still there, a monument to her breakdown. But tomorrow, she would start cleaning it up. Tomorrow, she would start building something new.
Tonight, she would rest.