Prairie Schooner

She hadn't noticed the slant to the floor before. It might have been even longer if she hadn't been cooking eggs that morning. She had just walked up the gangplank, through the living room, and into the kitchen with the morning's eggs, putting most into a box in the closet where the wallpaper's patterns kept things cold. She didn't understand how, but that was for those who studied grammar. If she were honest with herself, she might admit that she regretted not paying extra for the hand-scripted wallpaper instead of the cheaper mass-produced stuff that never seemed quite cold enough.

The two eggs she had placed on the counter refused to stay put, choosing instead to roll to starboard. Slightly alarmed by this development, she walked to the aft window, threw it open and shouted down to her husband in the field.

"Jerem! Jerem, have you adjusted the anchor recently?"

Jerem looked up from the plow, disengaging its gears as he shielded his eyes from the morning sun shining between the cliff ridge and the jib's mast.

"No, dear. What's the matter with it?"

"The house is listing. I was hoping I could blame you."

He walked into the shadow towards the house's mighty keel, a full 7 meters from hull to tip. As he walked around it, he noticed that it was no longer its usual few centimeters off the ground. This was a bad sign indeed. The house's float glyphs had been failing for years as repeated winter freezes ate away at the stone carvings. This was the first time the house had touched the ground since leaving drydock six years ago though. Jerem stepped back out into the sunlit grain.

"We have a problem, Diann. The damned floats've almost died," he called up to her.

Six years of marriage had seen worse than this. There had been late frosts that killed crops, the occasional band of raiders, and even a damaged heat glyph on the stove that had burnt the house to its stone foundation. Through everything, Jerem and Diann had endured together, but this was new.

Up until now, they had reassured themselves that, if they had to, the two of them could sail back across the prairies to the cities of the western mountains, beaten but alive. The settling of the keel changed all that; neither one of them had the training or tools to repair the engravings decorating the hull and so, for the first time, they were truly there.

Over the next week, they labored to build scaffolding between the keel and cliff face, finalizing their settlement. Over the next few years as the family grew, the masts disappeared and the once-sleek lines of the house were obscured by an encrustation of additional rooms. The children started their own families on homesteads around the house and it was eventually abandoned.

In time, long after Jerem and Diann had passed, the stone hull of the house still leaned on the cliff, standing over the bustling town that had radiated outward from it. Few of the inhabitants paid any heed to the foundation and even fewer could identify what it was, how it had come to be in Keelton, or why it was the center of their burg. Nevertheless, it still watched over them as it had once watched over the first field below.