“You were gone more than half the afternoon,” Father told me sharply as we ate supper. We hadn’t gotten very far in weeding the Southern field. Or at least as far as he’d expected to. That didn’t bode well for his desire to have a three thousand gold worth of harvest this year. I pushed my food around my plate without looking up into Father’s face. If we didn’t succeed at such an ambitious harvest, then it would most likely be my fault. Father hadn’t said so much to me but the way he kept repeating the same disapproval and disappointment over my disappearance definitely put the thought into my head.

“I said I was sorry.” I muttered for the hundredth time. “Time got away from me.”

“I doubt that you even apologized to the mayor or his son while you were in the inner circle.” Father said.

Well, he wasn’t wrong about that. Father didn’t seem at all surprised when I neither confirmed nor denied the accusation. Instead he just let out a very long sigh. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

Silence fell over the table. At one point I looked up at Father but his eyes steadfastly remained on his plate as he ate.

“Did you know that there’s a King’s Ranger in town?” I asked. It was a bit abrupt but the silence had finally become overwhelmingly oppressive to me.

Father looked up at me. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. I swallowed the lump of trepidation that had gathered in my throat. “His name is Aust. He has a stag named Dílis that’s bigger than any animal I’ve ever seen! Mayor Terrin hired him to get rid of that beast. You know the one that you warned me about last night?”

I watched Father’s expression go from mild confusion to deep seated exasperation. “What does that have to do with our lives?”

“Well… um…” Thinking of an explanation was much harder than I realized it would be. “I mean, we live here. The monster you told me about is somewhere in the woods not even a kilometer from our home. That should have some significance I would think.”

The words came out slowly and mostly as they crossed my mind. I twisted the fork in my hand around as Father continued to sit impassively across from me. “You have nothing to worry about from beasts in the forest so long as you heed what your told Lena.”

“Aren’t you the least bit interested in the ranger’s presence here? When was the last time something in exciting happened in Woodhearst? I bet it was a long time ago. Maybe even before you were here, working the farm.”

“Exciting isn’t all that you think it is daughter.” Father told me crisply. He went back to eating.

“Really? What makes you so sure Father? Is there a story that goes along with that cryptic sentiment?”

Father snorted, nearly dropping a potato on his plate. “Don’t be ridiculous Magdalena. And don’t ask ridiculous questions. ‘Excitement,’ as you put it, only gets in the way of every day matters.

“But think about what a ranger in town could mean…”

“Enough!” Father cut me off from what I was going to say. His eyes were hard and gaze harsh. “Enough about this ranger. His arrival in town has zero bearing on anything that happens in my life or yours.”

A protest was on the tip of my tongue. Father’s glare intensified. I shut my mouth quickly before I made the mistake of speaking. “I have a feeling I know why you were so long in town this afternoon now.”

I went back to pushing my food around the plate with my fork. My appetite had disappeared again.

“Lena…” Father said quietly. There was a quiet clatter as he sat his fork down against his plate. I pulled my attention away from my own plate. Father now had his hands clasped in front of him, folded over each other like he was either praying or making a plea to me. “I know you saw our ledgers. I know you understand what aiming for a three thousand gold harvest means for us. I can’t afford for you to be distracted. You can’t disappear for hours at a time.”

“Why are we trying to make so much Father? What’s the point? It’s been years since you’ve pushed for a harvest so large.”

“To make a better life for you. To show you that this is your future. That it is a prosperous one. That you can build and grow from it.”

“I already know that Father. I’ve watched you do it all my life.”

“Then it’s time for you to stop watching and start doing for yourself. I’m not a young man anymore. And you aren’t getting younger…”

Oh gods. Just for one day, could we go without having this conversation? Just one day would be nice! Already, I could feel my eyes glazing over with disinterest.

“—But we’ve discussed this already. Tomorrow is a new day. One that we give a fresh look to without the heavy haze of the past’s mistakes cloud.”

Somebody go and pay Sealdír and offering. A miracle had just happened!

“We will finish weeding the Southern field at daybreak tomorrow and then in the afternoon I’ll have an errand for you to run.”

“Another errand?” Again, a miracle. Especially considering how disappointed Father had been about me taking so long with today’s errand.

“I need you to herd two piglets to the Fields’s farmstead tomorrow. He’s purchased them and wants them delivered as quickly as we can get them to him.”

The color drained out of my face. “You want me to go to the Fields’s house? Can’t you take the pigs there?”

“I have matters to attend to elsewhere,” he told me simply. Father seemed completely oblivious to my utter lack of desire to go. It wasn’t that I had a problem with Fields or his wife or the majority of his children. It was just the one. No, it was only Andrew Fields that made me steer clear of the Fields’s farmstead. I think I’d rather go and unnecessarily apologize to Clive than trek myself out to the Fields’s house. Judging by the completely distracted look on Father’s face, though I doubted that I’d find such a lucky out.

After a handful of minutes turned into at least ten of absolutely no talking whatsoever, I stood up and grabbed my plate. “Excuse me, I’m not hungry anymore,” I mumbled more to myself than to anyone else.

However, Father nodded and said, “Very well. Will you make sure that the laundry is off the line before you lock the doors and go up to bed.”

“Of course,” I said without stopping on my way out of the kitchen.