We were going to do two rounds, but my sisters pretty much stated that we would be including the kids in it so they could be run out, and no one was going to object to my sisters. I could have out voted them because the birthday baby got the final say with pretty much anything they wanted on their day, but there was no way I was going to go against my sisters.

They were the sweetest little girls on this earth and I loved them so much, but they could be brutal little monsters, and if you pissed off one, you pissed of the rest, Mama included. And while telling them that I wanted a round without the little kids wouldn’t have pissed them off, I had no doubt I would have regretted my decision.

The girls were at an age where they were moving past rough housing with anyone besides the boys they liked and sort of did this cutesy ‘teehee I’m a girl be gentle’ where they expected to be picked up off the ground and lowered down like ladies, which usually meant they were going to put very little effort into chasing others and would instead focus on avoiding being captured.

But if I had said no to them, that I didn’t want the little kids playing with us, I’m sure they would have gone into freaking boar mode and played rough, and the girls didn’t play fair at all when they were playing rough.

And yeah, I didn’t usually play fair either, but I did with the girls because I didn’t want to hurt them but also because I didn’t want to invoke the wrath of my mother.

Mama wasn’t angry with me today when she hunted me down. That was Mama on a good day.

Mama on a bad day was basically boar mode until she either killed what pissed her off or seriously maimed it for life. I personally had only pissed her off once, and that wasn’t even when I actually pissed her off, I just scared her real bad, and I was still paying for it.

My favorite playwright had a new play going on in Riverside last year and I wanted so badly to see it, but my parents said I couldn’t skip school for it since I was failing math. I skipped anyway and went to Riverside, thinking I could sneak back before school was out since my teacher never noticed I was there anyway. I went around and made sure all my classmates wouldn’t tell on me and they had agreed, so I went to Riverside.

And while my teacher hadn’t noticed I was gone, I had fucked it up by falling asleep halfway through the play and woke up six hours later, well after it was over and well after I planned on sneaking back to town.

My parents thought I had been taken by a nightwalker. I called grandpa Earnest from Riverside and my parents came and picked me up.

My parents and I were all crying by the time they were done screaming at me for scaring them.

The ultimate irony was that my parents were going to surprise me with a ticket to the same play that weekend. When I could have been watching the play with them that Sunday, I instead spent the weekend repainting the library, the clinic...the general store and the fence outside Miss Leona Silvergrave’s place while her ancestor, Old man Silver watched.

Dad took me aside after he and mom were done screaming and crying at me and made me promise than even if I was going to sneak out, I was going to warn my Dad first, and while he’d eventually tell my mom when she asked where I was, at least he knew I wasn’t stolen or dead.

And I did tell him, every time.

I had ditched school twice after that – once because it was to fucking hot to be in school and the second time because I heard a rumor one of the newly dead matriarchs hid gold in Riverside and I wanted to look for it (she had hidden it, but I hadn’t found it. The guy that did was forced to give it back to her family, which he did after he passed it, having swallowed it an an attempt to pretend he didn’t have it).

Both time Mama hunted me down and brought me back, but she had only been mildly annoyed, and even that was short lasting because Dad warned her before she could freak out what I was up to.

Mama’s default was mischievous and upbeat, usually, so it was rare when she was angry and even more rare that she ever cried. She had a really ugly period after Joy died, which got worse whenever she got pregnant but would lift once the new baby was born healthy, but for the most part, she was happy and bright and sharp.

I never wanted to see her as down as she was after we lost Joy.

I over heard one of my aunts say it nearly killed her losing Joy, and I believed it.

For those first couple after Joy passed, I stayed real close to Mama to make sure she didn’t spiral down again since Dad was still basically the walking dead after they took Uncle Laurie, and whenever she was pregnant, I stayed close still in case something was wrong with the baby, but she was better now, and so I was comfortable doing my own thing.

We played for a little over an hour until the sun started to go down, which was our cue to start setting up the tables inside.

Normally when there was a big event, we’d eat in the inside/outside room, which was an area off the mud room that had a solid roof and two pillars at the end of the room to hold it up, but unless you tied up the tapestry walls, it was open. It gave us plenty of room when we had a large family gathering so everyone could sit at one table and comfortably get up and move around, and even in the winter, it was warm because of all the bodies as well as the fire we could build in the outside fireplace there.

But on the first night of the first fairy year, everyone ate inside the house like they used to in the old days.

Way back before the colony and before even the country that owned our colony existed, most clans kept sapiens in at night to avoid being stolen by nightwalkers.

Most places had something called a ‘Compound Law’, or a ‘Castle Law’, where if a nightwalker broke into a family compound – or house, or freaking castle – then if the family killed him, the nightwalkers family wasn’t allowed to retaliate. But if the nightwalker was able to successfully snatch their sapien and get them outside the house, then whoever went outside and hunted the nightwalker down was fair game to the nightwalker’s family.

Every clan had their own variation of the Compound Law, but mostly, sapiens in their fairy years stayed inside the family compound, and those with children in their fairy years stayed inside to protect them.

So when sundown came, everyone went inside and we went around locking the house down, all the windows, the doors. Doubled checked everything.

And then we all got a plate and spread out throughout the house to eat and hang out.

After that, most people left once the dishes were cleaned and things were put away.

Traditionally, the family was supposed to stay together until sunrise, but slowly people started to trickle out, and by eleven, all the guest had gone home.

While I waited for my turn in the shower I went to my room to put away my new gifts, clearing off my bedside table to stick it there next to my alarm clock.

There was a curt knock on my door and I stilled, turning to see my Dad poking his head in my room with a little smile.

“Your mom and I have one last gift your for, Ren.” Dad said with a smile, waving me over. “It’s downstairs.”

I smiled, but it was short lasting as I stilled, trying very hard to think if there was another part to this whole cornerstone birthday. Was I about to get something else stupid crazy, like – I don’t know – a branding with our family name? Kind of a ‘go ahead and steal the little shit, he’s got a return address burned into his buttcheek’ sort of thing?

I frowned as I walked out of my room, going down the stairs to find Dad and Mama in the living room with a box on the table there. I smiled in question before Dad waved to the wrapped box and I laughed a little, going to it.

Dad sat down next to me and put the box onto my lap and I stared at it, lifting my eyebrows at him in question. He patted the top of the box. “For being a good sport.” He said as I looked down at it.

It had some weight to it, felt like it weight about the same as Mimi’s fat cat Clarke, so I guessed “Books?”

He laughed a little, “Well open it up and find out!”

I smiled a little before I looked down to the box, frowning before I started to rip off the newspaper that covered it to reveal the cardboard underneath. I lifted the lid and saw flimsy paper inside, laughing and glancing back to my present as I peeled back the paper. It was a bright aqua blue machine with a gray green screen about five inches tall and ten inches wide – I recognized it as something from the library.

I pulled the paper back the rest of the way to see there was a narrow keyboard under the screen.

A Micro Writer.

You’d type on the keyboard and the words would appear on the screen, and you could delete the words or write millions of words on it before you fed paper in to print them all out.

My jaw went slack and I whipped my head around to look at my Dad and his grin. He tapped it with a finger, “Now you can make your own books.” He said quietly, laughing when I stayed silent.

“How? They don’t allow regular citizens to have these…” Modern technology in the house hold was a big no-no in the colony, even something like this, so I was stunned.

He clicked his tongue, “The mayor wanted me to stop riding his ass about getting him to advocate for you to go to the university for a couple years so a candidate from Daisy Fields could get in...and he said that if I let you stay in town longer to work in the library for a couple of years, then...he could get you one of these. So...happy birthday.”

“Dad….thank you.” I moved the writer to the floor and threw my arms around him, Dad holding me tightly.

“You’re going to write tons of great things, Lawrence.” Dad said as he patted my back roughly. “You know we’d all love a playwright in the family, shake things up a little.”

I grinned as I pulled back before I turned and looked back to my present, running my fingers over the keys.

First thing I’d do after taking my shower was get my notebooks from upstairs to type up all the stories I had in them.

And then I’d figure out how to thank my parents for my gift.

Overall….

Not a bad birthday at all.