I had six younger sisters – not counting Joy – and while the eldest three (the twins, Wendy and Fiona, and then Simone) all had part time jobs and were finished with school, the youngest three would be free this summer to help around the ranch while I was away.

Mimi was thirteen and basically glued to Mom’s hip and helped inside the house, and Janey was ten and still a little young to deal with the dogs as they were almost twice her weight, but Delphi, at twelve, I think was old enough to help out with the chores I usually did.

I was leaving for the city shortly, and so someone needed to do what I usually did. Mostly, Dad would be picking up my slack, but just in case it was needed, I wanted someone to known what I did and how I did it.

All the girls of course knew by now how to feed the animals and give them water, but I wanted to show them which ones like to be brushed and how they liked to be brushed, as well as which ones you had to check the water of more often than others.

An important part of my chores was walking the fence to make sure there were no weak points or signs of any issues. As long as the fences were strong, then the dogs and animals would be kept inside – save for Dewdrop, who knew how to jump how to lift the latch and let herself in and out.

Delphi was someone I knew I could trust to do the fence walk because she was very observant, picking up things that I didn’t even notice.

In the early morning, I took Delphi out with me to watch me do my chores, something I had her doing with me since summer started. After we took care of the animals, we went on our fence walk, and like always, I made sure she knew that the dogs always came with us. I didn’t need them, but Delphi was small, and even though the nightwalkers hunted any and all predators to extinction in this area, boar still existed and on rare occasion could make their way through town.

Our dogs could easily take down any boar that I had ever personally seen, but there were rumors of much bigger boar, even ones bigger than our dogs, while was hard to imagine, and even if it was a slim risk, I didn’t want Delphi to ever cross one alone. If the dogs were with her, then they’d go after it while she ran home to get one of my parents so they knew to call the mayor.

My Dad and the Mayor absolutely didn’t see eye to eye on most things, but this was the mayor’s town, and if there was anything bad happening in it, he was the one that would take care of it.

Him and his four sons.

We didn’t have crime in our town besides childish mischief – of which I had frequently be a participant in – and if there was any crime, then the mayor dealt with it.

If it was a traveler, then the mayor would flag down the peacekeepers to deal with them, but we – like most small towns in the colony – preferred to deal with our own issues, and the authority that anyone breaking the law had to answer to was the mayor and his sons.

That was why Dad was convinced the mayor had called the peacekeepers when he went with their Dad and Big Blue to talk about why he wasn’t married yet.

But my Dad didn’t have a good relationship with the mayor before that either.

It was kind of funny, how similar my Dad and I were, but how wildly different our relationship with the mayor was.

We both got into a lot of trouble when we were kids – me because I liked to cause trouble and start fights, and Dad because he exploded whenever he go frustrated or angry.

As a result, we were both often sent to talk to the mayor.

Dad would get into arguments with the mayor because he never saw himself as being in the wrong when he got into fights because he saw himself as having been provoked, meanwhile I fully well knew I was the one that provoked the fights, so I didn’t argue with whatever the mayor said.

I honestly saw the mayor as a sort of great uncle.

Dad, however, saw him as the devil.

So yeah, I was not excited to take my Dad to see the mayor this afternoon, but Dad insisted because I tended to get distracted when I went to the mayor, was wasn’t entirely untrue.

He had four sons, and three of then were very, very good look, especially his son Peter, who was always glaring at people.

And while someone glaring would set my Dad off as a kid because he thought that meant they were disrespecting him, I actually didn’t mind it at all as a young man.

There was a lot of heat in a glare, intensity.

And the only time a man would ever look at me with intensity was when it was a negative emotion, and I took what I could get.

When I didn’t hear Delphi walking behind me anymore anymore, I stopped and looked back to see her staring with a slack jaw at the side of the road just beyond our fence. I frowned and turned to go back and join her to see what she was staring at.

It was a dead bird, or what was left of it, just the bones of it’s legs and bright blue tail feather visible in the emerald green of the grass. She looked to me there. “Something bad is going to happen,” She said quietly, Pointing a limp finger to the tail feather. “See the black stripes on it’s tale?” She asked, pushing her glasses up her nose, “That means it’s a yellow breasted dip,” My frown deepened, “Seeing a dead yellow breasted dip is a bad omen.”

Ugh, fuck.

Omens.

My sisters unfortunately were as highly superstitious as our mother, who at times was crippled by her superstitions, superstitions that saw me living in a blood covered altar for the first two months of my life, which was why I wasn’t registered with the family until I was nearly ten years old.

“Something very, very bad is going to happen…” Delphi mumbled as she opened her notebook to mark the spot on the map I had given her to mark any places that Dad would need to come check. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and nodded grimly as she shook her head with a regrettable look, staring at the bird.

She closed her book and reached out to hold onto the back of my shirt and I turned back and continued my walk along the fence.

Besides an area that looked like some creature was working on digging to try and get under our fence from the out side – our fence going down about four feet – everything was in order, and so I walked with Delphi back to the house, passing by where the dogs were up on their back legs, scratching at the side of the bar to try and get to where a rat was sitting on the ledge of the barn window.

I took the rifle off my shoulder and lined it up, closing an eye to shoot -

It hit the rat right on the tail, the little creature jolting and falling out of the barn and down to the dogs. There was a mad scramble with the dogs as they tried to get it, the rat running off with both the dogs in hot pursuit.

When we got to the porch I stopped there and turned to my sister, “I guess since you are going to be doing the fence walks, this is yours now.” I said, taking off my rifle to hand it to her. She took it with a smile, looking it over. “Remember not to put regular rock salt in it – Dad has the salt pellets in his work space, so just bring that to him when it’s empty. They’re softer than regular salt and break up on contact. You’ve used this before, so I know I don’t had to remind you to not aim it at anyone.” I said as I put my hands in my pockets. “It’ll bruise them up really bad if you hit them, and you can blind someone if you hit their eyes. Just use it to shoot any animals trying to dig under the fence if you see them, that’ll scare them off.”

She grinned and struggled to pull the strap over her head so I went and helped her, following her as she went into the house. After she rushed into the kitchen, I heard her telling Mom about what she saw.

“Oh no,” Mom gasped as I entered the kitchen, where she was making meat pies. She raised both her hands and mumbled something before she turned and went to open the kitchen window, fanning the air out. I sighed loudly and went to the fridge, opening it to get out the bottle of lemonade, pouring myself a glass before I put it back in the fridge. Simone came in and they told her, Simone raising both her hands to shake them briefly before she fanned the air toward the open window.

I turned my back before I rolled my eyes, quickly finishing my drink.

I went and got washed up for my meeting with the mayor, dressing in church clothes because the Mayor was always nicer if you dressed nicer.

So naturally my Dad refused to get changed out of his work clothes, but whatever.

We caught a ride to town sitting in the back of his parent’s wagon as they made their way to town with my cousins to give my aunt and her husband, who lived with my grandparents, some private time with their brand new baby, cousin Greer.

In town we hopped off the wagon and stopped by Mom’s boutique to see if the shipment of beads from Ivory Rock – a town way up north – had come in.

After Mom lost Roy, Mom hadn’t been well enough to consistently run her little shop, so usually one of her sisters came down for a day or two and slept in the room above the store to mind it while one of my Dad’s sisters popped in for a shift to help out. Mom called to check in, but for the most part, she hadn’t really been to town all that often.

Mainly, she stayed around our house, Grandpa Earnest’s house, and the woods.

She had done that as well when Joy died, but as seeing other babies could set her back, she just...closed off.

But I think things were looking up.

My Aunty Emmy – my Dad’s youngest sister- just had a baby, and while my Mom had been a little sad when she saw him and had to go to the clinic, it was a short sadness and she was recovering much quicker now.

So as long as she continued to get better, we were going to be okay.

And I hoped so, because I was going to the city on the other side of the colony and wouldn’t be here to help if she had a big set back. And it wasn’t just Mom, but Dad to. My parents weren’t like my grandparents, or my aunts and uncles – if one was broken, the other was as well.

When my Grandpa Earnest was injured after they took Uncle Laurie, my Grandma Julia was able to carry the burden of the emotional crap and stayed strong, especially while Dad crumbled into himself over losing Joy and his brother and also having Mom in the clinic. When my Grandma Cassandra got kicked by her new horse and broke her back, my Grandpa Len managed to take care of her and the house, and their shop.

But my parents?

They couldn’t handle the stress of the other not being well.

Yeah, they might not crumble entirely, but if one was injured or sick, then the other was fragile.

And I was their first to leave the house and be removed from the family home, and I worried what that might mean for the family if my Mom had to go again tot he clinic.

I knew we had an extended family and all that, but still.