“Ora, are you ready to get some eggs?” Daks was buttoning his jacket to go outside.

  Ora ran to the entryway and started putting on her jacket. “Would be funny if we found more people in the cype today.”

  Daks chuckled. “I hope we don’t. I don’t think we can hold many more people.”

  On the way to the cype, skipping through the autumn leaves, Ora said, “Yesterday, I was so scared that there was a person! But then I was excited! She seems really nice.”

  He looked down at the head of curly blond hair, his heart and soul.

  Ora bounded into the chicken cype with her bucket, and several chickens, less than amused by her abruptness, once again made their protests known. A moment later, a disappointed Ora emerged with several eggs in her bucket. “No girls today.”

  “Maybe another day.”

  She smiled and nodded. “Atcha.”

  Prim awoke to a pair of grape green eyes, bright and cheerful, staring at her from a little caramel-skinned face. Ora’s face was close enough to hers that some of the blond curls tickled her skin.

  “Are you up?”

  Before Prim could respond, the girl continued, “Daidi said that if you were up, we could teach you how to milk the cows!”

  Prim squinted, clamped her eyelids down for a moment, and then opened them wide. “Yes, yes, I’m up. Let me dress, and I’ll be right out.”

  “I found one of Mam’s dresses and brought it for you! It’s my favorite of hers.”

  “‘Mam’?”

  “Yes, my Mam. She’s smaller than you, but I think it will fit!”

  “I don’t know if I should…”

  “She won’t mind. She would be mad if no one ever wore her dresses. She didn’t like wasting things.”

  Hesitantly, Prim asked, “Ora, where is your Mam?”

  “Well,” Ora said, some of the light leaving her eyes, “She got sick. Daidi says Mam is not here anymore. Him and Uncle Dennby put her in a box in the ground. But she just looked like she was asleep. Sometimes I think of her waking up in the box, all alone in the dark, and I get scared. But Daidi and the Wakeman say she’s not really asleep. They say she’s gone to see Eric. But I still get scared.”

  Prim wrapped her arms around Ora. “I’m so sorry.” She pulled back. “I would be honored to wear your Mam’s dress.”

  Ora grinned. “Oh, good! It’s so beautiful!”

  Prim saw a red dress folded up on the end of the hay bed; such a deep, rich red. Would Daks approve of her wearing his deceased daem’s dress? But she couldn’t let Ora down.

  Daks looked up from milking Clover as Prim and Ora approached. Quin’s red dress and an apron draped over Prim’s slightly shorter and thicker frame. The sight was like a punch to his gut.

  Daks and Quin dancing at the Achruthum festival in the town square, surrounded by others dancing and frolicking. Daks in his long, night-blue Spotter coat. Quin in her red dress. He gazed into her pale green eyes. Her skirt softly brushed against his pant leg as they turned. She laughed. “Oh, Daks, you’re terrible! I love you.” Her voice, so melodious.

  “Is it good?” Prim asked, fidgeting with her fingers. “Ora asked me to wear it. But—I don’t want to overstep.”

  “No, no, wear it, of course. Keep it.”

  “Oh, no, I can’t keep it. Ora said it was her Mam’s.”

  “Well, it’s yours now. Please. Keep it.” No use in letting the dress go to waste. Prim wore it well, but…it hurt.

  Prim nodded. “She said you were going to teach me how to milk the cows?”

  Prim didn’t have any farming instincts initially, but eventually she picked up on how things worked. Even after only a week, it felt like she belonged on the farm with Daks and Prim.

  He enjoyed watching her flail about clumsily until she learned what she was doing. It helped make the harvest a less daunting task.

  Quin’s eyes had always been so soft, but Prim’s eyes had a sharp intensity behind the drowsy eyelids. Every now and again that sharp gaze met Daks’. What did she think about? What had she done? What was she running from?

  Daks’ cousins, Ailfrit and Sandy, arrived a couple days after Prim turned up, fresh from finishing the harvest on their family’s farm. All of them got along decently, though she didn’t always respond well to Daks’ and the boys’ teasing.

  Daks was quiet, except when he was laughing at her. He and the cousins, who were helping with the autumn harvest, teased her and sometimes it was too much. Even Ora sometimes joined in the teasing. But whenever Prim succeeded in a task, they all encouraged her.

  She learned to milk cows, gather chicken eggs (without injury), weed the garden, and even do some cooking.

  A routine began to form: at night, they would all sit in the living room to talk, sing, smoke, and watch the fire; Ora would bring her dolls out to tell stories, which were, at times, surprisingly violent; then Ora would go upstairs; Ailfrit and Sandy would go out to their beds in the barn loft; and Daks and Prim would talk before she went out to sleep in the barn.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Sometimes Prim would gaze off toward the cliffs. How was she still alive? She tried to rethink the night before she woke up in the cype. Nothing made sense. What was real, and what was just the huge bottle of gin that had fogged up her mind? But she did know the overwhelming feeling of guilt from before that night—the kind of guilt that makes you want to hide in a dark corner somewhere—was very much real.

  When she would close her eyes to sleep, she could see big brown eyes, open, and staring at her with questions hanging there—questions she would never answer, leaving a young boy to learn for himself.

  Finally, the harvest had come to an end. That evening at dinner, Daks said, “I need to go to town to sell the harvest and buy supplies before winter sets in.”

  Prim visibly tensed up as she was about to put a bit of munching into her mouth.

  Ora squealed. “Daidi, can I get a doll?”

  “Don’t you have enough dolls?” he said, smiling.

  “No!”

  “Well, I suppose we can get you a new doll. We leave the day after tomorrow. Alf, Sandy, Uncle Dennby said you would be able to stay another sennight, am I remembering right?”

  The lanky boys nodded. “Yes, we can stay while you’re in town,” Ailfrit said.

  “I love going to town!” Ora turned to Prim. “Do you like town?”

  Prim looked unwell, the color drained from her face.

  “Prim?” Sandy said.

  “Oh, yes, of course. Town is…amazing.” Prim jumped up from the table. “Excuse me. I don’t feel…well.” She crossed over to the entryway. She shoved her feet into her boots without tying them, grabbed her coat, and rushed out the door.

  “Daidi, what’s wrong with Prim?”

  Daks wiped his face with his napkin as he stood. “I don’t think Prim will be going with us to town. Clean up the dishes when you’re done.”

  Daks knocked on the barn door.

  “I’m sorry—I’m not feeling well!” Prim called from inside. “I think I’m going to turn in for the night!”

  Daks opened the door a crack. “Would you like to go for a walk?”

  There was some ruffling of blankets and straw. Then footsteps. The door opened. Prim said, “I thought you might be Ora or Sandy. We can walk. Let me get my coat.”

  Daks followed her into the barn where he lit his pipe from the stove. They went back out into the dusk light.

  “Prim, I think mayhaps now would be a good time for you to share why you came to our farm. I didn’t press when we first found you, but now I need to know.” He inhaled from his pipe and breathed out a puff of smoke.

  Prim shoved her gloved hands into her coat pockets, looking down at the toes of her boots as they walked. “I don’t know…”

  “Either you are coming with us on the trip to town—”

  Before she could think, she blurted, “I can’t!”

  “—Or I need to know I can trust you on the farm while we’re gone.”

  “You can trust me.”

  “That’s not quite enough anymore. It was enough for staying in the barn while we’re all here. But it’s not enough for you to stay on the farm without me here.”

  She reached toward him. “May I?”

  “Atcha.” He handed her the pipe.

  Prim placed the button of the pipe on her lips. She breathed in and then breathed out the smoke. Her body relaxed a bit. She handed him back the pipe. “Thank you. I’d never smoked before coming here, but I understand the draw now. It’s relaxing.”

  They had come to the chicken cype. Prim leaned against the little building, which was quiet at the moment. Daks gazed directly at her. She looked away.

  “You’ve been nothing but helpful here, and you’ve been kind to Ora. I appreciate your willingness to learn and to work. And I don’t want any harm to befall you. I will not turn you in to the Spotters. But I need to know the nature of your problems in town. At worst, I would just have you leave earlier than we agreed before.”

  “Daks, I don’t fully understand what happened.” Her voice was low, and she looked around nervously. “It all runs together. Like smoke.”

  “Do the best you can.”

  “The five years before I came here, I worked as a barmaid at a pub—Scur’s—on the north side.”

  Daks nodded. “I know the place.”

  “It wasn’t bad, by any means. Scur and Mildred took me out of the orphanage, and I will forever be grateful for that. I had a roof over my head and hot meals every day. They weren’t unkind. However, the work wore on me. I was frustrated. But I didn’t want Scur and Mildred to know I was unhappy. I was afraid I’d lose my home if I wasn’t working for them. So I said nothing. Put my head down, did my work, day in and day out. But I hated it more and more. Then—let me have another puff.”

  Daks obliged her.

  “Then a woman and her boy came to the pub about a year ago. Scur hired her as a barmaid, and her son helped, too. She wasn’t very pretty, except for her little button nose, but they were both kind and caring. Of course, the people loved them. Which—why would that matter?—was fine, but it wasn’t fine. My customers started asking for her or asking how they were doing. Eventually, they were all requesting Aiglentine—her name was Aiglentine and her boy’s name was Pepin—and I had less work to do. Pepin was a sweet boy. And…she was sweet, too, but…it made me so angry.

  Prim realized she had her hands crossed against her chest, holding herself. She returned her hands to her pockets.

  “I stopped talking—well, as much as I could get away with. I didn’t want people to know how angry I was. But it felt like I was holding back the sea.”

  She kneaded her forehead for a moment.

  “It scared me. Eventually, customers and the other workers gave up on making conversation. Mildred wouldn’t talk to me, and Scur only spoke to me to scold me for things.

  “I did become friends with Pepin, despite myself. He was easy to talk to, and he made me laugh. But just looking at Aiglentine made me want to punch her. I’d look at the way her eyebrows scrunched up when she was concerned about others, or when she laughed like she didn’t have a care in the world—even though her husband died in a huge explosion at the vaer factory, and she was raising a son alone. I hated her little squeaky voice and her tiny nose—” Even now, the anger started to build. She hadn’t realized that anger was still there. She sighed. “Another please.”

  She took another puff and handed the pipe back to Daks who continued to listen, silent.

  “Every year Scur, Mildred, and I would celebrate that I had been at the pub another year, away from the orphanage another year. Was as close as I got to a birthday since I don’t know when I was born. Another year of ‘freedom.’ It wasn’t a huge party or anything. Mildred would make a spice cake, and the three of us would eat it after the pub had closed for the night. Well, it was a few months after my fifth anniversary at the pub. They had forgotten my special day. The pub closed and I was shooing the last of the drunks out the door. I walked back to the kitchen to check in with Mildred and Scur before bed. They were in the kitchen laughing with her. Mildred was pulling a spice cake out of the oven. For but a moment I thought mayhaps they had remembered my anniversary and had invited Aiglentine for some reason.”

  Prim pursed her lips. “But they stopped laughing when I walked in. It got so quiet. Scur took me out of the kitchen back behind the bar. That’s when he told me they had made Aiglentine the head barmaid—a job that hadn’t existed before. They were letting me go, and they were even moving her and Pepin into my room upstairs. I would need to find a new place to live in a sennight.”

  Prim rubbed her hands over her face and eyes. It was like it was happening all over again. “I raced upstairs and sat in my room with the door locked for hours. I hated them. All of them. I had worked my ass off, never asking to take off work. They never gave me a raise. I did everything Scur and Mildred ever asked me to. I hated it, but I did it. I loved them, and I thought that they loved me. I have now realized they wanted a barmaid, not a child. They replaced me with perfect little Aiglentine. She was better with people than me; she was nicer and sweeter than me; she was what they wanted. She even came with an adorable son who helped out, too. Those bastards replaced me and then celebrated by giving her my spice cake.”

  She sniffed and grimaced, nearly used to the farm smell of manure. “I couldn’t sleep that night. I didn’t try. Then it was morning. I knew Aiglentine would be down in the kitchen before anyone else, prepping the pub for the day because she was better than everyone else. I went downstairs. She was standing at the sink. She hadn’t heard me come in or else she would have said, ‘good morning, Daem Primrose,’ as she always did.”

  Prim looked down at her hands as she tightly wrung them. “Daks, I did something worse than terrible.”

  A deep silence hung between Daks and Prim in what was now the dark of night.

  She had to confess. She had to finally say it aloud. “I grabbed a knife off the counter, and I stabbed her in the back. I kill—I killed her.”