"That's it," said
Bull to the others and started for the barn. "Stay here."
He ran to the back
doors, his shoulders down, and rammed his way through. The
weathered wood splintered under his weight and Bull stumbled
inside, quickly regained his balance and headed straight for the
loft. He could smell him. He was up there.
"I wouldn’t do
that if I were you," he heard a voice call from above. Bull stopped
in the middle of the barn and looked up; at the railing stood the
Landlord.
Bull's eyes were
drawn to the floor; he saw his brother lying in a darkened pool. He
took another step forward.
"Have it your way
Bull."
Bull saw the
Landlord toss Marvellous’ strung up body over the railing and ran
to catch her but caught only air instead. The railing creaked
loudly but held. His aunt dangled from a rope above his head. She
moaned.
"Don’t touch her
or I let go of this rope. Get away from her. You too, Jones."
Bull looked to his
left and found his younger brother beside him, his knife drawn.
"You may be fast
but you won't be fast enough." He nodded his head towards the back
of the barn. "None of you can stop me."
The boys looked
and saw their sisters and brothers crowded around the back of the
barn doors.
"Bull, is Mixer
there?" Santa called.
Bull shook his
head at her. She took a few steps closer and stopped. She could see
something by the stove; she looked again at her brother. He shook
his head again. Tears came into her eyes.
"All of you get
over there. The others should be here anytime now."
The Landlord
gestured for Bull to take the others to the table. Forest and
Narrow each took one of Santa's arms and helped her across the
floor. Forest wrapped his other arm around Jelly. Bull shepherded
all of them to the far side of the table then took a seat by
himself on the side closest to the railing. Thunder rolled
overhead.
___
Titania woke up
feeling something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Peace. Unbidden,
her arm raised itself so that her hand was before her eyes. It was
her hand. The scars had disappeared; they weren’t merely hiding
below the surface of that other person’s arm, that person who took
her over from time to time. Slowly she raised the hand to her face
and gently placed her fingertips on her left cheek bone. The
boiling water had dug a channel through the skin and the scar was
deep and long. All she felt was smoothness. With both hands she
explored her face; her eyebrows which, before the accident, had
been long and thick were back and the pock marks at her hairline
were gone. She brought a handful of her hair in front of her eyes
and found it fox red.
A flash of sheet
lightning lit up the sky outside her window; moments later a roll
of thunder passed close overhead. She got up from the bed, went
into the main room and put on the beaver skin coat. Santa had taken
some of it to make Mixer’s coat and it was shorter than before,
but, Titania realized now, easier to move in. She felt the
luxurious fur. It was beautiful.
She turned and
faced the mirror. It took her a moment to recognize herself. She
lifted the mirror from its hook and gazed into it, amazed. Her red
hair was tousled and dirty; thick and oily like the coat. All of
her old scars were gone. She took a deep breath, lifting her whole
body up straight and looked directly into her own green eyes. Yes,
she said to herself.
She suddenly
realized how hot it was. She took off the coat.
I won’t need this,
she thought. She gently laid the coat on the table and left the
house. She walked gracefully to the back of the barn and up the
ladder to the loft.
___
Porkchop and PC
Pierre arrived at the front door of the barn. Porkchop saw
everything in a glance. Mixer lay on the floor; her other brothers
and sisters huddled at the table. She saw Marvellous dangling from
the railing and behind the railing the Landlord. He waved the
frying pan at them. He was sweating; dirt smears lined his face.
His eyes rolled in his head.
PC Pierre took
control of the situation.
"Sir? Are you
feeling all right?" he said. He took a step toward the railing.
"Oh shut up
Constable. Looks like you won't be getting this farm after all. Too
bad none of you are getting it either." He laughed. "Just need one
more person to make this party complete. Well, maybe two if your
father shows up. If he doesn't," the Landlord shrugged, "I'll deal
with him later."
Porkchop looked up
through her hair and into the man's eyes. "May I check on our
brother?" She looked over her shoulder at Mixer on the floor.
"If you'd like,
but I don't see why you'd bother. He won't be a nuisance to you
anymore."
Porkchop walked to
the table.
"Jelly, come help
me." Jelly obeyed her sister. "Where’s Titania?" Porkchop whispered
when Jelly knelt down beside her.
"I don't
know."
PC Pierre regarded
the Landlord warily. He'd seen the man drunk but even at his worst
he was always in control, even jovial. The man's eyes seemed to
wander independently of one another and he paced back and forth by
the railing like an animal trapped in a too-small cage, the rope
tight in his fist. He'd never seen the Landlord behave this
way.
The children
gathered around Porkchop, Jelly and Mixer. Santa wiped her face of
tears.
"Check that his
neck isn't broken then we'll roll him over," Porkchop told her
sister. Jelly probed along Mixer's neck and spine and down his legs
and, when she was satisfied that nothing was broken, rolled Mixer
into Porkchop's hands. A gash in the side of his head that had
started to clot became a bright red spot again as she laid him down
on his back. His eyes were open.
Porkchop saw.
Santa gasped and immediately covered her mouth. Mixer's had been
the only blue eyes in the family. He was barely alive and his eyes
were unseeing but they were now unmistakeably brown. Porkchop
nodded to herself and stood up.
She joined the
Constable and called up to the loft.
"Mixer!"
The man stared
down at her.
"Mixer! Come down
right now!" Porkchop sounded like Ma.
"Mixer?" the
Constable said.
"That's not the
Landlord," she told him. She took another step towards the railing;
Pierre stepped with her.
"No!" he yelled
back, his grip on the rope almost slipping. Marvellous' body jerked
down a foot or so then swayed back and forth. He regained his hold
on the rope.
"One more step and
I let go. Just be patient. Isn't that what you're good at Porkchop?
Waiting around?"
"What do you mean
he's not the Landlord?"
"I don't have time
to explain," she said.
Santa began to hum
quietly. It was the tune she always sang to Mixer when he wouldn't
go to sleep.
"Shut up
Santa!"
Mixer drew on the
strength of the Landlord's body and let the frying pan fly from his
hands. He'd meant to hit Santa but it connected with the
Constable's head instead. Pierre fell to the floor. Jelly screamed
and Santa stopped singing.
"Shut up! Shut
up!"
He tied Marvellous
off to the railing to free his hands then stood to face them, a
pruning knife in his hand. Jones recognized it as the one his aunt
carried.
"Open your mouth
one more time Santa and I'll cut this rope."
The jolt had
roused Marvellous; she couldn't see through the blindfold but could
sense the air below her. With effort she thrust aside her pain and
concentrated.
Porkchop could see
that Pierre was breathing and there wasn't any blood. She walked
over to the table and stood in front of Bull.
"Where’s Pater?"
she called up to the loft.
"Who do you think
we're waiting for?" He paused then and cocked his head at her. "Oh,
I see," he said, getting a glimpse in his head from Santa. "Very
clever, getting him out of the way. All right, I'll deal with him
later."
Forest saw him
waggle his fingers, felt the shock wave through his mind and put up
a hand to shield his eyes from the lightning strike. He collapsed
to his knees. The bolt exploded at the back of the barn splintering
Narrow's water crates to bits.
In the flash,
Porkchop saw movement at the back of the loft.
"Did you like that
Forest?" Forest looked up with pain in his eyes. "Aw. What are you
going to do about it? Predict the weather at me?" Another bolt took
out the splintered back doors and half of the shelving units.
Plants and earth exploded.
"Mixer!" yelled
Porkchop over the thunder that followed. Surreptitiously, she took
the knife from her pocket.
"Who’s Mixer?" he
roared.
He sent the knife
flying from her hand. It twanged as it came to rest, embedded in
the wall behind the stove. Narrow felt the breeze and looked down
to see a lock of his hair, cut and resting on his shoulder.
"Knives won't stop
me. Nothing will stop me now."
Jelly knelt beside
Forest.
"Looking for some
cure-all Jelly? Oh yes, I know about that." He waggled his fingers
and they heard another explosion from the front yard. "Oops. There
goes the last of it."
Bull sniffed the
air. "Burnt cure-all," Jelly whispered.
Marvellous gently
touched the Landlord's mind; it was fuzzy but it was unmistakably
his. She held on to it, checked her own defences then reached for
Mixer. When she was in she pulled with all her might.
On the floor,
Mixer's body jerked upwards just as the Landlord's body stumbled
forward into the railing. Titania lifted the shard up in one swift
underhand motion. He teetered in place for a moment then fell
forward, pitching over the railing, past Marvellous, and landed
face first on the floor, the glass shard embedded several inches
deep between his shoulder blades.
Porkchop looked up
and saw Titania — the real Titania — standing in his place. She
smiled at her. Titania climbed down the ladder and gracefully
stepped over the dead body. Porkchop met her at the base and hugged
her.
"I’m back,"
Titania whispered.
"Welcome home,"
Porkchop whispered back.
___
Hap pushed the
bicycle up the long steep path to the farm. When he got to the top
he got back on and rode the bike alongside the fields, marvelling
at the ripening fruits and vegetables. His children had done this
and his chest swelled tight with pride. He pedalled harder.
Inside the
outhouse, Pater snapped awake at the sound of a loud noise. He
continued to sit for some time before he eventually stood up,
swayed and fell down again. He tried again, holding onto the privy
walls for support. He hitched his pants up and pushed the door open
just as Hap cycled into it.
___
As the Landlord’s
body lay on the floor in a slowly congealing pool of blood, Jones
raced up the ladder to begin freeing Marvellous. Bull climbed up
after him. They gently lowered her to the floor where Jelly and
Narrow untied her. Forest still knelt on the floor, his head in his
hands. Grunting with the effort, Porkchop rolled Pierre onto his
back; he awoke briefly, looked into her eyes and smiled and passed
out again. Santa crawled over to Mixer's side. His eyes were now
closed. She couldn't feel his heartbeat when she took him into her
arms and held him tight against her chest. She hummed softly to
him.
They were
interrupted by a voice at the door. Pater stood in the doorframe,
one arm wrapped around his son’s waist to prop him upright.
"Your father’s
here."
Beyond the door
Porkchop saw the clouds begin to break up and a single ray of
sunshine fall into the yard.
When the trees lost
their leaves and the last of the harvest had been brought in,
Porkchop turned twenty. She and Pierre went to New Key and were
married. Pierre kept his post as Constable but successfully
petitioned the County to hire a second officer and break up the
territory. He still climbed the lookout post ladder most days and
patrolled the areas around the farm and up to the outskirts of New
Key but now he was free to help his new wife and family and he set
to work.
One of the first
things he did was rebuild the stone well. The lightning bolt that
had shattered it and cooked the cure-all that Mixer had dumped in
there smoked for hours and perfumed the air with its strange
scent.
Pater continued to
live in the house and take his share of the rent. In deference to
her grandfather's age, Porkchop arranged for her new husband to
move his still from Honey Hill to a newly built shed in one corner
of the yard so that he no longer had a reason to disappear for days
at a time. Titania also stayed on in the house with him. Now, when
did go missing, she almost always found him asleep in the outhouse.
She liked listening to Pater’s stories and his lies, like when he
would rant and rave about how weak his son was. He didn’t have to
see his son much as he had returned to the work the orchard for
Mrs. Baker.
Mrs. Baker had
indeed known about her nephew's shady business dealings and his
occasional womanizing, but was shocked to learn all that he had
done. She knew the Constable well enough to know he wouldn't bring
charges against her nephew's estate, although he had the legal
right to do so. But she was also shrewd enough to know that
appeasing his sense of fair play would be best for everyone,
herself included. She raised Hap's and Marvellous' wages, and paid
bonuses and wages for the children's labour. At first she
considered deeding the land directly to Marvellous, but in the end
she changed her own will to give it to her when she died. Having a
tenant gave her a reason to keep in touch with her now only living
relative. She took over the operation of the Piggy Gristle, quickly
making it into a more respectable tavern, and buried her nephew in
the town’s cemetery.