“I’ve been thinking, Graham.”

“You’re always thinking, Larry. Thinking’ll be the death of you. Whilst everyone else is out hunting and sleeping, you’ll be wasting away doing all that thinking.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I suppose you’re right.”

Graham sighed. “Go on, Larry. What’ve you been thinking about?”

Larry’s tone markedly picked up. “Well, it’s kind of about what you just said, actually. Look, what did your da’ always tell you as a fledger?”

“Flap, don’t fall?”

“Solid advice. I mean the other old adage.”

“The early bird gets the worm?”

Larry made a clucking sound that was remarkably similar to clicking fingers. “That’s the one. We all get told that. Every single one of us.”

“That’s because it’s good advice.”

“Right. Unless we’re all doing it.”

“Come again?”

“If we’re all the early bird, then none of us are the early bird. The competition becomes even more fierce, see? We have to be at it earlier and earlier, just to beat the other early birds.”

“There won’t be any worms left if you’re not early.”

“Exactly! And why is that? I’ll tell you why. It’s because the worms are saying the same thing.”

“Worms are saying ‘the early bird catches the worm’?”

“No. Worms are saying ‘the early worm, avoids the bird’,” Larry said sagely.

“Nonsense. Besides, whatever they’re saying, it’s not working; I had a feast of wrigglies for breakfast.”

“Ah, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an unnatural consequence. You see, Graham, everything is getting earlier.”

“How do you figure?”

“We start earlier because the worms come out earlier. The falcons start earlier because we’re out earlier. Don’t you see? At this rate, we’ll all be nocturnal!”

“Larry, that might be the most profound thing I’ve ever—”

And that’s when I knocked Larry out with my pillow.

“And the humans start earlier, because you won’t shut up!” I yelled in case my feather encased projectile hadn’t sent enough of a message.

“Mel?” I heard my mum calling from the corridor. “Mel, is everything alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, all good. Just a… nightmare,” I decided on. It was better that way.

Graham had scarpered, flapping away indignantly with wings that looked too short for his body. Larry had been knocked straight out of the tree but, to my dismay, the Great-crested Grey Mawbird was starting to recover. He harrumphed in dismay when he spotted a smattering of grey feathers in amongst the white down of my somewhat worse-for-wear pillow.

“What was that for?”

“I told you yesterday, if you wake me again, I’ll make you wish you’d been turned into pillow stuffing.”

I could see Larry debating the wisdom of trying my patience. True to form, philosophers never seem to know when to shut up. “That’s not quite what you said,” Larry couldn’t resist.

“I swear by the Anvil,” I fumed as I searched for something with a more devastating arc than a limp, six-year-old cushion.

“It’s just not a productive conversation if we can’t agree on the facts.”

“Wait there, I’m getting my bow.” My bow that was downstairs by the door — great. I slipped my leather jerkin over my ankle-length nightdress and after three attempts found I’d still laced it skew. “Just you wait you puckered anus. I’m going to ram an arrow so far down your gullet you’re going to be eating worms through your cloaca.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Excuse me?” Mum said from the door.

I racked my brain for a rational and pacifying explanation. “What, you don’t knock anymore?” I said. Nice one, brain.

“I beg your pardon, young lady?”

“Sorry, mum. You just startled me, is all.”

“Is that any excuse for bad manners?”

Yes. “No.”

Mum — Lissia Targent née Ous, to you — gave me one of those slow-motion once-overs that the morally self-righteous like to use as a prelude to a dressing down. “Dare I ask what is going on here?”

We both know you do. “Just fancied a morning stroll.”

Mum marched directly to the wide-flung window and peered out like she were gauging the depth of a ravine. I peeked over her shoulder, just to double check how incriminating it looked.

Yeah, it was pretty bad.

My expensive duck-down pillow was a flaccid, twisted cadaver, surrounded on all sides by its own innards. It lay an undignified, crippled mess — one corner dipped in a scum-slicked puddle — at the feet of a patiently preening Grey.

“That arrogant little sod,” I said before I could stop myself.

“Meldred Payton Ous Targent, you had best have a good explanation for this.”

I didn’t. She knew I didn’t.

That didn’t stop me from looking for one though.

“Those Mawbirds are thieves, mum. He snuck inside and stole my pillow from beneath my very head, as I lay innocently dreaming of working fields, and marrying rich.”

She just looked at me. That was fair.

“Alright, fine,” I huffed. “It won’t happen again.”

“It shouldn’t happen ever,” she said darkly.

“I know, mum! They’re just so annoying! Every morning I have to listen to their nonsense. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in years. They’re just constantly there, all the time, every day, at unholy hours in the night, mother.”

To her credit, mum did not point out that the sun was well over the horizon at this point. What she did do, was take me firmly by the wrists — a bit too firmly, if you ask me — and lead me away from the window. She acted like the smudgy panes themselves had ears. Then, in a low whisper, she said, “No, Mel. This should never, ever happen. Do you understand me?”

“But it does happen, mum, and it’s bloody maddening.”

“No!” She softened her voice. “No, Mel, it does not happen. Not to you, it doesn’t. Do you hear me?”

I felt my gall rise up through my throat until it flushed my cheeks and threatened to leak out of my eyes. I hated that, because I knew my rage would be mistaken for sorrow.

“Look at me, Mel. I understand—” she bit off that thought. “I can only begin to imagine your frustration. But nothing is more important to me than your safety.”

“Not my happiness, clearly.” I felt awful as soon as I’d said it. I could see it was a slap to her.

“The dead have no chance at happiness, Meldred.”

Damn, mum! Straight for the jugular.

I’d pulled one hand away, so she grabbed the other one even tighter. “Listen to me; there are no druids left in Tythia. There have never been any druids in our little Braxus. And there definitely, definitely aren’t any druids in this family. Do you hear me? We have nothing but good, honest, gods-fearing boys and girls. We live by the Plough and the Hammer, Mel.”

“I know that.” I rolled my eyes, partly because they still stung.

She dragged a greasy strand of dirty-blonde hair out of my lashes. “Say it, Mel.”

“We live by the Plough and the Hammer. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” she echoed, relief in her voice but not yet in her shoulders. “Now go and clean up that mess before the staff see. I won’t have people making wild accusations about this family.”

“Yes, mum.”

I got dressed properly this time before heading down to fix the chaos caused by Larry’s big beak and fat head. The light was already turning a powdery blue, but I judged I still had a turn of the wheel before any of the farmhands would be in. Mirra, the cleaner, would no doubt already have spotted the crime scene, but there were syndicate henchmen in Jandrir and Magalat who weren’t nearly as tight-lipped as our Mirra. Never mind taking secrets to the grave, I suspected the old girl had sent secrets to the grave.

Outside, the scene was as bleak as it had been from my bird’s-eye— Damn it! They even haunt my speech! You really can’t avoid the terrors. Speaking of…

“No bow, then,” Larry said between sorties into his armpit.

“What are you guys even looking for when you do that?”

“We’re preening.”

“Yeah, but, for what? Do you have lice or something?”

“Why? Are you hungry?”

“Geez. Nevermind.” I set about collecting feathers with pinched thumb and forefinger, snatching them from the gloopy mud like a heron fishing for perch.

“Ibixon Duck?”

I felt myself full body groan. It was one of those groans you feel right through to your toes. “What?” I felt compelled to ask.

“The feathers. Look like Ibixon Duck. Comfortable animal that. Never complain about being cold.”

“What, by the Glade, are you on about?”

“Just making conversation. Nice feathers, is all.”

Larry had fluttered over to our property’s little fence — largely held upright by the hedging we’d planted around it — just on the other side of the plum tree I had expertly swatted him from a short time and a long headache ago. I debated how much heft the eviscerated pillow had left in it and resignedly concluded that it probably would not be up to the task of smacking the little vagrant again.

“Conversation is good for the soul, you know,” Larry persisted.

“Conversation with you, will literally get me killed.”

He puffed up like he’d been caught in a gale. “I’m not that bad! You’ll find I’m quite pleasant once you get to know me.”

I had the strong urge to vent. I almost told him how terrifying it was knowing that my inherited abilities put a permanent target on my back; I knew my magic would almost certainly walk me to the gallows one day. I almost mentioned how infuriating it was knowing that my family resented me, and yet I still owed them for shielding me. I almost told him that I tried every night to force myself to dream of a normal, happy, uncomplicated life, and yet failed every single time. I came so close to telling him that it was terribly unfair, and that I had never, ever, ever wanted this.

What I said was, “Larry, before I realised I could understand you, I was a vegetarian.”