Agatha thought this would probably be the last day she’d have like this. A late spring day with good weather and a celebration for her family to attend if she was pressed to describe it.

Their neighbors hired from the hamlet would finish planting for the autumn harvest by noon and just like every year before, Jack and Andrew would be back early with their father today by then too.

Her three men of the house would thank the field hands for their work, the field hands would thank her husband for having given it to them, and then they’d all share the meal that she’d spent the morning making before going off to the hamlet to celebrate.

To Agatha, days like these were wonderful. How could they not be when she loved her family and her neighbors so? But this day in particular, however, had a problem. Because once this day ended, days like these just wouldn’t be the same anymore.

You see, Jack, her eldest, would be leaving home soon and she doubted he’d be coming home often. Honestly, it was more than she could have hoped for that he had stayed as long as he did. Why, he’d have already left the day he turned fifteen if it weren’t for the king’s decree.

But after delaying his departure for more than two years’ time and the war having no end in sight, her son had approached her and his father and said, “I think it’s about time that I go, don’t you think?”

No, she didn’t think, but she didn’t say either. There was no point in him asking in the first place. He already knew her opinion on the matter.

Agatha sighed. No doubt he’d be gone by the time the next harvest came around. She doubted he’d even stay long enough to be there for the summer festival.

Thinking about it now, he was just like Grant and her when they were around his age. They’d been all too eager to leave their parents for the idea of something better.

Back then, Grant had won a competition the old count held to find a new lumberman. Not two days past the victory celebration, he set off east for the thornwoods where they lived today. But before he sailed down the stream and left their village behind, he offered a bride price to Agatha’s father for her hand.

Now, seeing as he’d be making more than anyone in the village and seeing as Agatha very much fancied him, father, daughter, and mother were all aboard with the engagement. He told Agatha to wait a year for him to build a house and come back for her and she did just that.

Once he had returned, she’d been eager to hop into that riverboat and into his arms, but now knowing how little she’d end up seeing her parents over the years—and now knowing that her son would probably be even worse about visiting—there was some sadness when thinking back on that moment.

She wanted to tell Jack to come back home often, but just like telling him that she didn’t want him to go, she knew there was no use in doing so. Her son would see the world and only look back sparingly on the things he had seen all his life.

Given that, the best she could do was make the most out of the time they still had left together. Unfortunately for her, that was much less time than she thought.

As noon approached, Agatha went through a list of chores in her head. The cows were milked, the chickens’ eggs had been collected, and the horses had been fed along with all the other livestock. With the cooking and the cleaning done, she’d finished all that needed to be done before she set off for the hamlet.

“Hey Brinley.” Agatha heard Jack say out in the yard. Her boys and their father had returned from their work in the woods.

“Hey Jack,” Brinley replied. Him and their other neighbors greeted Jack along with his brother and father.

As her men and her neighbors talked amongst themselves in the yard, Agatha leaned out the front doorway. “The food’s ready.” She said.

“We’ll be in just a bit.” Grant replied.

“Okay.” She left them to their business and went back inside to set out a plate and a pie for everyone. Most of the morning went to making her meat pies, but she was very happy with how they had turned out. Since Grant had brought her the best cut from the butcher for their son’s departure, she in turn had prepared her very best.

Finished with the kitchen, she started up the stairs to go check on her two youngest and see if they had finished getting ready. Halfway up, she tripped. Would have fallen too if she hadn’t caught herself.

She wasn’t the clumsy type—something like this usually never happened. But as she was in the middle of her step, the ground shook violently.

Now, the ground shaking wasn't a new feeling to her. Marry a lumberman and have him fell trees near the house and you're bound to have experienced such a thing before. But this time, it was different. The shaking was only supposed to last a moment, but it still hadn’t stopped by the time Agatha had gotten her footing back right.

There was also a pattern to it too. She could feel the ground shake twice for every breath she took. It was a pace that reminded her of her own footsteps.

Muffled by the house’s walls, Agatha could hear the men shouting out in the yard. From what she could tell, whatever was causing this, they could see it.

“Jane? Timothy?” She called her two youngest. With her hand against the wall, she continued up the stairs.

She heard a door open in the upstairs hallway. “Mom?” Her two youngest poked their heads out from their room.

“I’m here.” Agatha said, coming over.

“What’s happening?” Jane asked.

“I’ll go see, but you two stay in your room, okay?”

“Okay.” They said one after the other.

Agatha headed over to Jack’s room to take a look out of his window. When she saw what was out in the yard, she gasped. There were two giant orange men out there, talking to her husband.

Giants? She thought. This far west? It couldn’t be.

The giants and the men were standing too far out in the yard for her to understand what they were saying, but she saw Grant turn to Andrew followed by Andrew running off to the house.

“Mom?” Andrew called her from the front door.

“Coming.” Agatha said, but before going down, she went to see Jane and Timothy again.

As soon as she opened their door, ‘what’s outside’ was the first thing out of Jane’s mouth.

“Yeah, what’s outside?.” Timothy added on.

“Monsters.” Agatha said. Her two youngest gasped in response.

“Really?” Jane asked.

“Yes and they’ll try to snatch you up and eat you if they see you, so don’t leave your room, okay?”

Jane said okay, but Timothy, “Aww…” was less than pleased.

Agatha, however, was stern. “Timothy?” She said.

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“Okay...” Timothy said.

With that handled, Agatha headed downstairs to meet her second eldest. “What is it?” She asked Andrew, arriving at the front door.

“The giants say they just came here for our food and that they’ll leave us alone after they get it.” Andrew said. “Dad told me to tell you that besides lunch, he wanted you to gather up as much food as you can from inside the house, put it outside, and stand by the front door in case the giants need anything else.”

“That’s all?” Agatha asked. Losing all they had to eat was bad, but it was far from the worst outcome when dealing with giants.

“Yeah.” Andrew nodded.

Agatha did as she was instructed and while she was doing so, the giants had Grant and the other men gather up most of the food they’d kept stalked and bring out all the farm animals.

All the chickens had their necks snapped and were put into the large bags the giants had brought with them along with the grain. As for the bigger animals, the giants had them tie a thin golden rope around each of their necks.

The giants’ presence had been making the animals antsy, but once that rope was around their necks, the livestock turned as docile as the dead.

Once everything was gathered, the meaner looking of the two giants looked over what had been brought out. Everyone had come closer to the house by this point, so when the mean giant said, “Not enough,” she heard him loud and clear.

“But that’s pretty much everything we have,” Grant argued, “Unless you want some wood too.”

The giant shook his head. “No. Boss said more small people, more food. Too many small people, not enough food. You give us more.”

“Half of these men don’t even live here.” Grant said. “You think we have them all stuffed into one house?”

“Ghul no fool. Humans live in house,” the giant pointed to their house before pointing to their barn, “Humans live in house.”

“That’s a barn.”

“Barn fit horse. Why not human?”

Grant had a look on his face like he couldn’t believe he was going to have to explain this. “Because humans are humans and horses are horses.”

“Human small. Horse less small. Almost same size to Ghul.”

“There’s bigger differences between us than size.”

Ghul had heard enough. “Small man, stop talking. Give what we want.”

But Grant wasn’t done trying. “We don’t have food stored for a dozen people because a dozen people don’t live here.”

“If small man doesn’t stop lying...” Ghul began to glare at him. That’s when the other giant tapped Ghul’s arm and started pointing towards the house.

Agatha looked up. She couldn’t see exactly what he was pointing to up there, but he was definitely pointing towards the second floor.

Ghul smiled as he pushed the other giant forward a bit. “If you won’t give,” he said, “We take.”

With every step like a felled tree hitting the ground, the ground’s shaking began anew and the second giant started approaching their house. Seeing him come up close, made Agatha freeze up at first, but she was only like that until her son charging straight at him with a pitchfork startled her even more.

With a shout, Jack stabbed the giant’s hind leg. In response, the giant let out a groan and proceeded to trip over himself. “You’ll take my brother and sister, huh?” Jack said, stabbing at the sprawled out giant. Jane and Timothy must have come to his window. “You’ll take my brother and sister, huh?”

The wounded giant tried kicking at her son, but Jack just maneuvered around him while keeping up his assault. If Jack were alone, the giant probably would have already gotten himself up, but as soon as the giant fell, Andrew and Grant rushed over with torches. Along with them came three of the field hands carrying a pitchfork, a scythe, and a sharp-toothed rake that’d been slipped out the barn while they’d brought out the livestock.

“Ghul! Ghul!” The fallen giant cried out for help, but the meaner giant of the two had his own issues to deal with. Though he had not yet been brought low, the other six men had him surrounded as well.

“Keep that away from me!” Shouted the angry giant as the men swung lit torches around him. Just as was told in the children’s stories, the giants were deathly afraid of the fire and thus the men’s torches kept them at bay.

The advantage of having the torches didn’t change the fact that this was all distressingly dangerous. One wrong move or a bold moment from one of the giants and someone would end up dead. A scrape across the chest from one of them guaranteed broken bones and the same across the skull would grant a never ending sleep. And it didn’t help that the ground was still shaking as the giants stumbled about.

Agatha was so worried that she couldn’t look away. But that said, things were going well.

“Mercy. Mercy.” The fallen giant cried out, now thoroughly bloodied. Grant and Andrew had managed to set some of his blood on fire and now he was rolling on the ground trying to put it out.

“Stay back!” Ghul said as the men surrounded him with their torches. “I’ll step on you!” With his ego, he was proving to be a much harder opponent than the other giant. Still, the men were handling him well and he was bloodied and tripped to his knees multiple times.

“Moo!” One of the cows ran out into the woods. Esmond had taken off the golden rope from around its neck and was now trying to throw it ‘round the meaner giant’s neck from behind.

From the looks of it, things were going better than they could have asked for. That was the case, at least, until the grey man showed up.

There wasn’t any sneaking. Even with all the thrashing about the other two were doing, you could hear him stomping up to the clearing, fighting his way through the surrounding trees.

He looked shocked when he first stepped onto the property. Seeing two giant men being handled by just a dozen small folk, how could he not be? But that lasted only a short time and once he moved, he really moved.

“Ah!” Esmond shouted. As the grey giant stomped by, he threw off Esmond’s balance causing him to miss Ghul’s neck with his lasso. In fear, the men around Ghul broke their formation as the grey giant charged, but he just passed him by, heading straight for his fallen comrade.

“Look out!” Andrew yelled and the men around the downed giant parted from their positions as swiftly as they could. Well, all the men except for Jack.

Instead of running, Jack positioned himself behind the downed giant. He’d probably thought that the grey giant would slow down and that he wouldn’t slam straight into the fallen giant. Unfortunately, he had thought wrong.

“Jack!” Agatha called out to her son. Jack barely managed to jump out of the way before the grey giant slammed into the other.

“Ow!” The orange oaf cried, tumbling over the yard and shaking the ground as he did. If Jack had stayed put, he’d have crushed him.

The grey giant tripped after ramming the downed giant with such force, but pushed himself back up as soon as he fell. Before he was even fully back on his feet, he went straight for Jack.

Jack had lost his balance too with all the shaking going on, but was much less quick to recover his footing than the giant. Before Jack or Agatha had known, it was already too late for him.

The giant kicked Jack as soon as he recovered his balance. Along with what felt like Agatha’s soul, he sent her boy flying.

Agatha screamed louder than she could remember ever doing so before. As she watched her boy sail over their house, she suffered a lapse of sanity. Nothing else mattered to her, she just went running. Straight into the woods and straight after her child.

She hadn’t any idea of how far he went. All she knew was his general direction and once she had run herself round and round she didn’t even have that anymore.

Nothing about what she was doing was sensible, but she went after him anyway, desperate, as if she could do anything if she found him. As if she could still save him.

It would all be made better If she saw him one more time. Even if she didn’t see him that would be fine too. If he never came back home, if she never saw him again, it would all be fine as long as she knew he was safe.

She stopped when she realized the ground’s shaking had become soft. She knew she hadn’t gone too far, so if the ground’s shaking had become softer, that meant the fighting…

Agatha raced back to the clearing. Where was she? No forget that, where were her children? Exhausted, but terrified, Agatha managed to find her way to her home.

No. Not home. What she found her way back to was a nightmare. One where her home held craters and her fields had been stomped and bloodied.

“Jane? Timothy?” She called. Agatha went inside, but her two youngest were nowhere to be seen. The only hint of where they had gone was the giant hole leading out from her eldest’s room.

Clutching herself and in tears, she almost fell down to her knees in that room. Why didn’t she bring them with her? She should have brought them. At least Jane and Timothy.

She lifted her head. But what about Andrew? She looked out the giant hole in the room and into the yard. Was he still out there? She could at least find him couldn’t she?

Agatha inspected the bodies laid out in the fields, hoping to find one of her children still breathing. But instead of her children, all she found were the bodies of her neighbors and the remains of her husband along the path the giants took when they left. They’d crushed his legs on the way out from the property.

Kneeling down beside her love, she wrapped him in her arms and began her mourning. Her children were gone, her husband was gone, her life was gone, and there was nothing left.

Agatha lost herself weeping, she couldn’t see herself going on. Time went by, she didn’t know how much, but the ground began shaking again. It didn’t matter to her. Let them take me, she thought. If they’d leave her with nothing, then death would be better than this.

She waited for them, but they didn’t come. The ground’s shaking went on, only for it to grow softer again and eventually disappear. And so with the end of this nightmare having been denied to her, she continued to mourn, adamant on wilting away.

That is, at least, until he came…

It wasn’t him…