“Thesis’s fucking eyes,” A man said from the doorway, and Orenda looked over to see a man with silver hair and a goatee the same color wearing a set of glasses similar to the one she had once seen on Falsebeard, with a series of lenses that could be flipped down over his eyes. At present, they were all locked above the goggles, and he threw one hand over his mouth, then doubled over in pain. “Oh god… oh god I can’t… dad…”

“Don’t throw up in here,” Sonny warned as if the concept made him angry.

“I,” the man said, glanced at the room, and grabbed the wall for support, “Oh god, Son- Sonny, help… help me…”

“By Thesis you fucking-” Sonny said, stuck the cigarette in his mouth, sighed, and set it on the changing table to attend to this new man, “come on, you can pass out on the couch in the living room.”

“We told you not to come in here,” Mary Sue told him, and the man nodded as if he agreed that he should have heeded her warning. Once he was heavily leaning on Sonny, grasping at him with one hand and keeping the other over his mouth, she turned her attention back to Orenda, and Orenda thought that under the beard, she and the man could have had the same face- not in the way that all the Brigaddons looked similar, but in the sense that they could have had exactly the same face.

“Junior has a… really sensitive constitution,” Mary Sue explained, “he… has trouble with stuff like this.”

“I can understand why,” Orenda said, looking at the scene before them.

“We have the same mother,” Mary Sue told her as if it meant something special to her, “We’re twins.”

“My uncle Gareth and my father were twins,” Orenda said, because she didn’t know what else to say. Both women froze when they heard Sonny exclaim from the direction of the living room.

“God damn it, Junior!”

“I’m sorry,” the other man seemed to be crying, “I’ll clean it up. I’m sorry. Let me pump some water-”

“Sit your ass down and don’t move!” Sonny demanded, and apparently Junior did, though they heard him drawing his breath in great sobs.

“I think the first thing to do,” Mary said sensibly, “Is get a sheet laid out in the bedroom and move dad in there. We… we need to get the corpse out of the nursery.”

“That seems sensible,” Orenda agreed, and followed Mary Sue through a doorway into a modest bedroom. There’s wasn’t a lot in there, and it was tiny, but it was homey. A hand-made quilt was spread out over a wooden double bed, a writing desk was littered with papers, as was the bookshelf beside it where things had been strewn about haphazardly, and two wardrobes sat closed against the other wall. All the furniture looked well-worn and heavily used, but the room seemed to radiate a type of familiarity that Orenda could not place, because she had never really had a home to herself that was all hers, and could not identify what that nebulous concept looked like when pressed onto a space. Mary Sue opened one of the wardrobes and Orenda saw that above where the clothes hung some linens were folded. She took down a white sheet and walked back into the nursery. Because she moved so quickly, Orenda didn’t know whether or not she was supposed to have followed her, and felt as if she was, perhaps, intruding onto the space.

She didn’t know what else to do, so she followed her yet again, back to the nursery, and watched as Mary Sue unrolled the sheet. Orenda moved quickly to pick up the other end, leaning her staff against the crib to do so.

“We don’t want to get blood on it,” Orenda said, and Mary Sue looked at her as if she had gone mad.

“I don’t think it could be helped,” She said, looking at the stain, “Besides, much of it is already dried.”

Orenda nodded, because she could see the logic in that statement.

“It’s gonna be hell to get out of the hardwood,” Mary Sue said in disgust as they fluffed out the sheet, then knelt to smooth it out beside the body. “And the wall.”

“Perhaps we could paper over it,” Orenda suggested, “The fumes would probably kill you if you tried to paint down here, but I think the paste for paper wouldn’t be too bad.”

“I suppose we could put paper on the next supply list,” Mary Sue said, “I’ve got passes for everyone with Langil’s signature on them. We could do that. Can you get his legs?”

“Are you sure?” Orenda asked, “Mary Sue, perhaps we should… Falsie and I could do this, all of this. You don’t have to touch your father’s corpse.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Falsie volunteered to watch the babies,” Mary Sue shook her head, “Sharon hasn’t made it back yet.”

She offered no further information, and Orenda could not begin to imagine what was going on inside her head, so Orenda simply nodded, and lifted the corpse by the legs while Mary Sue lifted him by the shoulders. Together they positioned him on the sheet, and Orenda sat on her knees to watch Mary Sue pick up her father’s severed head. She made an attempt, upon her return to the sheet, to situate it properly on his neck, to give him the appearance of a complete human man, but with nothing there to support it as soon as she released her grip gravity carried it to the side, where it lolled at an unnatural and surreal position. Orenda didn’t like to look at him, but she knew that Mary Sue had actually known him, that he had raised her, that she had loved him.

This corpse was supposed to tell Orenda so many things. He was supposed to tell her all about her parents, about her mother especially. He had loved them in a way that she didn’t understand completely, but had desperately wanted to. This man had spent his life as a Knight of Order, ferrying people to freedom and out of tyranny.

He had also pushed his children to the brink of death to force them to control their shifting ability, and had gotten them addicted to the starfruit, something she knew so little about, only that it was dangerous. Yet still his children universally- well, almost universally- loved him.

Orenda didn’t know how to feel about the corpse on the sheet as she helped Mary Sue tuck in the edges and roll it up until it was out of sight, until it was just a mound of fabric.

“Ok,” Mary Sue said, “Let’s get him to the bedroom.”

Orenda helped her carry the corpse into the space where he had once lived.

“Thesis fuck,” Sonny said and returned to the bucket beside Orenda, where she knelt with her sleeves rolled up scrubbing at the hardwood, “Draw on the goddamn walls in blood, like we get it Lappy, you’re fucking crazy. There was literally no reason to do this! You can just kill a guy and leave! You don’t have to make a whole big thing about it!”

He swished his brush around in the soapy water until it came away clean, then went back to scrubbing vigorously at the wall. It was made of wooden planks that had been whitewashed at some point in the past, and he had taken a great deal of the white off of them without actually removing the blood. Orenda wasn’t particularly sure how that worked, but she was having the same dilemma with the floorboards.

“Is that helping, Sonny?” Mary Sue asked as she carried in fresh bedding for the cradle and began to set it up, “Who does your bitching help?”

“Me,” he said simply, “We should have done something about Lappy. We all noticed him going crazy! We should have done something, restrained him or something.”

“Lots of shoulda woulda coulda,” Mary Sue said, “But we can’t change the past.”

“You took that up to the laundry, right?” Sonny asked, “Any news from above ground? Did Sharon get back?”

“What do you think?” Mary Sue snapped.

Orenda wasn’t shocked that everyone’s nerves were so frayed, but that didn’t mean that she had to enjoy it.

Softly, she asked, “So there was no word of Bella either? Draco never came back?”

“No,” Mary Sue said with much more gentleness than she had addressed her brother, “No, I’m afraid not.” She smoothed out a knitted baby blanket and said, “It’s nearly noon, and Soko has been making stew. Nothing to keep the chill away on a crisp autumn day like a hearty stew. We’ve had a good harvest of root vegetables, and the spice pantry isn’t empty yet, but we are going to have to go into town at some point for a supply run. It would probably be better to go to Basilglen, rather than the capital.”

“Who’s going to go?” Sonny asked, “Sharon’s not back.”

“The textile merchant in Basilglen is no longer there,” Orenda told them, “The Knight of Order who was supposed to meet us? She got married and moved out to the country.”

“Of course,” Mary Sue said with an attitude of ‘that may as well happen, look at everything else’.

“We have passes,” Sonny said, “We can travel to town. We’re allowed. Just remember that you can’t read and don’t throw a fit if they cheat us.” He paused and walked slowly back to Orenda to clean his brush again, “The two of us should probably go. You’re the oldest and I can handle myself better than Junior, and the girls need to stay here and watch after the patients.”

“Sarya is an earth elf,” Orenda suggested, “She wouldn’t have to pretend not to be able to read and all that. Couldn’t you go with her, using her as cover? Would that be easier?”

“No,” Mary Sue shook her head, “They know us there. Basilglen is a tiny little town, Rendy. I wish you were an earth elf… we probably could use you as cover, as someone unknown who was related to Mr Langil.”

“They’re already getting pretty suspicious that Mr Langil hasn’t made an appearance in years,” Sonny said, “Dad’s not here to keep Agalon happy. We need a plan. We need to talk about it.”

“I’m sure Agalon will return any minute,” Mary Sue said, “I’ll talk to him.”

“Oh,” Sonny said as if her words held great meaning, “You’ll talk to him?”

“Yes. I’ll talk to him.”

Sonny didn’t meet her eye. Instead he bent at the waist and picked up the bucket of soapy water.

“This is pure red. I’ll dump it out and pump some more.”

Orenda nodded and watched him leave the room.