He’d said the same things when we were young. I was thirteen, and he was twenty-three, a head and shoulders taller than I was and nearly twice as broad as he barged into the living room of our farmhouse where I laid on the rug.
It was cold, and I was as close as I dared getto the fireplace. Just near enough my fingers weren’t numbing as I smoothed my pencil across a drawing I’d made in the field earlier in the day. I laid down a patch of lead, then smudged it with my pinkie finger, adding shading beneath the tree where our newest calf had laid.
Merrick stomped over, tracking mud across the rug in his haste. I must have heard him coming, but I carried on, fussing a bit of gray I couldn’t quite get to blend.
“The pigs were out,” he said from above me.
Setting down my pencil, I rolled to one side and looked up at him. “Huh?”
Looking him over, there was dirt streaked all the way up his trousers. Through the window on the wall behind him, the sky had clouded over. I hadn’t noticed the distant patter of rain, but I couldn’t ignore the water dripping from Merrick’s clothes and puddling on the floor beside me.
My gaze traveled up from his soggy slacks and shirt to his scowling face. He looked as stormy as the weather outside. Dark and foreboding.
“Weren’t you meant to be tending them?” he asked.
My lips bent in a frown, and I started toward standing. “Sorry, I forgot. I’ll get them.”
No sooner had I made it to my feet than did Merrick’s palm thrust into my chest and drive me back down. I hit the floor on my tailbone and looked up at him again as he towered overhead.
He turned his thumb toward his chest. “Igot them. From the fields. But not before they wreaked havoc on our new crop.”
Dread dropped on me like a weight that seemed as determined as my brother was to hold me down. I’d been watching the pigs, then got hungry, so I came inside for some boiled eggs and water. When I went back out, I sawthe calf, so I drew her for a bit… I wasn’t sure how long. With the storm rolling in, it might have been earlier than it looked, but the growl of my stomach suggested it was near dinnertime. Hours had slipped away from me.
Merrick stomped his foot, and I jumped.
“The seedlings only broke ground last week!” he shouted, then flung his hand toward the fields far beyond us. “Now they’re everywhere, and with pig tracks through every bit of it. We’ll have to replant, which means a late crop this year. We can only hope they get established before they burn up in the summer heat…”
When he drew a breath to rage on, I cut in quietly.
“Was it really that bad?”
His expression fell flat, as if that was a stupid question. “They’re pigs, Penwell. Destructive, ignorant animals who root and dig and trample wherever they go. Andyouwere meant to be tending them.”
My face scrunched as I swiveled toward the kitchen, imagining the disaster he described. With Mother and Sayla in town for the day, and Father busy working in the new barn, it had been a quiet afternoon. I didn’t want to ruin it with an evening full of scolding and shame.
“Don’t tell Father,” I said at last. “I’ll fix it. I can?—”
“Replant the field yourself?” Merrick scoffed. “I think not. This rain should have been a boon, but instead it’s created a muddy mess. And it shows no sign of stopping. We’ll be plowing through the muck for days because of you.”
I shrunk beneath his scorn, and because I knew he was right. I’d been given a single task that day and managed to put it out of mind entirely. I’d heard our parents talk enough to know the farm was still struggling to recover from the barn burning four years ago. Add to that the billsowed to the folk who had helped us get back on our feet that year. To lose another batch of crops on my account was a damning failure.
“What were you doing, anyway?” Merrick glanced past me at the sketchbook still open on the floor. He huffed a loud breath, then rolled his eyes. “Need I ask?”
Bending, he scooped up the book and held it open, squinting at the drawing. After a brief inspection, he snapped it shut. “Father may allow these… distractions, but I will not. I've no mind to indulge what has become dangerous whimsy. By the gods, you're practically a man. It’s past time for you to be done with childish things and start pulling your weight. I expect you to do your share of the work when I take over. This”—he waved my sketchbook—“is an unacceptable use of your time.”
I should have guessed what he would do next, but I didn’t think of it until I saw the wicked glint in his eye. He turned partway toward the fireplace, then gave the sketchbook another meaningful flap.
“Merrick, don't!” I sprung forward as he sent the book sailing. It landed atop the logs, sending up a spray of sparks.
On hands and knees, I scrambled toward it, but stopped the moment the heat from the flames kissed my cheeks. I found myself scurrying away instead, on my back and scrambling until I’d returned to where I’d begun.
“There.” Merrick dusted his hands together. “Perhaps now you'll be of some use.”
I sat, welling up with tears while I watched the fire fan and curl the pages of the book. The parchment caught on the corners, which blackened and flooded the hearth with smoke.
I watched, and Merrick walked away, muttering aboutlessons that needed to be taught and how I was too stupid to learn any of them.
Now, I stood across from him, less alone than I’d been in our farmhouse that day. Less afraid, too. My time in Ashpoint had made me bolder, as had the constant assurance of the man in the next room. I knew if I called, Kit would come running, house search be damned. He’d saved me in the graveyard, and even before that. And I’d saved him from this. He just didn’t know it yet.
