Blood

The door slams shut behind me, notifying my family of my arrival.

I’m annoyed with Justin for abandoning me and our work. Fencing is not something I enjoy doing, especially by myself. The beams are heavy and hard to hold, but I had done it, almost all of it, while Justin was being personable.

Stop, I tell myself.

I walk down the grey hall, past my closed bedroom door and towards the open one leading to the kitchen and past the open double doors leading to our living room.

I don’t believe whoever built our house was a fully competent person, and I’m not saying I am, but from what I can tell, the person must have had more wood than he had use for since there are at least four walls that seem to just be there to make the house smaller.

There is the entry way, simple enough, then two hallways that branch off it and a set of double doors, also leading into the living room. The hallway on the left will bring you to the kitchen, living room and my room. The hallway leading right will lead to the stairs and washroom. The double doors are in between the two, making the living room a square in the middle of the first floor that connects to the kitchen.

Upstairs holds my father’s bedroom, a washroom, another living room like…thing and a small room with no purpose what-so-ever at the top of stairs.

I’m just about to walk into the kitchen when Justin appears at the other side of the doorway.

“’Couldn’t get away from Georgie’s sister fast enough, could ya, Mally?”

I try to shoulder my way past Justin but he reaches across the doorframe and places his palm against the wood, lazily, as if he would have done it even if I wasn’t trying to get through.

I wonder if he’s expecting a girl since his collared plaid shirt is partially undone, and he normally doesn’t just walk around like that.

“I had work to do. Do you not remember?” I mumble.

“You seem cheery. What? Does she already have a girlfriend? I can’t seem to remember.” he grins in an idiotic kind of way.

He’s likely been drinking, something I’m planning on, which is why I need into the kitchen so badly.

“Justin,” my father warns.

Justin looks down, his smile vanishing. He drops his arm “Uh, sorry.”

I shrug.

It doesn’t hurt to be called a girl. I’d reckon with the amount I have heard it, I just don’t really care anymore. It’s just a part of my life. I almost expect it. Well, maybe not from my brother, still.

I figure my father was reprimanding more for the implication that Lorna Owens fancies girls than for Justin poking fun at my name, which I prefer. I don’t need my father to take care of me. No, that’s not exactly what I meant, I bloody hate my mind.

Lorna’s likely the reason people say gingers are without a soul, but it’s still not right to judge what you don’t know to be true.

From what Justin was going off you could just as easily say I’m into guys.

And I’m not, for the record.

I make my way past Justin towards the fridge.

My father sits at the small kitchen table going over piles of papers, likely taxes. He passes a critical eye over me when I reach into the fridge, but doesn’t say anything. It’s enough to make me feel bad about forcing a second drunk on him, so I close the refrigerator and lean my back against it.

My father doesn’t smile while pouring over his paperwork, but one of the lines in his forehead disappears.

Timothy Fionn is a man under a lot of stress, as he has been for the past seventeen years. He says that’s wrong, and that times have always been hard. He says I have nothing to do with it, that he’d have to work a thirty hour day if he didn’t have me to do as much as I do, as Justin is absolutely useless on the farm.

“Eddie said he’ll be by to see the cattle tomorrow evening,” I say, taking three steps forward to the table beside my father. I move my foot to make it four, just because it’s not smart to stop on three or seven.

“That’s so, is it? Thinks he can come whenever he bloody well wants?” mutters Father.

“Dad, you asked me to get him here tomorrow.”

I can’t tell what he’s looking at or doing, he’s got all the papers assembled in a little pile between his arms with a pen poised in the very middle.

My dad looks up at me as though I’m lying. “Did I?”

I pick at the table’s finish with my thumbnail without answering.

Father sighs, “Of course I did. Sorry.” He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands and pushes back from the table. He stands and saunters out of the kitchen limping more than he normally does.

In his twenties maybe, my dad got a good kick to the hip from a heifer, effectively breaking it and forever impairing his movement. Normally he can walk half-decent, but the more tired and annoyed and…stuff…he is, the worse his leg gets.

I wonder why he’s so upset and glance at the pile of papers he had been focused on.

Most of the papers are old-ish letters written on lined paper. A few of them are written in my dad’s hooked scrawl, slanted and uneven. The vast majority are covered in writing that can best be described as…pretty. Each and every letter is loopy and thin and precise.

Along with the letters is an aged picture of a plain girl in a floral dress. I’ve seen it often enough to know who it is. What worries me is why Tim is going through letters from his dead wife.

Spirits, that sounds horrible. It’s just—my dad isn’t one who does well dwelling on the past, it doesn’t suit him. He gets all worked up and then he stops functioning, especially with all the shit stuff that’s happened on Faer.

Against my better judgement, I sit down at the table and begin to read through the letters I already know by heart, while I doubt Justin has so much as given them a second glance, although the letters were written by his mother, not mine.

His mother, who was murdered by mine.

Ah, the joys of being a bastard.