Page 3 of Every Eligible Man

"Keep it down," I tell them. "Grimwald hears you talking and he'll set traps again."

"Let him try," Squeak squeaks, puffing out his tiny chest. "We'll shit in his pillowcase. Again."

From the roof beam above them comes a dry, disgusted croak.

It’s One-Eye. The crow. Ancient as dirt, mean as a snake, and sporting one milky-white eye that suggests he’s seen some shit and regrets every second of it. He's been around longer than any of us, longer than the farm, some say. He claims to remember when this land was "respectable," whatever that means.

"Idiots," he announces. "All of you. Especially the big one with the shovel and the tragic backstory."

"Coming from the bird who owes me three weeks of corn for that broken wing last spring."

One-Eye fluffs his feathers indignantly. "I was dignified about it. You lot are just... vermin with delusions of grandeur."

A furious honking erupts from the equipment shed, followed by my brother's voice.

"Bastard, I swear to every god listening, if you bite my ass one more time I'm making you into a pillow!"

That’s Slade. Middle brother, twenty-four, lean and quick with a face that can charm coins out of a miser's pocket. He's been fighting a losing battle with a broken plow blade for the last hour, shirtless because he tore his tunic on a nail. The goose isn’t helping.

Bastard waddles out of the shed looking deeply unbothered by Slade's threats. He’s huge, white-feathered, and radiates the energy of a creature who’s committed crimes and would commit more. Slade saved him from becoming the Baron's dinner three years ago. In return, Bastard appointed himself Slade's bodyguard, confidant, and occasional weapon.

He honks again, long and judgmental.

"I know the plow is shit," Slade snaps, emerging with grease smeared across his chest. "I don't need commentary."

From the barn roof, a third voice drifts down. "Having goose problems?"

I look up. Wreck, our youngest brother, twenty-two, feral energy barely contained in a compact, wiry frame, is hanging half off the edge of the roof. Why is he on the roof? Unclear. Something about a loose shingle and a bet he made with himself. He has a hammer in one hand and a stolen apple in his mouth.

"Why are you on the roof?" Slade demands.

"Shingle was loose."

"Is it fixed?"

"Define 'fixed.'"

Two sinuous shapes rocket out of a hole in the barn wall and spiral up a support beam at impossible speeds. Susan and Gerald, Wreck's ferrets, have the soulless black eyes of creatures who looked upon chaos and found it good. They chitter wildly, doing a synchronized war dance on the beam before launching themselves at Wreck's shoulders.

"Hello, my beautiful nightmares," Wreck coos, letting Susan nestle into his collar while Gerald attempts to steal the apple from his mouth. "Did you steal something good today?"

Gerald produces a silver cufflink from somewhere in his fur. Susan has what appears to be a human tooth.

"We don't ask about the tooth," Wreck informs the air. "We never ask about the tooth."

I don't ask about the tooth.

One-Eye lands on the peak of the roof, surveying our assembled chaos. "The rats are horny," he announces. "The goose is violent. And the ferrets are almost certainly building a shrine to a dark god somewhere in the walls. I should have migrated south when I had the chance."

"You love us," I call up.

"I tolerate you. There's a difference. And it grows thinner every day."

Slade, Wreck, and I aren’t related by blood. But we have the same basic story: our mothers married Baron Grimwald, our mothers died suspiciously soon after, and now we’re permanent indentured servants with no inheritance and no way out.

We've become brothers in every way that matters.

The sound of the farmhouse door slamming cuts through the evening air.