Page 55 of Reckless

I fixed the fence between two of the paddocks. Sam the wall-eyed goat kept me company, alternating between trying to headbutt me when I wasn’t paying him enough attention and trying to eat the wire.

“Was it you who trampled it in the first place?” I asked him. Sam was no fan of fences.

He bleated.

“It’s gotta stay up,” I told him. “Moving you lot from paddock to paddock is better for you and better for the land. And we don’t have enough land to go wasting it.”

But Sam didn’t know about rotational grazing. All he knew was that I was blocking off access to the tree he liked to scrape his arse against.

“I’ll make you a scratching post,” I told him, and he butted me in the side. “Ow!”

When I limped back towards the house around lunchtime, Kat was waiting for me in the shade of the birdcatcher tree.

“You talk more to that goat than anyone else.”

I shooed Sam away with my hat and followed her into the house.

Kat had made cheese and pickle sandwiches with yesterday’s bread. The cheese was homemade too—a bitey cheddar I liked better than any I’d ever had on the mainland. Kat slid my plate across the kitchen table and sat down opposite me with her already half-eaten sandwich and a mug of tea.

She watched me chew. She had our mother’s way of watching—head tilted, eyes narrowed and forehead creased, like she was reading something from far away. It had unnerved me as a kid. Unnerved me now too. I knew she was dying to ask about Alastair, and why, out of anyone on Dauntless Island—out of anyone in the whole world, probably—he’d been sitting right here at this table this morning. Wasn’t like I could say we were friends, since all my friends had four legs.

“Finished the fence?”

I nodded.

“Can you take a look at the back door? The latch isn’t catching, and I don’t want Sam getting in here. Or, worse, Gerty.”

I nodded again and glanced at the door. It wasn’t the latch, it was the hinges. One had pulled out of the frame, so the door didn’t fit square anymore. Was probably going to be a bigger job than Kat thought. “I’ll do it tomorrow. Won’t get it finished today if I start now.”

“Why not? How long’ll it take?”

“Couple of hours, maybe.”

“You can start now and finish up after the milking.”

I shoved some sandwich in my mouth. Chewed and swallowed. “I’m going into the village tonight. Staying over. But I’ll be back in time for the morning milking.”

She was silent for a moment, and then said, “So. Dr. Jones.”

My hand stopped halfway to my mug of tea. “What about him?”

“You tell me.” There was no edge to her voice, but that didn’t make this conversation any easier.

I shifted uncomfortably, looking away. “I reckon I just did.”

Kat lifted her mug. Drank. Set the mug down again. The silence stretched between us like a held breath. “And?”

“And I stayed at his place last night, after the funeral. Figured I’ll stay tonight as well.” The air felt too hot suddenly, and I wanted to get outside where I could breathe. “I didn’t mean to keep it from you. Just—I just didn’t have the words for it.”

“But you do now?”

“Not really.”

She smiled faintly. “You could try.”

I pushed my plate aside, my sandwich unfinished. The chair creaked. Everything in me wanted to escape, to get back to work, to find something to fix, or move, or just do. My body knew how to work. It didn’t know how to sit at this table and tell my sister something I’d never said to her before.

“Alastair,” I said. “He’s... we’re...” I stared at the table. The wood was scarred from decades of use—knife marks, water rings, a burn where someone had set down a hot pan. I’d grown up at this table. I’d learned how to read and write here. Eaten Mum’s onion soup on cold winter nights. Played cards. Sat in the same chair I was sitting in now most every day of my life. I traced a knife mark with my thumb. “Do you remember Dad?”