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And I had to do it right fucking now.
Chapter 8
Iris
I was nearly done with Nellie’s second milking when I knocked over the full milk pail with my injured leg, spilling it everywhere. I rested my forehead against Nellie’s massive side and let the tears come.
Since the moment Randal had been taken away, I’d tried my very, very best to stay strong. But I was a ball of worry and sadness—over the farm, over my increasingly costly clumsiness, and especially over Randal.
I was heartbroken. I had no idea if I’d ever see him again, and each minute that passed without word or sight of him made me more concerned that those guards had seized him and imprisoned him for good for neglecting his duties. It wasn’t simply that I needed his help; I wanted his company. I adored being around him. Now that he was gone, I’d never felt so alone.
“Are you alright, Miss Iris?” Said a voice behind me.
It was Bonny, a young girl from a nearby village, who sometimes came to help me during calving season. I had been so wrapped up in my thoughts of Randal and my work that I had forgotten she was even there with me. She’d arrived not too long after Randal and the guards had vanished in the distance. All afternoon I had tried to stay strong in front of her, suppressing my tears. But now that they’d started, I felt like they’d never stop.
“I’m fine,” I said, sniffling and trying to pull myself together. I wiped my tears on the edge of my milking apron and righted the milking pail. “But I’ll need some help cleaning up this stall.”
“Of course, of course,” said Bonny, with a gentle pat of my back. “Not to worry, miss. I’ll fetch a bucket of water and the broom.”
Bonny’s soft steps leaving the milking shed were replaced by the noisy racket of my father approaching outside. Bonny had learned years ago to stay well clear of him whenever she saw him, and I knew that for as long as he was in the milking shed, she would stay out. It was for the best. Buckets clattered as he kicked them, and the chickens clucked and flapped, trying to get away from him.
“Fucking birds,” he snarled. One of them squawked out a scream as his foot connected with her side.
“Please don’t hurt them, father,” I called out to him, cringing as I heard frantic wing flaps. “Please just leave them alone.”
“I’ll do as I damned well like!” He roared as he stomped into the milk shed. One look at him told me he was spirit-drunk, and dangerously so. It was much different than ale or wine drunk and all I could think of was, anything but this right now.
He blinked his puffy eyes hard to adjust to the low light in the shed. Instantly he locked in on the huge puddle of milk at my feet.
“Now just look what you’ve done, you can’t do anything right, can you?”
He took a long swig of spirits from the brown bottle he held. From the way he leaned back as he tipped it into his mouth, it was clear to me it was empty. When he realized it was empty as well, he angrily tossed the bottle at my feet, making it shatter into a hundred dangerous pieces around Nellie’s hooves as I flinched back. The residue of the alcohol caught her sensitive nose and she shuffled uncomfortably. Any one of those pieces could have sliced her feet open, creating a terrible danger of infection…even death.
I could put up with being mistreated myself, but I wouldn’t stand for him coming in here and scaring the animals.
I stared at my father. “Get out.”
“You don’t order me,” he said, shuffling straight-legged and woozily around the shed. “I know you’ve got some cider in here. I fucking know it.” He smacked the table with the flat of his hand, which made Nellie jump.
I grimaced as she shuffled backwards and used my injured foot to scrape the shards of glass out of her way as best I could. My father crouched down beside me, taking my arm hard in his hand—hard enough that I knew it would leave a bruise.
“Father, stop! Please!” I said, trying to twist away from him. While I struggled with my left arm, I rubbed Nellie with my right to try to calm her.
“I don’t have any cider. I promise. You’ll have to go to town. I can give you some money.” Nellie leaned to the side, making my father stumble back.
I looked up at him to meet his bleary-eyed scowl as he steadied himself on my old repurposed cupboard by the wall. It had been my mother’s, and my father wouldn’t allow it in the house. He wouldn’t allow anything that reminded him of her anywhere near where he was likely to go.
