“Good. Granddad’s just inside…”
“I know.”
Allie rolled her eyes and kept walking. Never exactly chatty at the best of times, David was clearly having one of his more taciturn mornings. She wondered how his moods went over at work—surely the police forces that called in Dr. David Gale, brilliant young criminologist, expected a little more verbal bang for their consultant buck. Or maybe, as long as he got it right when he took the stand, they didn’t care. She’d ask him later, he was always in a better mood when he’d stopped manifesting.
Crossing the yard, she caught sight of a familiar figure heading into the henhouse. It was still early enough that her father, as one of the rare Gales by marriage, was likely to be the only male of ritual age awake—well, except for David who preferred to be the exception to most rules. Her dad and Michael used to do things together while the rest of the family moved through the circles and she wondered if he missed having Michael around. She took a step toward the henhouse, chasing the long line of her shadow.
Paused.
No. Missing Michael was not on the morning’s agenda.
Surrounded by family, she had plenty of things to do.
Much like pies, pancakes and sausages didn’t make themselves and there’d be people looking for breakfast soon enough.
Around nine thirty, Uncle Richard and Aunt Marion began herding their branch of the family back into the RV, Uncle Richard favoring his left side. At nine forty, they discovered they were one short. At nine fifty, Allie found their four-year-old granddaughter Merry sound asleep in the tree house, a sausage clutched in one chubby fist.
“She wanted to spend the night up there,” Brianna sighed, handing her daughter up to her exhausted looking husband. “I told her she was too young.” Then she grinned, gray eyes sparkling. “David and I spent the night up there after senior prom. I was so sure he’d choose me.”
“But you and Kevin…”
“Are completely happy, Allie, never fear. He loves the farm as much as I do. David would have gone insane.”
All three of them winced as a long blast from the RV horn set the dogs barking.
“I think Dad wants to get going.”
Allie kissed one cousin good-bye, waved at the other, and blew kisses at Merry who laughed and blew kisses out the back window all the way down the lane.
Just past eleven, the last group emerged from the haymow.
“For pity’s sake, boy,” Auntie Jane snorted as Dmitri shuffled carefully into the kitchen, “there’s salve for that. Use it before those trousers rub you raw. Downstairs bathroom. And you lot,” she snapped at the girls who gathered around the table as he left the room, “stop giggling. He didn’t get in that condition all on his lonesome.”
Allie pulled a platter of pancakes out of the oven where they’d been keeping warm. “He needs to learn to pace himself.”
“He’s young. He’ll recover.”
By two that afternoon, only Aunt Ruth and her family remained, helping to put the house to rights.
By supper, there was only Charlie.
“This is nice.” Auntie Ruby poked at her vegetables with her fork. “Although in my day, we actually cooked the carrots. I guess no one cares what old people think anymore.”
Allie looked around the table and moved her leg just far enough to touch Charlie’s knee with hers. Her parents, David, Auntie Ruby—who’d lived with them all of Allie’s life—Auntie Jane—who’d moved into the old farmhouse after her husband had died—and Charlie, who’d had lunch with her immediate family and returned by midafternoon announcing that if she spent another moment with the twins, she’d strangle them both. Auntie Ruby was right; it was nice. Okay, so she didn’t have a job and she didn’t have Michael and she’d moved back in with her parents at—God forbid—the ripe old age of twenty-four, but she still had family.
For a Gale, family was everything.
David left after supper, needing to be back in Ottawa for work first thing Monday morning. His current job involved very hush-hush consulting with the Mounties, although he refused to give specifics.
“We don’t keep secrets in this family, David Edward Gale.”
David bent and kissed the top of Auntie Jane’s head. “If I told you what I was doing, I’d have to shoot you.”
“I’d like to see you try.” She hooked a finger through his belt loops to hold him in place. Allie held her breath until it became obvious he wasn’t about to try and break free. “In my day, David Edward, Gale boys chose by twenty.”
“But in your day, Auntie Jane, you were one of the choices.”
“I’m not saying that wasn’t incentive…”
Was Auntie Jane actually blushing? David was scary powerful.
“… but you are perilously close to having choices made for you. The time will come, and sooner than you think, when your duty to your family can no longer be set aside.”
“But that time is not now.” His tone made it entirely clear he wasn’t asking for her agreement.
“No, not now.” And Auntie Jane’s tone added, but soon. It also added: We have every intention of bringing all that power you’re flashing around back into the lines one way or another, young man, and this delay is not helping your case as far as our suspicions about you are concerned. We’d prefer you to come willingly, but we’re perfectly willing to bind you if you don’t, and our patience is running short. Also, you need to call your mother more often. She worries.
The aunties hadn’t invented subtext—at least these particular aunties hadn’t, Allie didn’t want to make assumptions about the originals—but they squeezed every possible nuance out of it.
Charlie left the next morning after breakfast.
“I’ve got a friend in Halifax going into the studio today,” she explained, tossing David’s old hockey bag over one shoulder and picking up her guitar. “I told him I’d sit in.” Head cocked, a strand of blue hair fell down over her eyes as she studied Allie’s face. “I’ll stay if you need me to.”
“To hold my hand because I’m friendless and unemployed?”
“Something like that.”
Allie kissed her quickly and gave her a shove off the porch. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Just go.”
“All right, then.”
“You can’t keep Charlie in one place, Allie-kitten.”
Allie leaned back against her father’s arm and watched the shimmer between the apple trees dissipate. “I know.”
“She’ll come back to you. She always does.”
“I know.”
“She reminds me a lot of your grandmother.”
“Didn’t need to hear that.”
He gave her one final squeeze, and grabbed his backpack. “Gotta go, kid. High school history doesn’t teach itself.” He paused, halfway to his truck. “You could always think about teaching, Kitten. Add a master’s of education to that fine arts degree. As I recall, you used to have mad skills with macaroni and glue.”
“I’ll think about it, Dad.”
“You want something to do with your life besides standing around and feeling sorry for yourself?” Auntie Jane yanked open the door and thrust a basket into her hands. “Go get the eggs.”
The hens had no advice to offer. Mozart tried to eat her shoelaces.
By the time the mail came that afternoon, she’d made three batches of cookies and a lemon loaf.
“There’s something for you, Allie.” Her mother tossed a pile of sales flyers onto the table and held out a manila envelope. “No return address. Maybe it’s a job offer.”
“I haven’t applied for any jobs, Mom.”
“That might be why you’re not working, then.”
“I just lost the last one,” Allie muttered, opening the envelope. “And Dr. Yan was positive we were going to get that funding renewed so why would I have been looking?”
“Are you asking me?”
“No.” She pulled two sheets of paper from the envelope, unfolded them, read them, and frowned. “This isn’t… I mean, it’s not…”
“Isn’t not what?” Auntie Jane demanded, plugging the kettle in.