house Hap had already cycled to the other end of the orchard.
"You owe me an explanation," he said as he banged opened the press house door, catching Marvellous off guard. She was cooking something at the stove and spun around as he strode over to the table.
"He’s my brother," she said. "I didn’t know if I could trust you. Hap’s been through a lot."
"He left nine children."
"He didn’t leave them. He couldn’t remember."
Marvellous told the Constable what she knew.
"He somehow survived the fall off the cliff but it wasn’t until he got back here, with me, that he remembered the children. You were the only person he could think of who might know where they were."
The Constable sighed. He took a seat at the table.
"I’m required by law to tell Hap where his children are. Go get him. I’ll wait here."
Marvellous stood for a moment then turned and left. She soon returned with Hap.
"Constable Pierre! How good to see you!" Hap rushed in and gave the man a bear hug. "You know where the children are? You’ve seen them? Are they okay?"
"They’re all fine, Hap. It’s good to see you too. Thought we’d lost you."
Hap and the Constable sat down while Marvellous started dinner. She listened as she cooked.
PC Pierre told him everything. How the children were living on a farm and how healthy and well they seemed. He told them about what they planned to grow and about the stag and the feast they’d had that night. Gently he told him what had happened to Mary, his wife. He left out certain details.
"She’s buried in a real pretty spot, under a maple. It’ll be nice in fall."
"She liked the fall."
PC Pierre nodded. They were silent for a while. The Constable knew what was coming next.
"Marvellous said a relative took them," Hap said finally.
The Constable took a deep breath and told Hap about his father.
"I don’t know why he didn’t want you to know he was alive," he said when he was finished, "but I couldn’t send them to a labour camp without at least trying. He didn’t want to at first but he eventually said yes."
"I thought he was dead," Hap said. "He went missing when I was seventeen. One day he was just gone. Never came back. The camp foreman told me to forget about him, that he was probably killed by a bear or drowned in the river."
His face crumpled inwards as though he was about to cry but then he jumped up abruptly from the table and began to shout.
"You have to take me to them! We have to leave right away!" he yelled.
Marvellous turned from the stove, pushed him down into his seat and set his dinner in front of him. PC Pierre had seen only a momentary blur.
"Eat first," she said.
She set plates for the Constable and herself and joined them at the table.
As they ate, PC Pierre considered his duty. He wracked his memory but could think of no specific law on the books that applied to this situation. There was only one thing he knew for sure.
"I’ll have to tell the Landlord, Hap."
"I don’t care about him," said Hap miserably.
He pushed his plate away and tried to get up again but Marvellous had his ropy forearm gripped in her large hand.
"But I have to see them! They need me! We can all live together at the farm. You too, Marvellous."
"From what the Constable has said I think your father would have something to say about that, Hap," she said. She gently pulled him down.
"You said that his father doesn’t like surprises," she said to PC Pierre. "Maybe you should tell him."
PC Pierre nodded. It’s what he’d been about to recommend.
"I’m heading to the summer cabin. The farm isn’t far from there. I’ll take care of it. For now, Hap, you’re going to have to be patient. Trust me. Porkchop is looking after them just fine."
Hap stared into space. PC Pierre drew Marvellous outside.
"If Pater won’t cooperate, Hap’s only chance may be to stay here," he told her. "He’s worked this land for twenty years so there may be something under the duty to land laws. I’ll look into it when I get back to Battery."
He mounted Chester and spurred him on. He was not looking forward to the Landlord’s reaction, even less to Pater’s.
___
When PC Pierre arrived back at Baker’s Yard he went first to the Piggy Gristle to find the Landlord. The barkeep told him that he'd left for New Key a few days ago.
He went to Baker's Yard and found Mrs. Baker at the kitchen counter, up to her elbows in bread dough.
"I hear the Landlord had business in New Key," he said to her casually. "I have some news for him about one of his tenants. Any idea when he might be back?"
"Well, he took the ferry. And one of his horses. The big black one. Not sure when he might be back, hun. Could be tomorrow, could be next week," she said. "By the way, your supplies are packed and ready in the back shed. Why don’t you go on ahead? Now that the roads are starting to dry out I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more traffic round here. He can always get word to you by messenger."
PC Pierre went into the main room of Baker's Yard and looked at the books on the shelves. He hadn't read all of them yet and Mrs. Baker sometimes exchanged old ones for new from people who passed through town. There was a pamphlet sandwiched between two books on ploughing equipment and he wiggled it out. It was a Deloran County labour code amendment, dated a few years ago. He didn't recall ever seeing it. He skimmed through it and, near the end, in small print, was a section on pay bonuses for special skills. Among them were numeracy and literacy.
Hap, like many people in Battery, may not have been able to read or write but he knew his numbers well enough, thanks to his wife. If the Constable hadn't known about the requirement, it was doubtful that Hap or Mary had known about it. He was sure that the Landlord had never paid those bonuses. It was blackmail, he thought. Then again, the Landlord was supposed to update him about changes to County laws or procedures. He also thought about all that the Landlord had done to others over the years, all of the things he couldn’t prove. It was all he had.
He wrote a letter to the Landlord briefing him on the situation.
Legally, he wrote, I have a duty to ensure that the land is worked. Both have been retained until your decision. Hap knows the orchard and Marvellous will benefit from his experience.
The next morning he left the letter at the Piggy Gristle and set off for the cabin. Despite the extra weight of the Constable’s supplies Josephine set a brisk pace.
___
Pater stood in the lookout post and scanned the valley for what seemed the hundredth time. He’d been living in the post for two days, descending only to forage for food.
PC Pierre should have been back at his cabin by now but when Pater arrived he found it empty with no sign or the Constable or his mule. He’d pried open a window, thinking he could at least benefit from the Constable’s summer food stocks while he waited but other than a tin of hard biscuits, the cupboards were bare. The only evidence that he’d been there at all that year was a neat stack of firewood and five gleaming traps that hung from one of the walls.
He spent the first night in the cabin, out of the rain, but when it stopped and the heat rolled in, he opted for the breeze from up in the lookout post. He hadn’t counted on it taking so long. Titania had said that it would be easy.
"Just tell him what you want and he’ll write it down," she’d said.
From his vantage point Pater saw mile after mile of forest, the farm and Honey Hill, and the road in between them that eventually wound its way to the Constable’s cabin. He could just see the roof of the cabin and the shed where Josephine slept.
After staring so long at the constantly shifting shades of green Pater had started to think, something he usually tried to avoid.
He’d run out of maple whiskey and his thoughts turned to the children. They had, for the most part, made his life easier, n
ot harder as he’d feared. The rabbit he caught last night was the first meat he’d killed himself in months. He never had to cook anything and he probably would have died last winter had it not been for the girl twin.
They were all a little odd but none more than the youngest. The boy gave him the peculiar feeling that at any moment he would open his mouth and begin speaking in a voice not his own. Even Titania’s shifts weren’t as bad. Sometimes, she’d have dull red hair and a series of long jagged scars on her face; at others she was the spitting image of Hap’s mother. That was the face she’d worn the other night; it was the face that he couldn’t say no to and the one he recalled now.
"Pater, you’re going to do something for me," she said the night before he’d come to the cabin.
She explained that since Porkchop was almost twenty she wanted him to change his will to make her the heir.
"The Constable’s sure to be at his summer cabin by now," she had said. "You can leave tomorrow and be back in time for dinner. Why wait?"
Pater couldn’t think of a reason. Despite their oddities, the children worked hard, knew what they were doing and didn’t make much noise. He respected little, but he respected that. They were certainly better than squatters.
The shriek of a merlin made him look up to his right. He scanned the sky till he spotted it; the hawk flew by with a limp pigeon between its talons. When he again lowered his gaze he saw on the road in the distance Josephine pulling the cart with PC Pierre in it.
___
Jelly, Jones and Forest left before dawn. Narrow gave Jelly his map and she promised to add anything new to