by Nathan Jones
His mom immediately shook her head. “We can't do that.”
“Why not?” Jim demanded. “That sounds like actual consequences for her behavior. That's just fine with me.”
She glared at him and Trev both. “Then why don't you think through those consequences? Let's say we give her what little of her share remains, after what she took and over four months of eating through it. Then let's say she doesn't learn any lessons and eats through the rest of it at the same speed. When that happens we'll either have to watch her starve to death in front of us or give her more food anyway.”
“Then let her starve!” Jim snapped. “It's her own fault.”
His dad cut in gently. “Could you really do that, son?”
Jim angrily opened his mouth, hesitated, then looked away. “It's not fair that she can get away with something like that just because we care about her.”
George sighed. “No, it's not. And you're right that she needs consequences. I suggest we do it this way: we guard the food to make sure she doesn't manage to steal any more, and from now on we reduce her rations. Not quite as much as she probably deserves, but enough that she feels what she's done. With the extra calories she's eaten for so long she can live with having a bit less for a while.”
“And that's it?” Trev asked. He wasn't in the same vindictive mood as his brother, but somehow that didn't seem like enough.
His dad sighed again. “It's not it by a long shot. Your sister's destroyed our trust in her. Whatever else happens, she's going to be feeling that as time goes on. And she won't have an easy time earning it back.”
Jim glowered at the discarded cereal box. “Who says she ever will?” Pulling his blankets over his head, the young man threw himself back down on his bed and went still.
For a moment Trev and his parents were silent, also looking at the box. “What if she tries to steal more food?” his mom asked quietly after a few seconds. “What if she doesn't make it as easy as just restricting her rations until her punishment is done?”
Trev couldn't think of an answer to that. Neither, it seemed, could his dad. “I don't know,” George admitted. “Linda's not a bad person. She's just had more trouble than most adjusting to the way things are now. Probably our fault, with how we spoiled her.”
“That's not an answer,” Trev pointed out.
His dad grit his teeth. “There's no easy answer. Kicking her out would be a death sentence, or making her the problem of whoever was willing to take her in. And her situation would be just as dire, if not worse, if the town ever finds out she's a thief.”
At that the door to Trev's room burst open. Linda stormed out of the darkness into the glow from the Christmas lights, face pale and splotchy from what seemed like nonstop crying. She'd obviously been listening in on every word.
“I'm not a thief!” she screamed. “Quit the inquisition already, it was just a little snack every now and then! It's no big deal!”
Trev had had enough of this. He slipped past his sister into his room and shut the door, throwing himself onto his bed. Faintly through the door he heard his dad's grieved reply.
“That's where you're wrong. You've eaten through a quarter of the food you were given on top of your usual consumption, a month and a half out of the six months. You already would've been dependent on the rest of us to survive after that, and now you've made things even worse. It is a big deal, it was a lot of food, and you are a thief. Now the question is whether you force us to treat you like one, or you straighten up from now on.”
“From the sounds of it you're going to treat me like one anyway.” Trev heard a soft thump, and could imagine his sister throwing herself onto her bed. “I'm going back to sleep.”
Easy for her to say . . . in spite of his own exhaustion Trev barely dozed the rest of the night, too angry and worried about the situation and wishing for Deb's comforting presence.
* * * * *
When Deb came back from her shift it was to a house already awake and a mood nearly as frigid as the bitter air outside.
Trev had just been about to leave to do the morning chores, but he joined his wife at the stove as she warmed herself up from a miserable night out in the sentry post. On impulse he threw his arms around her and pulled her close, unable to believe his mom had considered for a second she was responsible for the food theft.
Deb gave a contented sigh and leaned back against him, at which point Linda screeched for her to shut up from beneath her nest of covers. His wife stiffened in his arms as Clair came down on Linda like a ton of bricks for daring to act that way after what she'd done, leading to the start of a shouting match before George bellowed for quiet.
Deb stared around the room with wide eyes, huddling against Trev's chest. “What's going on?” she mouthed.
Trev sighed and tugged at her arm, guiding him into their room and sitting her down on the edge of the bed beside him. “Listen,” he said, keeping his voice low in spite of the door between them and the rest of the family, “you're exhausted and this house is a powder keg at the moment. Do you want to get into what happened right now, or after you've had a good sleep?”
His wife took the question seriously. “It can wait,” she finally agreed, standing with a slight groan to begin stripping off her cold weather gear. “I barely had the energy to stand in front of the stove just to heat myself up, and I can't bring myself to eat or drink anything even though I know I need to. I just want to sleep.” She looked at him, lovely eyes drooping with profound weariness. “The nights are brutal, Trev, even with the sentry posts insulated and braziers burning. We need to halve shift lengths after dark.”
He nodded. He'd taken enough night shifts to partially understand, but none so far in the extreme cold of the last few nights so he couldn't fully appreciate how bad it had to be. “I'll talk to Matt, see if he can shout out some more volunteers to take up the slack if the hours are shorter.”
He helped her peel out of her snow pants, since she was so exhausted she was having trouble and it was obviously frustrating her. Once free of them she fell into his arms with a grateful sigh and let him carry her to bed and settle her beneath the covers, then tugged at his arm in an invitation to join her.
Trev had a long day ahead of him with chores and dealing with the fallout of Linda's thefts, but at the moment he really needed the emotional relief of holding his wife. He allowed himself to be pulled beneath the blankets and cuddled up with his arms around her, feeling how cool her skin was to the touch. As she warmed up and relaxed, breathing slowing to a peaceful, even rate, he felt his own eyes drooping and almost joined her in sleep.
Then a new spat of shouting started from the main room. Deb jolted awake in his arms with a frustrated noise, and Trev fought down his own frustration as he kissed her forehead. “Go to sleep,” he whispered, easing out from beneath the covers.
His wife nodded. “Please make her shut up,” she said plaintively.
That was certainly going to be the trick. Trev stormed out of the room and closed the door behind him, causing the rest of the family to freeze in the middle of their argument.
He ignored everyone but Linda, spearing her with a glare. “My wife just spent the night in double digit below zero temperatures keeping you safe,” he said in a low, fierce voice. “I know you can't appreciate that, can't seem to appreciate anything, but appreciate this: if you keep her awake one second longer with your childish tantrum I will physically throw you out of this house, and not let you back in until she's had her rest.”
His sister gaped at him. “You can't do that.” His expression didn't change and she flinched slightly, turning to the rest of the family. “He can't do that!”
Nobody said anything.
Trev had to wonder if it was only at that moment that Linda finally felt some crack in the distorted reality she'd been living in. Without a word she slipped out of bed and started pulling on her cold weather gear, face pale. “I'm going to visit Mary and Aunt Eva,” she said in a cautious whisper.
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Once she was gone the room was terribly silent. Finally his mom stirred. “Jim, take care of Trev's chores this morning,” she said quietly. “Your brother and father are going to be busy with a carpentry project.”
George sighed and nodded to Trev. “Go grab your tools, and while you're at it apologize to Deb for us. This is going to be noisy.”
Trev nodded and slipped back into his room. Deb was sitting up in bed, looking exhausted but with brown-flecked green eyes wide and full of curiosity. “I changed my mind,” she said. “Not knowing will probably ruin my sleep worse than knowing. What the heck is going on?”
With a sigh Trev settled down beside his wife, taking her in his arms, and explained the situation.
When he was finished Deb sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Wow, that's awful. I mean I'm not sure what to say, and I'm too exhausted to even think about it.”
“I know.” Trev stood and helped settle her down underneath the blankets, tucking them up around her chin, then dug through his gear for his carpentry tools. He also retrieved a clean pair of foam earplugs he kept around for target shooting and gave them to her. “It'll be loud,” he said apologetically.
She gave him a tired smile as she scrunched them up and put them in. “Don't worry, sharing the same bed I get used to listening to you sawing logs every now and then.”
Trev felt his face flush. He hadn't thought he snored that bad. But his wife gave him a look to let him know she'd just been kidding, mostly, as her eyes slowly drooped shut. Trev paused to give her a quick goodnight kiss before shutting off the lights, leaving the room, and carefully shutting the door behind him.
He and his dad spent the morning building a chest around the food storage area. They used logs and whatever bits of board they could find for two walls to enclose that corner of the room, spending the most time on a sturdy lid made with the solid hinges and hasp Trev cannibalized from the door leading into his and Deb's room. That left their door with a single hinge in the center and a length of yarn tied around a nail to keep it closed, which would hopefully be enough for now. With any luck he'd be able to borrow hinges and hasp from Lewis or someone else in town.
Last of all his dad closed a spare padlock through the hasp of the makeshift chest, then tugged it to be sure it was shut and began checking the entire new construction to make certain it couldn't be easily gotten into. “You, me, and your mother know this combination,” he said quietly. “No one else. Don't open it while anyone is watching.”
Trev nodded. “I wish it hadn't come to this.”
For a moment his dad's hand made a fist against the log he was tugging on. “Yeah.”
Of course Linda chose that moment to come in. It had been a relief that she'd chosen to leave, not only for Deb's sake but to avoid the inevitable tantrum when she found out what they were doing. But that tantrum came now, and Trev's earlier threat seemed forgotten in the heat of the moment.
“Oh I see how it is!” his sister snapped, glaring at the new construction. “You can't lock me up, so you lock up the food instead.”
“Are you serious right now?” Jim demanded from his bed, where he'd been half watching and half concentrating on a wood carving. “You stole a bunch of our best food, and you wonder why we're protecting it from thieves?”
“I'm not a thief!” she screamed. With a deafening screech she turned and stomped back outside, going who knew where. Trev was a bit relieved, because with the noise she'd been making he'd been feeling the obligation to carry out his promise to evict her.
He glanced at George, who looked old and exhausted and more than a little hopeless. “I'd say we need to sit her down and talk to her,” his dad said, leaning heavily against the chest, “but I don't even think that would work.”
“Yeah,” Trev replied, hopping up to sit on the makeshift container's lid and confirming it was sturdy enough to hold his weight. This entire mess was a nightmare, but the fact that Linda refused to even acknowledge it or take any responsibility, let alone show contrition and a desire to change, made it far worse. “Should we try having her move in with Aunt Eva and Mary?”
“Fob her off on them, you mean?” his dad asked wearily. “We'd have to tell them what she's done.”
“Why wouldn't we tell them anyway?” Jim asked. He was still only seeing this from the perspective of making sure Linda got punished. He hadn't seemed to grasp how it could potentially tear the family apart and destroy Linda's life if it wasn't handled delicately.
She'd stolen from her own family. How could anyone else even come close to trusting her?
Trev spent most of the day catching up on the work of organizing the defenders, including passing on Deb's suggestion about more people taking half shifts on these cold nights to Matt.
When he didn't have any more excuses to stay away and Deb was due to wake up any minute he finally went home. He entered through the door leading directly into their room, and while it was quiet in the main room he wasn't about to poke his head in there. Honestly he felt bad that his parents and Jim didn't have rooms of their own where they could hide from all this.
He was due to take the evening shift soon, and since it went until midnight he'd finally have a chance to appreciate the bitter temperatures Deb and his other defenders had been suffering through. Thanks to the poor sleep he'd gotten last night it was going to be even more miserable, and to fortify himself for the experience he hopped into bed and held his sleeping wife, soaking in her comforting warmth.
She stirred a bit when he slipped in beside her, murmuring appreciatively and snuggling in closer to him before drifting off again. He allowed himself to drift off with her, and only woke when he felt her stirring in his arms, reaching up to pull the earplugs from her ears before settling in against him again.
“Morning,” she mumbled, giving him a lingering kiss that helped wake them both up. The sleep seemed to have done wonders for her, and he could hear a smile in her voice.
“Afternoon,” he said back. “Sleep well?”
“Surprisingly? Yeah.” Deb stretched languidly next to him and went in for another kiss. “Want to help me wake up properly?” she whispered invitingly in his ear.
Trev groaned and reached for his phone, confirming that he was already a few minutes late. “My shift's about to start.”
“Oh.” With a disappointed noise she gave him another quick kiss before letting him pull away. “You owe me then.”
That was definitely a debt he looked forward to repaying. As he slipped out of bed and started pulling on his cold weather clothes, going overboard with the bundling considering what he was about to go out into, he gave his wife an apologetic look. “It's up to you, but you might want to camp out in here tonight. I'm not sure how the mood is out there.”
“Not great, I'm guessing.” Deb sighed and settled back under the covers. “I suppose I could catch up on some more sleep. Don't freeze out there, I'll keep the bed warm for when you get home.”
Well, that was a silver lining on the cloud of freezing his butt off for the next six hours. “Love you,” he said by way of goodbye as he slipped out the door.
Chapter Seven
Dull Blur
The next morning Lewis cornered Trev in the barn while they were doing chores. “Okay, what's going on with Linda?”
Trev shook his head. Of course he should've realized that Lewis would spot something. His cousin wasn't always great in social interactions, but man was he observant and able to come to accurate conclusions from the information he took in.
Which was a bit of a pain here, since when his cousin saw a problem, especially one that involved someone he cared about, his first instinct was to solve it. Which was great in most circumstances but really didn't work here.
“Did she say something?” he asked evasively.
Lewis laughed in slight disbelief. “Aside from spending the entire day over at our house bawling like the world was coming to an end, but refusing to tell us what was wrong? What happ
ened?”
Okay, so maybe it hadn't taken much observation to figure it out. At least it looked like his sister hadn't tried to lie about the situation and get the Halssons on her side. Still, for the moment he wanted to keep this in the immediate family.
Trev looked away, focusing on his work. “It's our business.”
“What?” his cousin demanded, grabbing his arm. “Trev, I'm part of that “our”! What is it?”
He shook free, meeting Lewis's gaze. “Please, just drop it.”
His cousin went slightly pale. “Holy cow, it's something really serious, isn't it?” Trev couldn't answer. “All right, I'm sorry. But let me know if I can help, and . . .” he hesitated. “And if it might affect the rest of us then don't keep us in the dark. We deserve that much, at least.”
Trev felt terrible. He couldn't remember ever keeping anything important from his cousins or aunt, but he had a feeling any hint he dropped would be enough for Lewis to figure it out. At the same time his cousin was right about deserving a fair warning. “Thanks. Just-just give us some time to sort this out. But if Linda comes by trying to wheedle anything out of your family, come to us first.”
“Oh.” Lewis nodded slowly. “I'll admit it's happened a few times. Sitting in on meals, sharing a bite of something that looks good to her. Mary especially can't seem to say no.” He hesitated. “I know, drop it and all that, but if she's begging around town it reflects on more than her.”
“It's not that. At least as far as I know.” Trev gripped his cousin's shoulder for a moment as he started past him towards the barn's side door. “Sorry, I'll finish this later.”
“Hey don't let me chase you away!” Lewis protested. “I didn't mean that!”
Trev kept walking, calling over his shoulder. “It's cool. I just need to blow off some steam.”