Page 7 of Moonless

“I’m hoping you’ll wash.”

I break a clean piece from my plate and push it into his hand. “Eat. You’re unpleasant when you’re hungry.”

“You’ve fed me every day for years. Has it helped?”

“I keep hoping.”

He eats the cake and picks the smear out of my hair, and Colm watches the whole operation before offering him a fistful of crumbs.

“You see?” I take my nephew’s wrist and guide his offering onto Axan’s plate. “I’m teaching them kindness.”

“Try learning it with them.”

Birdie bangs her cup against the table, sending water across Keer’s wrist, and when he moves it out of reach she immediately reaches for his.

Under the bench, Keer Jr. pecks at the crumbs near my boots. The rooster is Keer Jr. because Mel got to the name first, and my niece is Birdie because my brother had learned nothing by then.

“Deedee.” Keer catches her small hand. “Here.”

He gives her a drink from his cup, tipping it carefully. Mel catches my eye over her plate, smiling into her cake, and I turn back to Colm.

Eskan has icing up one cheek. Birdie drips water down her front. Colm leans against my stomach to eat what’s left of his piece, and I wrap an arm around him while he chews.

One year old today, and he’s already worked out who’ll let him stay filthy longest.

Axan gets up when Keer tips his head toward the trees. I keep Colm on my lap and reach for another piece of cake as the two men move to the clearing’s edge.

Their voices drop under the talk around the tables, and I catch Axan’s answer between a burst of laughter and the scrape of a bench.

“When the patrol gets back. I’ll gather the others then.”

Keer nods, speaking too low for the rest to reach me.

My brother comes back for Birdie with his attention still on the trees.

I could ask again with Mel here. He’d enjoy that even less.

But then he’d have to answer, or explain why he won’t, and he might spend the rest of the afternoon watching me. I hand Colm to him instead, brushing crumbs off my nephew’s tunic.

I still want a name for that scent.

I carry plates away, help Mel wipe three sticky faces, and keep finding reasons to look toward the split in the trees. Boots and wolf prints, side by side. All that bear blood between them.

Keer could’ve told me to stay away from hunters, and I’d have argued about whether I needed telling. We both know that conversation. He’s ordered me home from half the forest over the years, and I’ve gone back to most of it.

This time he won’t even tell me what he recognizes.

I want to know what made him stop with his mouth open.

As the sun drops below the treetops, Mel hands me a cloth with the last decent piece of cake tucked inside. Birdie is falling asleep against her shoulder, one fist caught in her braid.

“Sit down. You’ve been circling all afternoon.”

There’s room on the bench beside her. Eskan has sprawled across Keer’s thighs at the next table, and Colm is nodding over a crust in Axan’s lap.

I sit, and Mel leans her shoulder into mine. Birdie’s small foot rests on my leg.

The cake’s better now that I can eat it myself. I pick up the fallen edge with a fingertip and let Mel have it when she holds out her hand.