When I awoke the next morning, the first thing I realised was that it was Wednesday again: exactly a week after the announcement had first been made. Only a week, and yet so much had happened. My world had fallen apart.
No, I remembered, not completely. My brother was still there.
Madeline was making breakfast over the fire and Calix was happily playing with a wooden bear Madeline had seemingly finished for him after I had fallen asleep. They both bid me a cheery good morning and I found myself smiling as I tossed my blanket back into the tent, being careful not to hit Echo's sleeping form with it
Echo joined us for breakfast, and then our day began.
Madeline took Calix down to play at the beach again while Echo and I played target-practice with my crossbow, using a tree for the target.
"It's been a week..." I paused, releasing the bolt which sailed the roughly twenty yards to the tree, hitting the intender knob directly in the centre. I passed the crossbow to Echo with a tight smile and then stepped aside. "A week since that day... in the vicinity..."
She glanced over her shoulder at me before sizing up the tree and then taking careful aim.
"You mean the day every single person in the vicinity was rounded up in the town-square as though we were cattle ready for slaughter?" She released the crossbow bolt to fly the length, hit the tree at an odd angle, and ricochet off. Then she turned back to me, arching an eyebrow. "That day?"
"Do the math," I told Echo. I took the offered crossbow back. "Yes, that day."
Echo stepped away and crossed her arms, smiling mischievously.
"The Seven Days..." she threw her arms out wide, drama written over every inch of her features. I released the crossbow bolt prematurely, startled at her sudden motion, and watched as the deadly weapon sailed away through the trees toward the beach.
"NOVA!" I heard Madeline shout at me. I turned to Echo, arms folded.
"Accident," Echo insisted, then: "but as I was saying: The Seven Days. Sounds like the name of a historical occurrence. Maybe something'll happen today that'll go in the history books!"
Oh, now she'd cursed us!
"Yeah!" I responded enthusiastically. "Maybe we'll all die! That'd be sure to go down in history."
"I meant something good, Nova," Echo reproached me, to which I snorted.
"Nothing good ever goes in the history books these days, Echo."
"Pessimist," Echo called me.
"Dreamer," I returned.
"Killjoy," Echo went on.
"Children, the lot of you," Madeline interrupted, stepping out of the woods with Calix on her hip. "When will you both grow up?"
"When the snow falls," I responded promptly.
Madeline stared at me for several seconds, and then she slid Calix to the ground and shrugged.
"I walked right into that one," she admitted, as though to herself. "Calix wants his bear, and then we'll leave you two to continue your war of insults."
Echo waited until Madeline had disappeared from the view of the camp again before she took the crossbow back and sized up a tree slightly closer than the previous one, breathing in as she took aim. I took minor pity on her and made the decision not to make her miss. I had another plan...
She hit the tree - nowhere in particular - and then passed the crossbow over to me.
I took it with a smirk.
"Have you ever had a feeling that something really big is about to happen to you?" Echo questioned me. I shifted the aim of the crossbow slightly up and to the left before responding.
"Yeah. I typically feel like that right before a growth spurt," I responded without emotion.
It took approximately ninety seconds for Echo to figure out the sarcasm in my line, by which point I had pulled the trigger and sent my bolt flying toward the tree where it hit hers, splitting it length-wise.
"You did not just do that!" Echo gasped and raced forward to check. "You did!"
"Your turn," I offered the crossbow to Echo, but she tossed it aside.
"I quit!"
"Quitter."
"Bully."
"Infant."
"Tyrant."
"Are you still at it?"
We both turned sharply as Madeline re-emerged from the woods, her face annoyed.
"Nope," I told her. "Get your facts straight. This is a different argument."
"My mistake."
"Yes, quite."
Madeline made the wise decision to cut off the conversation. She instead nodded to Calix who was once more on her hip.
"He wants you, he says."
I smiled, secretly pleased. Madeline had been babying my brother over the previous days, and I had started to feel replaced, even. But now, he wanted me.
And not Madeline or Echo.
I eagerly held out my arms for him and he dove at me, nearly throwing Madeline off-balance in his excitement.
"What should we do, Calix?" I asked him, because I was willing to do anything to amuse him. Whether he wanted to go hunting with me, or fishing, or he wanted to learn how to shoot a crossbow, or-
"Ride wit you?" he questioned hopefully.
I hadn't expected that.
"Sure! Madeline cut in, before I could either accept or decline. "Let's go for a ride!"
And so that was how I found myself saddling Artemis and riding out of camp, my arms crossed over my brother in front of me and Madeline and Echo riding Inca beside us.
It was a beautiful day. The kind that hinted at autumn not quite being over just before winter fell. A last hurrah for the clear skies and colourful leaves before grey clouds and white snow hid it until spring. Birds still twittered in the trees and squirrels were dashing around, making final preparations of food stored for winter.
It occurred to me that hunting and fishing would become difficult for us in the winter. With four mouths to feed, the food we had brought from home would not last long, even rationed, and we would have a hard time replacing it.
And what if more joined us?
This Five, or others like him who knew Madeline and Echo. What would they expect from me.
I didn't want all this.
I just wanted my brother to be safe.
Calix, as though alerted at my thoughts, tugged twice on my sleeve, bringing my attention back to his solid figure in front of me.
"Yeah, Cal?" I asked him.
"Aunt Maddie aksed you the same thing tree times," he informed me.
"Oh, really?" I looked up at Madeline (Aunt?) and forced a smile. "Yeah?"
"I said: 'You're very quiet. What are you worrying about?'" she repeated.
I really didn't want to answer that question.
I really wasn't sure why, either.
"Just thinking about hunting and fishing in winter," I told her evasively.
And how hard it would be.
Madeline stared at me for another minute, even after I had looked away, willing myself not to say anything more. A moment later, a felt a hand on my arm and traced it back to my eldest companion.
"We'll be alright, Nova," Madeline said gently. "I promise. We won't starve."
And I believed her, in that.
I believed that we wouldn't starve.
Whether or not we'd be alright, though...
I looked up over the trees and across the skyline where the deadly dark cloud was forming, heading for us once again.
That we would be alright wasn't something Madeline had the right to promise.