Sometimes the love he felt for his sister flared so bright within him that he became uncommonly emotional—he’d feel an urge to show her his favourite knife, or to gabble at her without having anything to say. It had always been like this, even before she’d left for the capital, although he’d been too young to know her properly, and Maggie had been focused on school.

Now he felt it again. He also felt powerfully aware that he was the only brother she had left on the orchard. He had to make her laugh like Toby had, had to give her the quiet companionship Bill had somehow provided. He had to distract her from how far away they were. These swells of duty rose within him alongside his unpredictable pulses of love, and yet it was all he could do to stand before her, his palm raised, his mouth and mind a mess.

She withdrew her hand from the coop and stood up, brushing the dirt from her knees. ‘Something’s been at this,’ she said.

‘What was it?’

Maggie toed the scrape of dirt. ‘I don’t know. Cat, maybe. A devil.’

‘Did it get in?’

‘Not yet.’

She began walking around the rest of the enclosure. The chickens clucked at her from within the wire, venturing to peck at the gap she’d been investigating. Ned remembered what Jackbird had said about his sister and her shotgun.

‘Could’ve been a hawk.’

Maggie looked up. ‘A hawk.’

Ned avoided her eyes. ‘A hawk’s been after the chickens next door. Could be the same one.’

Maggie pointed at the scratched earth. ‘You think a hawk landed here, grew paws and tried to dig its way in?’

‘Well. No.’

‘Hawks don’t dig, oh great hunter. They swoop.’

She smiled, not cruelly, but still it twisted Ned’s airways. He felt stupid and ashamed. He was going to argue, or he wasn’t. He was going to push past her and see if he could demonstrate that the lines in the dirt could have just as easily been made by talons, or he was going to turn and walk away as fast as he could. He didn’t know. And before he could do all of these things and none of them he heard his father calling, telling him to fetch his pelts, telling him it was time to go.

~

They were getting a ride into Beaconsfield with Jackbird’s father. Ned’s didn’t have a truck of his own, and Jackbird’s didn’t mind doing favours like this.