Page 5 of To Trap a Soul

“You and I both know she frets about you, Pa,” she stated, before her gaze slipped to her mother, who was high up on her tiptoes, reaching into the hallway cabinet. “And I worry about you both.”

“Did she go into the garden again?” he asked, his usually carefree features hinting at concern. He silently read the answer written on her face, and his wide jaw clenched as he straightened from his leaned position at her side and turned. “Allira, what did the doctor say about any strenuous activity?”

His voice was stern, and his tone conveyed that he refused to be ignored. He placed his hands on his narrow hips and widened his muscular legs to show he meant business.

Which never worked with her mother.

“It was a handful of carrots and herbs!” Allira squealed, turning her face to the side with her plush lips curled back in annoyance. She threw up her lithe arms. “I’m not going to break if I go outside for a few minutes and help pick out our vegetables for supper.” Then, with a brown bottle of liquid in her fist, she pointed between them. “You two need to stop worrying so much. I was only unwell for a little while, and the doctor did say I should make a full recovery by the month’s end, so long as I’m not put under any stress.”

With humour warming her chest, Lindi went to work peeling the last of the potatoes and carrots while her parents, Nico and Allira, playfully bickered about each other’s wellbeing. He scolded her for tending to their private little garden out the back as she tenderly cleaned the wound he obtained from working on their farm out the front.

“Gosh, you both pester me too much.” Allira pouted. “If anything, you two stress me out the most.”

Lindi gave a snort of disbelief as she used her own apron to wipe any dirt from their knives. “You stress yourself out. Don’t blame us.”

Lindi stood so she could begin the next steps of preparing their supper, pulling the discard bucket closer to the kitchen counter so it was readily available for more waste. Before night fell, she’d take it out for the animals to get a good, healthy feed.

“Ow!” Nico grunted, then hissed while trying to pull his hand away, only for Allira to yank it back.

“Oh, quit your whining. It doesn’t sting that bad.” She continued to dab a poultice-soaked cloth on his palm. Then her lips pulled flat before she quietly muttered, “How are the fortifications coming along?”

A heaviness weighed on them at the question, and suddenly the air felt stilted and cold. Lindi froze midway through chopping into a stalk of celery, while her father’s free handclenched into a fist at his side. It released, just as he lowered his head to inspect the way her mother continued to care for him and the tiny wound that truly didn’t need tending to.

It was nothing but a scrape, but her mother loved her father dearly and enjoyed pampering him.

“They are coming along as fast as I can get them to,” Nico muttered in a grave tone, just as the breeze from the window blew his short hair around his ears. “It’s hard to tend to the farm and build the fortifications at the same time on my own.”

Somehow, the tension in the room thickened. A chill crept up her spine, and Lindi leaned across the kitchen bench and pulled the glass window closed. However, she did so not because of the cold but due to fear – like it being open was inviting evil into their home.

“Oh, don’t look so concerned, girls,” Nico said with a strained smile and an uplifted tone that didn’t sound too confident. “We don’t know if the rumours are actually true. It could just be people mistaking packs of dingos.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Allira muttered. “They say it truly is a monstrous plague. An act of God.”

Her father rolled his eyes with a scoff. “You women and your gossip. You’re all scaring the wits out of each other. There’s only one devil in the world, and we are devout people living by God’s light. You know how people like to stretch the truth.”

“Then why are you building fortifications?” Lindi stated quietly as she finally resumed cutting the vegetables that lay before her. She was quick to finish with the celery before finally chopping some carrots.

“Because I think it’s a good idea regardless. It will keep out dingos, lizards, and even kangaroos, which will be better for the farm.”

That was an excellent point. The wildlife was abundant, and it loved picking through their crops. Or predators trampled thefields, searching for the rodents that did eat what was growing. Then there were the chickens and pigs they needed to defend.

However, Lindi couldn’t shake this niggling doubt in the back of her mind.

“Then what about Rivenspire?” she asked even quieter. “They’ve started building a wall, and it’s been said people have gone...missingfrom other towns towards the southwest. Apparently the native people have been fleeing.”

“We have no idea what’s been happening. There are bad people in the world, and all we have to do is keep each other safe,” her father stated confidently.

Then, after capturing his wife with one arm and dragging her down the hall and back to the kitchen, he pulled Lindi into a tight cuddle to smother them, as always, with affection. She didn’t even mind the masculine, musky odour of a hardworking man covered in a layer of sweat, when she easily melted into her father’s loving hold as he brushed his rough jaw against her cheek.

But the town wouldn’t erect a wooden wall around itself over a rumour.Lindi refused to believe they would be so paranoid, nor would they waste valuable resources, money, and effort to build it without a good reason.It just doesn’t make sense.

She wished her father would get more information regarding it, but he refused to leave their little farming village to travel to Rivenspire. Nico preferred to only travel the half-day’s walk to the large town when he had a horse-drawn carriage filled with food to sell.

Her village, although kilometres of land, only held a few farming steads that supplied all the food to Rivenspire. But her people preferred to keep to themselves, and information was limited.

As if her father could sense the tension in her body, or even perhaps because she didn’t return his embrace, he pulled back tolook at her. His thick brows drew together before lifting up his wrinkled forehead.

“Nothing will come to harm you while I’m around. Whatever these creatures are, whether true or false, I’m sure they are nothing to worry about. We’ve been defending our home from predators for years. What difference does it make now?”

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