Page 14 of Clouded by Envy

“The times are a-changing.” Luca beamed as he took his last drink of spooned milk and started on the squishy cereal. “Oh, I also picked you something this morning.” He pointed to a beautiful peach on the linoleum counter.

“Yum! You know how to make a bat extremely happy.” Bray flew to the counter and took a few bites of the extra juicy peach.

She lifted her mouth from her breakfast, and swiped away the juice trailing down her chin. “Where is your brother?”

With his spoon in hand, Luca tipped it in the direction of the back door. “He’s outside already, trying to get a little more of the garden finished.”

Bray shrugged and went back to eating the peach, while Luca finished his cereal and got ready for school.

After digging her teeth in for one more delicious bite, Bray watched as Luca grabbed his backpack off the back of the chair. “I gotta go to school now, but I’ll see you after.”

“Okay, but let me follow you outside and check to see if Brenik is back. He probably hasn’t come back, though.” It had only been one day since her brother had been gone, and she hadn’t had a lot of time to worry or miss him after she stumbled upon Luca. Her feelings would change later when she had more time to think.

Once outside, Luca told Wes goodbye, who in turn asked if Luca needed to be driven to school.

Luca answered by doing a weird tilting of the head to make his bangs cover his eye. “I got this, Wes.”

Wes responded by scrunching up his face and observing the new hair. “You definitely do, Lu.”

Bray flapped her wings and flew up and into her tree hole, scanning the area. No, Brenik had not returned—his hammock was propped in the same position it had been in the day before.

A trickle of low grunts came from outside the trunk. Bray peered her head out to watch Wes as he pounded at the hardened earth with the shovel.

“Do you need some help?” Bray yelled from the hole, smiling.

Wes angled his head to where she was. “What?” he called back, the first word he had given her all morning.

Groaning, Bray pushed herself to stand, hopped up and over the ledge, and flew toward Wes’s face.

He didn’t seem fazed by her this time, instead he looked more bored than anything.

“No rabies questions today?” she asked sarcastically and headed for the birdbath.

Puckering his lips, Wes went back to beating at the soil. “Pass.” Another one-word answer.

“I can help—if you really need me to.”

Halting his movements, Wes turned around to find her perched atop the side of the basin. “I do this sort of thing for a living, you know.”

Her eyebrows rose, and she leaned her body to the side to observe his work. “Sure you do.”

“What are you, five?” he scolded her and spun back around.

Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she laughed. “Just remember, I did ask you.”

He ignored her after that, but she couldn’t help smiling as she watched him. Even though they weren’t talking, she still found it more entertaining than sitting in her tree.

Wes left his shirt on today, and it was getting more and more covered in filth and sweat. She wanted to tell him to just take the damn shirt off already.

One by one, he had to rip out most of the bushes, and even with them looking dead and small, the roots were grounded deeply in the earth.

Muscles bulged, face reddened against his brown skin, veins protruded—it looked like his skin might rip off, and he’d take on another beastly form. Bray wouldn’t be surprised if that kind of thing happened—she had heard tales of beasts taking other forms in Laith when Junah would tell her and Brenik stories. Needless to say, she did not ask if he needed any more help, just watched in gratification.

By lunchtime, Wes managed to clear the garden and had a few more flowered plants in place. Wiping sweat from his forehead with his shirt sleeve, he headed inside and came back with keys in hand. Without a word, he took the truck and drove off.

Bray surveyed her tree hole, then back at the dirt, then toward the open window, before finally letting her gaze linger on the dirt again. There was a little area around one of the rose bushes that needed to be patted down a little more, so she decided to head there first.

Stroking the soil with her small hand, she evened out some of the bumpier sections. It reminded her of times with Ruth.

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