Devour

Chapter 12 - Dax

The sun shines inside the old house all too quickly. I roll over and go back to sleep as best I can, but our dad doesn't have blinds on his windows and it isn't my bed and frankly it's uncomfortable. So I rise grudgingly and go to my room to dress.

I'm the first of my siblings up, and so I go down to get ready for breakfast. Miss Cora rises soon as well, and lets me pick what chores I want. My siblings will get their chores assigned to them, and they will have to do them alone. Similarly they will come down for breakfast one at a time, fix it, eat, clean their dishes, and then go back to their rooms. As is typical for groundings. This is far from the first time all have been grounded. Nor is it the first time our dad who has no affection for domestic pets, has tried to or wanted to poison the cats.

"You poison rats and things."

"You don't poison cats, I'm sorry, it isn't done. He does really love them, taking away his music will teach him the lesson," Miss Cora says, as she hands me our breakfast dishes.

"I don't see how it's different, they're equally intelligent, rats and cats," my dad mutters, prompting Miss Cora and I to turn to him.

"How do you know they're equally intelligent?" Miss Cora asks.

"Why do you say that?" I ask.

"I like how you both just assume I'm a complete moron just because I didn't learn how to read until I was twenty one----"

"When we first got the cow you asked me if it was poisonous," Miss Cora says, flatly, "You know nothing about animals for understandable reasons you should be in therapy for. What makes you say rats and cats are equally clever?"

"It was a reasonable question some animals are poisonous," he mumbles, rubbing a stain on his sweatshirt.

"Do you read animals minds as well?" I ask, "Like for real see their thoughts and all that."

"Oh---yes, sorry that was the original question, yeah, very similar, rats and cats," he says, nodding to me since I'm the one who reminded him.

"What----what do animals think about?" Miss Cora asks.

"I don't know---what they want to eat, the human they most like, if they're afraid---it's more feelings than sentences and words I guess---I don't know I haven't much thought about it," he says, shrugging and going back to making tea for us.

"You can—okay, um when the kids are grown up and at the academy then you and I are going Oxford and we're talking with some colleagues of mine for like ten hours, okay?" Miss Cora says, she sounds really excited about it.

"Ehhh, you kind of lost me at the 'talk to people' part. I'm really thinking that after the kids are grown we should just try to shoot me again."

"I won't have anywhere to stay during Academy, do they let you board?" I ask. Academy is where we go when we're fifteen and supposed to be back living with our parents. But I don't have parents.

"You're living with us, darling, of course. I want to take you to Oxford, I think you should go; you're very clever," Miss Cora says, warming scones for me.

"I'm not that smart, not nearly as smart as Emma," I say.

"You're----oh Dax, we're going to meet some more people and-----just trust me on this you're very, very clever," Miss Cora says, patting my head then fixing my hair.

"I didn't know we had scones, where did you get those?" my dad asks, sitting down across from me and handing me a mug of tea. Well, levitating me a mug he doesn't use his hands for much of anything.

"I was saving them to cheer up Dax with when Patch did something rotten----SHOOT YOU AGAIN??? Um---I feel like this is something we should talk about or were you being stupid?" Miss Cora asks.