Chapter One
The Murray family had always been a very joyful family, but the joy they were known for was cut short by a very sorrowful event. This, of course, came after Jonathan Murray was killed gruesomely, and Shelly Murray had been heartbroken, left with two small girls to take care of on the small pension that was given to widows in the country. Shelly had tried to move on with her life by moving to the small, two-bed roomed farm house just on the outskirts of the town, colored the brown of the bark making up the trees, which surrounded the old house. It was about 20 years old, and was a neighbour to Mr. Frank Bartley, one of Jonathan's oldest friends.
Before Jonathan died, he had bright blue eyes and a mop of dark brown, shaggy hair. Tamsin, the eldest daughter, always remembered him with a prickly face, only ever shaven for special occasions. She preferred to remember her father as the brave man who taught her everything she knows, as her hero. She had been very close with him up until she was nine years old, but he would often leave because he was a forester that worked out of the country. For months at a time, he would disappear, worrying Shelly and the girls constantly, only to return again more disheveled than he had been. Tamsin could also remember many hushed conversations late at night, when he'd be back, between her mother and him, saying he should quit his job. Precisely seven years previous on the upcoming Sunday, her father had not come back after many months. Tamsin and Jonathan's relationship that had been woven so tightly over those nine years of her life was ripped from her, to be no more. Tera, the youngest, had been too young to know her father before he was killed and was much closer to their mother than Tamsin was.
Seven years later, on a bright and sunny Thursday, Tamsin, now sixteen, practiced the shooting her father had taught her. She held the hand gun the way he'd told her to, with both hands, her tanned arms away from her body. The golden eyes behind a pair of sunglasses spotted the pop can on a stump in the forest, centered it as her target and shot. The bullet pierced the air as it carved a hole right through the middle of the can, with a loud cracking sound. She had a sense of satisfaction at the black birds that rose from the trees when her bullet hit, cawing in surprise.
It was about mid-August, and the sweltering heat caused her white shirt and jean shorts to stick to her body with sweat when she moved. Her almost auburn hair was pulled from her face into a ponytail, and a flyaway blew into her eyes as she turned to look at the prairies unfolding next to the shroud of trees. The man who'd owned the house before them had been a farmer and harvested some sort of wheat, but his fields had been unused for the duration of the family's time there.
Her eyes came across Mr. Bartley's house. It was a dusty rose color, maybe had once been a dark red, but age had taken away the brilliance of the color. He was home, she could tell, by the 1971 Chevy in his driveway. She shook her head. You'd think with the money that guy has saved he'd be able to by himself a new vehicle, she thought. Mr. Bartley felt it was his way of accommodating for the pain Shelly felt when Jonathan passed, by offering to pay for the family's mortgage and utility bills every month. Ever further past Mr. Bartley's house, Tamsin could see the town outlined by the summer smog that hadn't lifted yet.
Checking the bullets in her gun, she found she had one left, and aimed it at one of her mothers rosebushes peeking at her from the backyard. She chose a bright red, plump rose, and shot, cutting it from its stem right at the base. She watched it fall with amazement at how good her aim had gotten over the years.
"Tamsin, you know how much I hate it when you chop my rosebushes up." Tamsin spun around, her shoes scraping the gravel road. "They were cut the exactly the way I wanted them this time!" Her mother was standing of the porch, looking at her with reproachful brown eyes and crossed arms.
