𝙼𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝙷𝚢𝚖𝚗 | 𝙱𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝙸

Act I | Chapter I

. Brewing Storm .

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Snow howled violently in the closing-in dusk, the chill of the air feeling colder by the second. It left her toes, which were layered beneath several pairs of socks, numb to the sensations of tapping her feet out of boredom.

Shaking like a dying leaf in the breeze, Jane stared down at her journal on the table. Its pages haven't recently felt the caress of a pencil, because she'd drawn everything Ewing Basin has to offer.

"Mother, when was father supposed to come here again? I feel like he's forgotten about us," she asked, her question fading into a murmur as doubt settled over her chilled form.

"Any day, sweetheart. Any day from now."

"I can't recall the last time I have seen his face. Or heard his voice..." Jane murmured, frowning into the fireplace to her right as her form faced the blank journal. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if he left us for dead—"

"Jane you be quiet about that nonsense, you hear? Your daddy is a fine..." Her mother faltered, seeming to have trouble believing the very words she spoke. "He's a fine man. He takes care of us best he can."

"It ain't honest work, Mother, and you know it! I don't know of another man who kills for money and power like he does. And it makes me sick that I'm being taken care of at such costs!" Jane fussed, standing up briskly with a sudden fire in her eyes. Tension flared between the two women, eyes filled with a simmering rage that has been building for the past few months.

Jane took a deep breath and looked down at the journal by her hand. Shutting it slowly with the gentility one would have with a newborn child, Jane murmured, "I hate living like this, Mother. You know I do."

"It's only until your father is able to disappear from the law. You know how your daddy has them government agents breathing down his neck," her mother countered coolly, returning to her knitting.

"That doesn't mean the government is breathing down ours! I'm sick of freezing every night in this godforsaken weather, and not seeing a single blade of green grass like I grew up seeing! I hardly consider him my father since he rarely visits, anyways..."

"Jane, you take that back right now!" Her mother slammed the knitting tools and the ball of woolen yarn on the table.

"You know it, Mama! You know I'm right! I can't even imagine him being the same father I had as a small child—"

"Enough!"

"—And ever since he killed that man's lover, and my uncle died in a boiling vengeance, I feel it won't be long before we fall into the crossfire next!"

"I said ENOUGH!"

Before another word could be uttered, the door to their little cabin there at the O'Driscoll camp opened wide, the blistering snow swirling inside as if desperate to melt.

The metal jingle of spurs pierced through the air, Jane knowing immediately by the weight of the stride that her father has returned. Jane looked to her mother, her brown hair concealing her face from her father like a curtain. The tension in the small cabin was so thick that a machete couldn't even cut through it.