Annette lived alone in a house made of sod that was halfway dug out of the hillside, and she was happy that way. At least that's what she told herself.
Her husband had been killed years ago as punishment for her sins. They had never had children. She had endured many punishments for her many sins. She never bothered to ask herslef if it was ever enough. She simply assumed, without consciously thinking it, that it never was.
Annette mostly preferred to be left alone. She went to church every Sunday in town without fail, and she shopped there for whatever basic food and items she required, which were quite few.
She was cordial to everyone, but the never came to her house, and she did not care for them to. Except the children. Annette welcomed the children. She would feed them and tell them stories of her youth. Though always, interesting, funny, or harrowing, she would never tell the stories she knew they wanted to hear: the stories of shooting, and of killing. She kept those locked in her own heart, which she knew was where they needed to stay.
She did not teach any of them how to shoot. She knew the monster she could be was restrained by a fragile rope, and she feared that even to hold a gun again would be like dangling a slab of meat in front of that monster. Besides, their own mothers should be the ones to teach them something like that, not some crazy old lady.
One summer though, it all changed.
