Much as Mary was glad to see Simon made it, she squeezed him a little harder in warning. If anyone was likely to turn her beloved children off the righteous path – it was Simon. The boy was trouble, and didn’t have Ben’s fear of God to rein him in proper.

But he invoked Matthew, and her son backed him up. He looked and sounded more like Paul every day. Matthew, on the other hand, still had the occasional awful bouts of coughs ever since he could barely walk. It was a miracle he’d made it through at all! Paul had been home a lot more often at night during that (even though she’d been pregnant! he always disappeared when she was pregnant) and they’d managed to scrounge the money up for some belladonna smokes to clear it up.

She cast a suspicious look Luke’s way (was Simon being a bad influence?) … but to their immense fortune, Matthew let out a round of coughs. She raced over to the cabinet. Matthew cast a look over his shoulder to Luke and Simon that distinctly implied a new debt to him.

“Sorry, Aunt Hannah, you’re right!” Matthew called back to her, and did as bid.

His voice sounded remarkably clear for “a cough”.

Eighty-one, eighty-two, eighty-..!

Lory squawked and windmill-slapped Simon’s hands away with her pen still clutched. She grimaced, putting her quill pen back in its stand, capping the well, and arching away from her homework lest she get it wet. A few drops strayed onto it, anyway.

“Simon! You’re so gross!”

God. He was so full of himself. One day he was going to piss off the wrong person.

She didn’t like Simon, but at the same time he often felt like the lowest-stakes relative to deal with. The rest demanded an elaborate ruse. She took off the hat and chucked it in the rest of their dirty garments. Rolled her eyes and mouthed along to Luke’s complaint as she sunk back into her seat, raking wet hands on the sides of her dry skirt.

God damn it, Simon. She’d lost count!

Tom laughed at Lory's angre, but his mother shouted over the noisy room: "Simon Ward! Yer gonna make 'er catch a cold!" But that concern had clearly been overlooked by aunt Mary.

Simon was quick to strip and change as soon as he got upstairs. He was chilled to the bone. "There's the fisherman's life for ye," he responded to his cousin. "Jesus Christ." He had gotten into the habit of swearing lately, because he loved the thrill of knowing it was a terrible thing and doing it anyway. He did it quietly enough not to be heard downstairs though. "I swear I'll be on me way to the Teeside before the weather clears up enough to go back out there. Stuff fishing."

"E's been sayin' that for over a year now, and e's still 'ere," commented Tom as he appeared through the trap door. "When are ye gonna tell -," Simon's wet sock hit him in the face.

The noise of the howling wind increased all of a sudden and turned quiet again, indicating that the door had been opened and closed.

"Why, Amy, ye shouldn't 'ave come out in weather like this," came Hannah's voice. Tom stopped with his guernsey still on his arms and turned to face the trap door.

"Sorry, Mrs. Ward," came a pleasant girl's voice. "I just wanted to make sure Tom - all yer men returned safely."

Simon turned to Luke quietly, brought his fingertips together, and then brought both hands together repeatedly to imitate two kissing faces.

Lory felt her eyes water against her will when she heard even Tom ganging up on her. Tom! Oh, she hoped he drowned! … No! She didn’t hope such a thing that she had just hoped! She knew he’d drown! Him, Simon, Luke, the whole lot of them for being so careless! Lory slapped her hands together and prayed:

“Dear Lord, forgive my cousins, for they are young and do not understand their actions.”

She was twelve.

Lory eyed Amy as she let her hands drop once more. She was so pretty. So dumb.

Her mother busied herself fretting over Matthew, who humored it with a long-suffering smile.