Marianne watched as Aziz helped the struggling Rania enter her house. She and Andre thought if they came here, they could avoid another invasion of these people. But here they are, invading her sanctuary. Ready to destroy her family’s lives again.

  “Is there anywhere she can sit right away? I’m afraid today was too much for her,” Aziz asked.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Marianne asked accusingly, ignoring the question.

  “She has the sleeping sickness, doesn’t she?” Eleanor asked, having entered right behind the newly arrived couple.

  Rania nodded her head and said, “We couldn’t let them know. They would have kept me on the ship and made Aziz do something awful.”

  Eleanor nodded her own head in response.

  Marianne ranted, “Not only do they stick me with two fucking -“.

  Eleanor interrupted with a cough and glared at Marianne.

  Marianne frowned and continued, “two fucking newcomers, now I’ll have to nursemaid one of them.”

  “I won’t make you nursemaid me. Aziz can do whatever I need. And I’m hoping I can help with Pierre and Genevieve so you can be more productive. It has to be hard doing this all alone. And I suspect Pierre is getting quite a streak of insolence right now.”

  “How’d you know that?” Marianne snapped.

  “I’m the youngest of five girls. I’ve helped with raising all my sisters’ kids. Aya, the second oldest of us, had a pair just like them when I left. Can I ask what happened to their father?”

  “My HUSBAND, Andre, died just over a year ago,” Marianne snapped.

  “What happened?” Rania asked.

  “The official report says he fell off the cliff.”

  “Mar, you need to tell her the truth,” Eleanor said.

  “You don’t believe the report?” Rania asked. “Are all the officials like Jacques?”

  Eleanor laughed, and asked, “Did they meet Jacques Piton? That’s a bad start, even by the standards set by the council.”

  “Yeah, he was the other half of the ‘welcoming’ party. He couldn’t even remember my fucking name. Even after I corrected him,” Marianne said disparagingly.

  “He did seem pretty useless. It was obvious you had no use for him, but he never noticed,” Rania said. “Were you going to tell me what you think happened to Andre?”

  “Something climbed up the cliff from the jungle and took him when he was repairing the fence. The fence that something very strong had broken,” Marianne said. “The council knows it’s true, but won’t admit it because they’re afraid the foundation will stop sending more settlers.”

  “How do you know they know?”

  “Because they gave me a plasma rifle to protect myself. I’m the only settler to have one. Some days, I’m tempted -“

  “Mar! Behave yourself!” Eleanor snapped.

  Aziz, who had been standing by quietly, finally spoke up, “What would you like me to do to help? And what are we supposed to be doing with ourselves?”

  “You’ll need to do all the prep work for your house. That’s going to be hard to do by yourself,” Marianne said.

  “I can work hard,” Aziz responded. “I’ll do whatever is needed.”

  “You better. The council is not going to be happy once they’ve found out she’s sick. If you fall behind, they’ll yank that farm from you,” Marianne replied.

  “I should go help Henri,” Eleanor said. “Can you stay well behaved, Mar?”

  “I promise to behave.”

  “Then I’m out of here,” Eleanor said. Turning to the newcomers, she added, “It was nice to meet you. Mar’s not as awful as she seems. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon. I’m over here regularly.”

  She slipped out the door. A moment later, they heard hoof steps heading up the road.

  The room is quiet for a few minutes as they all pondered what to say next. Their discomfort is relieved when Pierre wandered in, rubbing his eyes. Looking only at his mother, he asked, “Did Aunt Eleanor leave?”

  “Yes, she had to go back to help Uncle Henri with Jean-Luc and Bertrand,” Marianne said softly. “Did you have a good nap, mon caneton?”

  “Yes, but I heard lots of voices - “ The boy stopped suddenly as he noticed Aziz and Rania. “Who are you?”

  “I told you, Pierre,” Marianne explained, “We’re having guests staying with us. This is Aziz and Rania. They’ll be our new neighbors when their house is built. Until then, they’ll live with us.”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Rania spoke, “Bonjour, Pierre. Did you have fun with Aunt Eleanor? What’d you do?”

  “Once Genevieve went to sleep, we played hide and go seek. But she’s not very good, so I always won. She’s too big to hide behind the chair.”

  “What’s your best hiding place?”

  “I can hide under the sink. She never finds me there, at least not until I giggle.”

  “Sounds like you’re very good at that game.”

  “I always win. Except when Momma is angry or needs me. Then she always finds me.”

  Marianne signaled to Rania that she’s going into a bedroom. Rania looked up and nodded to her. As she left the room, she heard Rania’s next question. “Your momma must stay very busy. Do you do anything to help her with the farm?” She couldn’t hear Pierre’s response, but she knew what it would be. He was so proud of feeding the goats, even if it’s more playing with them than actually feeding them.

  Genevieve gurgled playfully in her crib as her mother approached. Marianne opened her shirt and gave the youngster a chance to feed. As she sat nursing the child, Marianne came to a realization. As much as she disliked the pair of them, she could already tell that Rania could be trusted with the children. And she could take Aziz this afternoon to do a bunch of chores that really needed two, ones that were not even possible with Eleanor here because one of them needed to keep an eye on the little ones.

  ++++++

  Marianne decided to start with fixing the door to the barn. Given the cliff, she’d feel better keeping the goats closed in overnight. Someone to hold the door in place while she reattached the hinges. The door wasn’t all that heavy, although it wasn’t light; the bigger issue was the awkwardness of holding it in place without it wiggling.

  To his credit, Aziz held it motionless for far longer than it should have taken Marianne to attach the hinges. She could see that he was struggling to hold it, his muscles had to be screaming at him. But he never complained and he never let it wobble. She was thankful for that, the whole thing was being ornery enough without the door wiggling as she worked.

  Once they had the door attached, Marianne led Aziz back to the house, eager to check on her children. They both greeted her happily.

  Rania said, “As long as we're all here, should we deal with dinner? How would you like that to work?”

  “Can you eat our food? I heard Aziz say that Halal is more than just no pork.”

  “We can eat any vegetarian food. I assume you slaughter your goats and chickens for meat?” Rania asked.

  “This is a farm,” Marianne responded curtly.

  “If one of us can be there to say a short prayer to Allah while you slaughter one, I think we’re willing to consider that Halal. The other big ones are nothing made from blood and nothing made from pork,” Rania explained. “Tonight I think we can probably just eat some sides you have. Beyond tonight, we can use our rations for Halal meat until your current meat is gone. Then we should be able to share, I suspect. We did bring some spices with us if you like harissa. But how do we want to share the cooking?”

  “I was expecting to share the cooking,” Marianne stated pointedly, “But I’m not sure you’ll be able to carry your load.”

  Rania shook her head no, “I don’t expect so. But Aziz is a very good cook and he’ll do our share. Maybe I can cook once a week, on a day when the kids are really easy.” There was resignation and sadness in her voice.

  “Do you think it would work if you cook dinner three times a week and we cook four times a week,” Aziz suggested. "It’s Tuesday today and it’s probably easiest if you cook tonight. So you get dinner Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and we get the other days.”

  “That should work and seems relatively fair. Something similar for breakfast I guess.”

  Marianne prepared dinner while Rania entertained the children. She was happy to see they'd already bonded with her.

  “You can sleep out here on the couch,” she told her guests after the kids were in bed.

  ++++++

  Marianne decided to survey the fence in the morning. She hated doing it now with Pierre. It was just too tempting for him. This would be much easier with Rania caring for the kids, even when Aziz was doing work on his own farm. But she also felt obligated to show Aziz what the cliff was.

  When they got to the back of her property, Aziz leaned on the fence, which was a meter back from the cliff, and peered over the edge as best as he could. The tree canopy, with its red and green leaves, was well below.

  “I think it’s about 300 meters to the top of the canopy at its closest point,” Marianne explained as he looked impressed.

  “Could something really crawl up that?”

  “I think you can still see some of the marks. See what you think.”

  As they walked further down, Marianne suddenly stopped in her tracks and went white. She just pointed up ahead as she pulled her rifle off her shoulder, readying it to fire.

  “What?” Aziz asked.

  “That rail is broken. It wasn’t broken yesterday. It’s back.”

  “Those rails seemed solid. How hard would they be to break?”

  “Very hard. I don’t think the two of us working together could break one. I’m not sure my horse is strong enough to break one.”

  “What could break it then?”

  “Nothing we know of. Come on.”

  Marianne turned back towards the barn.

  “Are we going to leave that?”

  “No, YOU are going to fix it. But we need a new rail and I have some at the barn.”

  As they carried the rail back to the break in the fence, Aziz asked, “Am I in danger doing this?”

  “Probably. But I’ll keep my rifle ready. I'm a very good shot. If I fire, drop what you’re doing and run away from the cliff as fast as you can.”

  “Can I trust you?”

  “I hate you both, but I hate that thing far more. I don’t want to feed it, even with you.”

  Aziz gulped, but said nothing else.

  As he approached the cliff, she ordered him to wait. She crouched into position slightly off to the side, less than ten meters from the cliff.

  “I need to be ready to fire. I should have a clear view from here,” she said. “Go ahead and replace the rail. Pull out the old ones first, then put the new one in. Don’t linger after that. I will stay here until you are well clear.”

  Aziz nodded and moved forward, laying the new rail beside the fence. He pulled the first broken half out then the second. Finally, he slid the far end of the rail in before raising the near end. Just as he did, she pulled the trigger.

  The unmistakable scream of a plasma rifle rang out. An instant later, an ear deafening screech could be heard. The screech was the loudest noise Marianne had heard in her life. She wondered if they could hear it all the way in the village.

  They could hear the screech fading away for several seconds until a deafening crash happened as if a very large object had fallen from a great height onto the canopy. At that point, Marianne looked at Aziz, who was still standing by the fence. He had finished putting the new rail in. And he was now picking up the two broken rail pieces.

  She waved him frantically back and shouted, “Get back from there!”

  He ran back to her, carrying the two pieces of the old rail.

  He said something, but she couldn’t hear him. Her ears were still ringing from the screech.

  She turned to look at his face. Now she could read his lips to make out his words, “You got it!”

  She made sure he was looking at her as she said, “I just winged it. I must have surprised it enough for it to fall.”