Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(7)

“We’re going to get a storm tonight, I can feel it.” Lana pushed at the butterscotch-blond hair she’d bundled on top of her head before cooking. “But it’s a perfect evening for eating outside. Go ahead and drain those potatoes I’ve got parboiling.”

Fallon sulked over to the stove. “Why do you always have to do the cooking?”

Lana gently shook a covered bowl. Inside slices of peppers fresh from the garden marinated. “Your dad’s grilling tonight,” she reminded Fallon.

“You made everything first.” With that stuck in her craw, Fallon dumped chunks of potatoes into the colander in the sink. “Why doesn’t Dad or Colin or Travis make it all?”

“They help, just like you. Ethan, too—he’s learning. But to answer the point of your question: I like to cook. I enjoy making food, especially for my family.”

“What if I don’t?” Fallon whirled around, a tall, long-limbed girl currently all stormy-gray eyes and defiant scowl. “What if I just don’t want to cook? Why do I have to do things I don’t want to do?”

“Because we all do. Lucky for you, on next week’s rotation you move from under chef to cleanup. I need you to season those potatoes for the grill basket. I already chopped the herbs.”

“Fine, great.” She knew the drill. Olive oil, herbs, salt, pepper.

Just as she knew they had the oil and spices because her mother and a witch from a neighboring farm had culled out three acres, and had cast a spell to turn it into the tropics. They’d planted olive trees, Piper nigrum for pepper, coffee beans, banana trees. Figs, dates.

Her dad had worked with others to construct olive presses for the oils, dryers for the fruits.

Everyone worked together, everyone benefited. She knew that.

And still.

“Why don’t you go ahead and take those out, tell your dad to start the chicken?”

Leading with her foul mood, Fallon stomped out of the house. Lana watched her daughter, her own summer-blue eyes clouding. She thought: More than one storm’s coming.

They ate at the big outdoor table her father had built, using colorful plates, with bright blue napkins and wildflowers in little pots.

Her mother believed in setting a pretty table. She let Ethan light the candles with his breath because it always made him laugh. Fallon plopped down beside Ethan. She didn’t consider him as much a pain in her butt as Colin or Travis.

Then again, he was only six. He’d get there.

Simon, his mop of brown hair streaked from the sun, took his seat, smiled at Lana. “It looks great, babe.”

Lana lifted her wine, made from their own grapes. “Credit to the grill master. We’re grateful,” she added, with a glance at her daughter, “for the food grown and made by our own hands. We hope for the day when no one goes hungry.”

“I’m hungry now!” Colin announced.

“Then be grateful there’s food on the table.” Lana set a drumstick—his favorite—on his plate.

“I helped Dad with the grill,” he claimed as he added potatoes, vegetables, an ear of just-shucked corn to his plate. “So I shouldn’t have to do the dishes.”

“That’s not going to fly, son.” Simon filled Travis’s plate as Lana did Ethan’s.

Colin waved his drumstick in the air before biting in. He had his father’s eyes, that hazel that blurred gold and green, hair a few shades darker than his mother’s going bright from the summer sun. As usual, it stood up in tufts that refused taming.

“I picked the corn.”

Travis, already eating steadily, elbowed Colin. “We picked it.”

“Irrelement.”

“Vant,” Simon corrected. “Irrelevant—and it’s not.”

“I picked most of the corn. It should count.”

“Instead of worrying about the dishes—which you will do—maybe you should eat the corn,” Lana suggested as she helped Ethan butter his ear.

“In a free society, everybody has a vote.”

“Too bad you don’t live in one.” Simon gave Colin a poke in the ribs that had Colin flashing a toothy grin.

“The corn is good!” Ethan, though he’d lost a couple of baby teeth, bit his way enthusiastically down the ear. He had his mother’s blue eyes, her pretty blond hair, and the sunniest of dispositions.

“Maybe I’ll run for president.” Colin, never one to be deterred, pushed forward. “I’ll be president of the Swift Family Farm and Cooperative. Then the village. I’ll name it Colinville and never wash dishes again.”

“Nobody’d vote for you.” Travis, nearly close enough in looks to be Colin’s twin, snickered.

“I’ll vote for you, Colin!”

“What if I ran for president, too?” Travis asked Ethan.

“I’d vote for both of you. And Fallon.”

“Leave me out of it,” Fallon rebuked, poking at the food on her plate.

“You can only vote for one person,” Travis pointed out.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“ ‘Because’ is dumb.”

“This whole conversation is dumb.” Fallon flicked a hand in the air. “You can’t be president because, even if there were any real structure of government, you’re not old enough or smart enough.”