3

I will continue feeling bad until my attitude improves.

---

"Catori, can you stop messing around and help me make dinner?" Her mother called out. 

Catori gritted her teeth as to not say something back in front of her siblings.

''Catori!" Her mother burst into the room toward her.

Catori stared back at her.

"Get up. You must learn to cook. And don't you dear say you already know how to. There is never such a thing as too much." Farrah said. She threw an apron at Catori's head.

Catori sighed but got up. 

She didn't have it in her anymore to argue with her mother, but there was one thing she wanted to say.

"I just hope you don't put Kai through all this nonsense. All this can cause a mental strain on one's mind," Catori told her mother.

Farrah turned to look at Catori. "you have just too much to say, and speaking of which. Kai come, today you'll learn to set the dinner table."

Catori rolled her eyes, "and what of Nuka, what will he be doing?"

Catori and her mother went back and forth, arguing about whether or not a boy should help around the house.

Catori ended her point with, "yes mother, raise a lazy cunt, see if any woman in this day and age will waste their time taking care of a grown baby."

"What's a cunt?" Kai asked.

Farrah's face went red from anger. "Catori Winona Murdoch, I will not stand for this."

Catori bit back a remark, then busied herself with cutting some carrots.

She showed Kai what to do as well, teaching her how to make the batter for the dinner rolls.

"Nuka, come on over." Catori waved at him.

Farrah gave her a look but Catori ignored her mother's stare, thinking that it is the 21st century and no woman would want a man who can't do things for himself or help out if she's sick. Or not know what to do if he should live by himself.

Catori gave Nuka knives and forks and told him how to place them beside the plates, along with the spoons and drinking glasses.

Nuka did just that, waiting for more instructions.

Lucian walked into the dining room at the same moment dinner was finished. 

He was out busy chopping wood for the fireplace. 

The town's crier had said the days ahead would be harsh.

Courtesy of his daughter's fortune-telling, of course, most times her predictions never came through, and often if it happened, people would say it's luck.

Either way, Lucian still stacked up on firewood. He was one who never liked the cold.

Catori ate in silence as her mother rants on the leaking roof, (which wasn't a leak at all) the pipes were just sweating from the heat of the water they use, and it had happened only once, and about the flooding of the small creek just behind the house.

Catori was the first to get up from around the oval dinner table, not waiting for dessert. She just couldn't listen to her mother's voice anymore, growing more and more annoyed.

Catori noticed it ever since she became thirteen, and as the years went by, most things her mother said and did annoyed her. Maybe it's because Farrah was still set on the olden days.

Her views and thoughts were simple-minded, and her reasoning made no sense. And often it was Farrah's way or no way.

Catori washed her plate, then set off to the bathroom. 

She took care to wash herself and her hair, feeling lighter as she made her way to her bedroom.

Catori settled on her bed, finally getting the time to read the book Sister Angelica gave her.

To her surprise, the pages were blank, except for the page in the exact middle and the two pages that followed.

They were dismaying.

(You must understand that there was not much that we can say. We have been sworn in secrecy to never utter a word. But if you are reading this, then you have been the first in a century to have asked to join our convent.

No, we do not accept newcomers, and we never will. For reasons, we can't even begin to put in words.

All you need to know is that this town is not as it seems, not the people, not the Chief, not even this convent.

Yes, we are a sisterhood, but for a different purpose, always remember that there is more than meets the eye.

If possible, leave as soon as you can.

There are far worse things in the town that our minds can't quite comprehend, so I must implore you, whoever is reading this, to leave before it's too late. Before they return and bring destruction to Desolation.

P.S. Never trust a Murdoch.)

Catori was behind disbelief, shocked by the words but yet pissed that some old so-called Prophet would say something so undermining about her family.

"Why would those nuns give me this?" Catori asked herself, then threw the book across the room.

She knew few people weren’t fond of her father and steered clear of him. 

There was a rumour that he was the rightful Chief of Desolation, but it was nothing more than that.

Lucian never spoke of it, and the history books said all Catori needed to know.

She closed her eyes, listening to the soft creaking of the house, soon fallen into a deep sleep, dreaming that she was in a castle that was in clouds.

****

"Ok, Catori, it's time to get up now," her mother announced as she hurried around the room at half-past ten. She opened the windows and curtains. Light burst into the room, causing Catori to squint and cover her eyes against the morning glare.

"Mom, what are you doing?" Catori asked, feeling groggy as she shielded her eyes with an arm.

"I want you to watch your siblings, your father and I will be going to the Capital today." Her mother replied with her hands resting on her hips.

Catori hugged her pillow to her chest. 

What she would give to visit the Capital.

But she knew her mother would have something silly to say about that.