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A tired George called out, “Anna, can you come over here!?”

The child with her short black hair quickly shoved a notebook into a hole in her bed and jumped off it.

“Yes, I’m coming.”

It was the second month of the new year and Anna was now nine years old.

She was still short for her age, but she had grown a good five cemeteries since she was seven.

Syrus asked, “Here, what’s up?”

As she entered the main living room she saw George was waiting outside the open front door.

“We need your help moving some wood, we need to deliver it to Elly’s house.” He tapped on some wood outside her field of view.

Anlesa walked outside to see a massive pile of wood of recently chopped trees reaching her height right outside the door.

[Wow… why is there so much….] (Lilly)

[Did they do this before we woke up?] (Luna)

[Who cares, we got a job to do.] (Syrus)

Luna calmly asked, “That is the house on the far end of the village right?”

“Yep, and you better start quick.” George gave Anna a scratch on the head.

Lilly asked, “What will you be doing?”

“Helping you of course, then we can be done and lay on our arses again.”

From a short distance in the forest, the duo heard, “LANGUAGE!”

“Why do her ears work so well…” Said George.

Syrus shrugged, “No idea.”

Luna suggested, “She was probably waiting for it.”

George sighed, “Yeah, you’re probably right… She knows me too well.”

Anna replied, “Congrats on being happily married.” And she walked off to the pile of wood.

Syrus had done a lot of work to improve the body. Through a healthy amount of exercise and enhancing the body with her Blood attribute they were stronger than average for their age. Not by a crazy degree, but enough that the other kids were impressed.

[Well, this will be a nice exercise.] (Syrus)

[Not again…] Lilly sighed, as she prepared for the pain after this workout.

[Get used to it already, otherwise, you won’t be able to properly think when we do real hard work.] (Syrus)

The pain Anna’s body felt was transmitted to all of them, Syrus and Luna had always been good at dealing with it, but Eva was still bad at dealing with any level of pain.

During the third round trip of delivering logs, the pile next to their house was refilled by Jen and George got slightly distracted by a neighbour.

“Morning Albert.”

“Good morning George.”

Anna ignored the conversation and continued hauling logs. No one would’ve fault her for stopping and just watching the conversation, but it was a 2 vs 1 vote, and Syrus and Luna would rather keep working for the time being.

George asked, “You’ve begun the prep work?”

“Haha, of course!” Albert laughed, “It’s been a long ten years since last time, and I’ve been improving my recipe all this while.”

“Well good luck, you're going to need it.”

“Haha, yeah I know, Henry is already bragging about cooking his prized cake again. If I want to compete, I need to somehow beat that.”

“Scared?”

“Of course! But I am also damn bloody excited!”

Soon after an hour of lifting, they were finally finished with the job.

Anna plopped down on the wooden seat dragged out from their house, “Phew, that’s done. Anything else that needs my help?”

“No sweeties, you’ve done wonders today.” Complimented Jen.

“Good, I’ll just stay inside for a bit then, is that alright?”

“Yes, of course, you need to get proper rest, you're still growing.”

Anna rolled her eyes, “Okay.” Smiled and walked back inside and they went to their room.

They were back in their room, which had changed slightly. Instead of the cloth that separated the rooms, there was a proper wooden wall for privacy. It was a project that the family worked on for a simple family bonding project. Jen and George felt Anna deserved a little bit of privacy to talk to herself, because of this it didn’t have a window outside which was a little annoying for Luna but they made do–the other benefits were too good to pass up.

[Back to writing.] (Lilly)

Luna and Syrus felt Eva’s joy as she jumped back on the bed, just so she could continue to plan out in their notebook. It was a gift they got for their 8th birthday and they were allowed to keep it private from their parents. Initially, they didn’t trust that statement, but after a year and with a few traps they placed they realised Jen and George never looked into it.

[Please don’t fill another page, we are running out of space.] (Luna)

[My writing is tiny, it takes me ages to fill a page.] (Lilly).

The handwriting changed from page to page, with small notes, suggestions and comments written up the side in one of three different writing styles. The notebook contained a lot of things. Plans they had, random thoughts, and theories and suspects.

The last two years had been fun but mostly uneventful. They tried to investigate what they could about the poisoning incident, and went on multiple trips with their parents to check nothing had poisoned the river again, but their leads were still mostly non-existent.

[So the merchant Jenny, annoying name, too similar, seems to be the unlikely suspect. New evidence against their involvement–finding out they are Henry’s cousin and through questioning, is an idiot–]

With Lilly lost in her own thoughts again, Syrus asked, [Should we help her find a new hobby?]

[We tried…] (Luna)

[I think we should try again…. Soon.] (Syrus)