"Run! Run Jupiter!" Wilfred really wished that Poppy would stop screaming. Poppy was Jupiter's twin sister (Older by about two minutes, something that Jupiter had never heard the end of) and not someone you could easily miss. She was brilliant and bright, but also loud, bossy, and annoying. Like now. No matter how many times you told her it was just a game, she would still shout and scream until you just wished your eardrums would just burst already.

Jupiter was running as fast as he possibly could (Which was extremely fast). And just narrowly missed being hit by the ball as it flew past him from where Victor had thrown it. He tried to slow to skid into home base. But he lost his balance and tumbled head over heels and crashed onto the white marker with a groan. Poppy burst out laughing. Jupiter flung a handful of dust at his sister.

They had picked up Victor and Poppy on the way to the ball field; Poppy had decided that she was done with the girls, who, as she had said, were "Talking about bows and dresses and stuff like that" and Victor had been wandering around the market, clearly having forgotten what in Natalia he had been sent there for. That had made their group six, enough for a sort-of game of baseball.

"Jupiter's turn to bat." Garten said. The 'bat' wasn't really a bat; no, it was just an old broom handle that Perkin had stolen from his grandmother.

"Can we eat first?" Jupiter asked, shielding his eyes against the sun, "It's already high noon." Garten shrugged.

"Suit yourself." Wilfred's older brother glanced down the road, "Where is Bleston today?"

"Holed up inside with his Algebra book." Jupiter responded through a mouthful of sandwich. "Cause' father said he has to finish it by the end of the summer." Bleston was Jupiter's oldest brother, and probably the only good friend that Garten had. He drove a lot of people away with his argumentative personality; but that suited Bleston just fine. He didn't know when to shut up either. He was re-doing his Algebra because his grades had been so low at the end of the school year.

They finished lunch and then Jupiter went up to bat. He was a fairly good hitter; Wilfred wasn't worried. He decided later that he should have been. He was pitching; and he threw Jupiter an easy one. Maybe that was why, it was too easy. Either way, Jupiter full up sent the ball spinning at full speed back towards Wilfred. It smacked hard into the side of his face, just above his eye, and Wilfred toppled to the ground with a sharp cry of pain. He heard pounding feet and risked opening his eyes, only for a flare of pain to shoot up the right side of his face.

"Hey-Hey, Wilfred, are you alright?" Garten shook him. He sat up.

"Yeah-Yeah I'm fine." He tried to open his eyes again, but only one would. Garten looked worried. That was bad. If Garten of all people was worried, that meant that something nasty had happened.

"You can't open your eye." Garten responded, rolling his own. "That's what you call 'fine'?" Wilfred roughly pushed his way up, he was fine, couldn't they see that?

"It's not that bad." The bruise was throbbing. He grabbed his lunch pail.

"Hey, where're you going?" Whittel asked. Wilfred didn't answer. He just pressed his hand to his eye and walked off towards the road, leaving behind his bewildered brothers. The pain was almost making him cry.

It was always quiet in the Votaries' graveyard. As it was meant to be. Wilfred had shoved his way through the market, tripping over fallen produce and carelessly placed wagons, until he finally made it out of the suffocating environment. He hated crowds. They were so oppressive. The cool stone of his grandmother's grave marker felt good. He came here when things got too loud. When home was too tense and too hot and dark to stand.

When Wilfred was about nine years old, his grandmother, Cassia, had died from some sort of stroke. She was the best thing about homelife to Wilfred; she could make any situation better, stop any tears. She had been fiery enough that she didn't take any of what her husband usually dished out, and things had been much better when she was still around. Wilfred stared at the headstone. Things weren't better now. If anything, everything had become so much worse after Cassia had died.

He ripped up a handful of grass and began tearing it into smaller pieces. His eye had settled into a sort of dull throb, not that bad. He'd had worse before. But he cringed at the thought of returning home-not only because of his grandfather, but also because he didn't want to explain why he'd walked off the ball field to Garten and Whittel. Wilfred didn't even fully know himself. He'd just been hurt and angry in the moment and hadn't wanted to talk to anyone about anything. Actually, he probably owed Jupiter and Victor an explanation too.

"You-You are one of the Longtreader boys?" Wilfred looked up and saw one of the blue-robbed votaries. This one was an elderly buck with black speckled grey fur and ears hanging low against his head. Wilfred nodded. Glancing at the grave, the votary moved to sit on a bench a few yards away from Wilfred. "That's your grandmother, isn't it?" He asked, gesturing towards the grave marker. Wilfred nodded. "You must miss her." He nodded again. "You likely don't remember me." The rabbit said, and Wilfred wished he would leave. "But I was the votary who oversaw her funeral." Wilfred stared at his hand full of grass. That had been a bleak, black day.

His Grandmother had been dead for three days. She had lain on the table in the kitchen in preparation for her burial. Wilfred remembered thinking that she looked like some sort of feast being prepared for a bird of prey. Even at the age of nine, he had been aware of what a morbid thought this had been. Whittel had been eight; he had trouble remembering Cassia sometimes. Still, she had lain there, cold and stiff, dressed in all black. Lucy, the youngest Longtreader and only sister, had hobbled downstairs with her crutch every morning to refresh the flowers in the vase beside the dead body. Garten had been mad, Wilfred recalled, mad at everyone. He got into fights at school and was sullen and miserable at home. It had gotten better as it always did. But it had been a rough time.

That had also been when their grandfather's drinking habits had gotten bad. Wilfred had come home from school one day and had been screamed at and then smacked for banging the door too loudly. Whittel had taken to hiding upstairs with Lucy, as far away from their grandfather as he could. But it was the worst for Garten. Impulsive by nature, he was beaten regularly and often more harshly than the rest of them. Wilfred had the idea that their grandfather disliked him the most out of his grandchildren.

"Beautiful day." The Votary remarked. Wilfred nodded. "You'd best run home, boy. There are other deaths that must be attended to." He nodded again and stood. His eye still throbbed. "Leapers bless you." The Votary said in farewell. Wilfred still did not respond.