Summer came suddenly, the way it does in hill country: one week cold and grey, the next blazing with heat.
The twins had grown. Not much, they were still small enough to fit in their baskets, but enough that Darwin had started trying to escape his.
Marcus had learned to hold his head up, to reach for things with deliberate precision, to make sounds that were almost words. Bah. Mah. And a particular grunt that seemed to mean give me that.
Darwin had learned to roll. And once he learned to roll, he never stopped.
The nursery floor became a battlefield. Darwin would spot something, a toy, a shadow, Lucia's shoe, and immediately begin his determined journey toward it, rolling and squirming and occasionally getting stuck on his back like an upended turtle.
Marcus watched these attempts in silence. Mrs. Hale said it was probably just the way some babies were, content to observe. But Lucia sometimes caught herself wondering what he was looking at. What he saw that she couldn't.
Leo was different, lately.
The other children noticed. Not because he had changed in any dramatic way. He still looked the same, still talked the same. But he had stopped joining their games. Stopped sitting with them at meals.
He was always with the twins now. Or with Lucia. Or watching the fence line like he expected something to come over it.
Two of the older boys, his former friends.
The first was a wall of a boy, taking up most of the hallway. His jaw was set hard, like he was chewing on a stone, and his hands opened and closed at his sides in a rhythm that had nothing to do with patience.
Behind him lurked a shadow. Thinner. Eyes darting between his friend and Leo, waiting.
"You walking away again?" the big one asked. Charlie.
The shadow, Miller, let out a sharp, dry laugh, an echo waiting for a sound to bounce off of. He watched Charlie to see if he should keep laughing.
Leo didn't stop. He knew the cadence of their footsteps. He knew the way Charlie took up space and the way Miller tried to fill the gaps he left behind.
"I'm busy," Leo said.
"You're always busy." Charlie stepped sideways, blocking the light. The familiarity in his voice had curdled.
Now they watched him with something that looked like resentment.
Leo didn't explain. He didn't apologize. He simply stepped around them, brushing shoulders with Charlie hard enough to make the bigger boy stumble, and didn't look back.
He left the laughter and the shouting of the main yard behind. He walked to the south side of the house, where the stone walls blocked the wind and the noise of the other children faded into a dull hum.
The silence here was better. It didn't ask him for anything.
----
Mrs. Hale positioned a wicker carriage in a patch of sunlight in the garden. The twins lay inside, blinking up at leaves and sky.
Leo perched on the porch railing nearby, his long legs swinging.
Charlie and Miller were playing in the mud, thirty feet away. Close enough to be heard. Far enough to pretend they weren't watching.
"You're doing it again," Lucia said, settling onto the porch step beside him.
Leo shifted over to make room for her.
"Doing what?"
"Staring at the fence like something's going to jump over it."
"I'm just watching."
"You're always watching now. You and me both." She pulled her knees up to her chest. Her braid had come undone again, it was always coming undone. "Charlie's mad at you, you know. You used to play with him."
"Charlie's an idiot."
"He used to be your friend."
Leo shrugged. The back of his neck prickled whenever he looked at the tree line.
"I have different priorities now," he said.
Lucia was quiet for a moment. Then, softly: "Yeah. Me too."
He glanced at her. She wasn't looking at the fence. She was looking at the carriage where the twins lay sleeping.
He almost said something. Almost asked if she worried about them too: the twins, the marks on their foreheads, the way everyone whispered. But he didn't know how to put it into words, so he just sat there, watching the fence, while she sat beside him.
Charlie noticed Leo watching. Something in his expression shifted, hurt turning to mockery.
"Look at the nanny boy!" Charlie called, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Guarding his little treasures." He scooped up a handful of mud. His eyes flicked to the carriage. "Maybe I want to see if the babies like mud-"
He threw.
Leo was off the porch before he knew he was moving. He crashed into Charlie mid-throw, knocking the mud aside, and shoved him hard in the chest.
Charlie stumbled backward and fell, landing in the mud with a wet splat. His eyes went wide with shock.
"What the-"
"Don't." Leo stood over him, fists clenched. His heart was pounding. "Don't ever go near them again."
Miller scrambled back, hands up. "We weren't going to-"
"Yes you were."
Mrs. Hale was coming at a run, her kerchief flying.
"What in heaven's name is going on here?"
"He was going to throw mud at the babies," Leo said. His voice was shaking. He couldn't make it stop.
"So you knock him down?" She pulled Charlie to his feet, brushing mud off his shirt. "Get inside. Now. Both of you."
She pointed at Leo. "You. Stay right there."
Behind them, the twins lay in their carriage, oblivious. Darwin had found his own foot and was trying to put it in his mouth. Marcus was staring at the sky, quiet as always.
----
In the kitchen, Leo sat with his head in his hands.
Mrs. Hale had delivered her lecture, reckless, dangerous, you could have really hurt him, and left. Now it was just him and Lucia, and the silence.
"You shouldn't have done that," Lucia said quietly.
"He was going to throw at them."
"I know. But now Charlie hates you even more. And Mrs. Hale thinks you're losing your temper."
Leo didn't look up. "I don't care what they think."
Lucia sat down across from him. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
"Why do you care so much?" she asked finally. "About the twins, I mean. They're just babies. They're not even ours."
Leo was quiet for a long moment. His hands curled into fists on the table, then slowly uncurled.
"I was six when I came here," he said. "Do you know that?"
Lucia shook her head.
"I don't remember much. Just... pieces. A house. A fire. My mother screaming for me to run." He swallowed hard. "I ran. And I kept running until I couldn't anymore. Miss Ingrid found me on the road three days later. I don't know how I survived."
Lucia didn't say anything. She just listened.
"Nobody protected me," Leo said quietly. "When the fire came, when everything was falling apart, I was alone. I was six years old and I was alone." He looked up at her, and his eyes were bright. "I look at those babies, and I think about what's out there. The whispers. The marks. The way Miss Ingrid watches the fence at night. And I think: what if something comes for them? What if they end up like me? Small and scared and nobody coming to help?"
His voice cracked on the last word. He looked away.
"So that's why," he said. "Because I know what it feels like. And I won't let that happen to them. I won't."
The kitchen was very quiet.
Then Lucia reached across the table and put her hand over his.
"You're not alone anymore," she said. "And neither are they. We'll protect them together."
Leo looked at her hand on his. He didn't pull away.
"Together," he said.
They sat like that for a moment.