"Charlene," Earl called out, the sound muffled by the hat on his unshaven face.

  The rhythmic strokes of the brush stopped. Waiting for a reply, he readjusted his hat, the brim scratching his stubborn stubble.

  "Did ya say somethin' Da?" she gasped, out of breath.

  He was the only one in town who always used her full name, most everybody else called her Charlie.

  "Yeah, I wanted to say...you should take the day off. There's bound to be some people your age down by the tree swing."

  If he could, he would've made her take a month off, but he'd settle for one sweltering afternoon. Not that he was getting his hopes up.

  "Ya kno' I can't do tha! There's too much ta do. After this, there's the washin' for Ms Skvosip, and Fannie needs 'elp wi supper."

  As she started reciting a list of chores, Earl stopped listening. "Didn't you stop working for that Skvosip woman after your last squabble?"

  He knew Charlene'd quit that job more than once. It was the only thing she'd ever quit, but she always went back.

  "Yea, I did, ba I feel sorry for 'er. Ya kno' how she is, and wi her, um...ways," a polite euphemism, "most won't work for 'er, ba she's jus an old lady after all."

  Earl thought of Ms Skvosip as a wolf in old lady's clothing. Or maybe a werewolf that feed on gossip and other people's misery. And that was only because he was too civil to think up something worse.

  "An old lady with a butler! Why can't he do the washing?"

  "Well, she says, 'is job's ta tell the other servants wha' ta do, an' bring in the paper."

  "The ladyship doesn't have any other servants! And there ain't no darned paper in this town, half the folks 'round here can't read." Sometimes he slipped into the contractions of the local accent when agitated.

  Ms Skvosip was known as 'the ladyship' around town. She was famous far and wide for her condescending attitude. The title came from her dropping hints about how she was the child of some noble family nobody'd ever heard about. But she was also the richest person in town and unlike ordinary people she could afford to have ways. The town lickarses would still fawn over her with hands out and drooling mouths hanging open. But if there was one thing Earl said in her favour, it was that she had no more time for the bootlickers than she had for anyone else.

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  He took his hat off his face and straightaway missed the musky smell. All he needed to feel at home was a good hat. Nonetheless, telling his daughter that he cared, the only way he knew how, wasn't something that should be done through a hat. Earl sat up, looking at the striking difference between the two identical desks. Charlene's was littered with crafting projects, while his was empty desk space.

  "You know you don't have to take care of me." It wasn't the first time he'd told her, and it wouldn't be the last.

  "I kno' Da, ba I want ta."

  From the time she could walk, it'd felt like she was taking care of him more than he was of her. As someone who always worried he wasn't doing enough, it made Earl both proud and uncomfortable.

  Charlene came bouncing out of the back, face flushed and apron wet but looking happy. She hung the apron to dry next to the washbasin. The familiar scent of Fenmark hemp-soap spread through the office. The girl looked more like her mother every day. To him, she was the most beautiful thing on Huom. In reality, Charlie was a plain-looking girl, with straight brown hair, brown eyes, and the slightly mannish frame of someone used to doing both her own and other people's chores.

  "Ar'ya goin' to take Rascal wi ya on the hunt?" she asked, interrupting his admiring of her. "I think ya should. He may seem like a tool, ba he's a good boy."

  Earl couldn't detect even a trace of sarcasm when she talked about the so-called dog. To him, Rascal was an 'it', because that seemed a more natural and accurate description.

  "We-e-ell, that thing ain't much use, but I guess I will, in case I need to lay siege to a castle. It'll make a good battering ram," he said, only half joking.

  Rascal was a real force of nature. It'd turned up in town a few months back, and Fannie let it stay in the backroom at Bern's. Running Agalaland's most well-known tavern wasn't a job that blended well with being taken in by sob stories. Still, she'd taken pity on the scruffy looking thing.

  Earl'd never liked asking for favours, but Fannie had a way of making him feel like a schoolboy begging to go to the outhouse. To say he wasn't looking forward to asking to take Rascal was an understatement. But at least he could keep his hat on in Bern's. Otherwise, she'd see how red his ears were whenever they spoke.

  Besides it'd been the girls' idea that he should train Rascal. So, this wasn't exactly a favour as much as a test of its usefulness. She wouldn't buy that, of course, but it was worth a try. Fannie'd never met a squabble she didn't like, and he was sort of the same. But it also meant that depending on her mood, she might refuse to give him Rascal just to watch him squirm.

  "Do ya want mi to ask Ms Skvosip 'bout usin' the horse?" Charlene asked, standing by the door.

  "Yes, please and thank you, but I still think it's dumb that the marshal's office doesn't have its own horse!"

  "Yup, I'll see ya at dinner." She slipped out before he had a chance to say anything else.

  Whatever Earl thought of the ladyship, she'd never refused them the free use of her rental horses — on the condition they asked first, a task he was more than happy to delegate. He'd even started to think of the one he used as his horse. So, he'd given it a name, Hoof-hearted. Almost as if he'd known Ms Skvosip had stopped renting it out to other people.