The Big Move

"God, I really fucking love Texas!" Rosie said around a mouthful of beef.

"Rosie!" Mini chided her, "Don't curse."

"You only get bothered by cursing when you're in a really specific mood! It's not fair. How am I supposed to know when you feel like a sailor and when you don't?"

"Ugh…" she sighed. "Fine. I'll try to be more consistent. But, as a general rule, cursing is just something that we do when we feel violent. Saying a curse word or two is better than throwing an unnecessary punch."

Interesting philosophy… It was probably something that Mom had told her at some point. Eminney was always quoting Mom and Dad. Or, at least Jace said she always was. Rosie didn't really remember what kind of stuff her parents used to say. She remembers their faces and their voices. Especially when they would sing. That was her favorite. Her dad's voice was so low sometimes that she couldn't hear it and he would hug her to his chest so that she could feel him singing instead of hear him. She used to fall asleep like that a lot.

"Thanks for the steak, Em." Jace muttered, placing his plate on the floor in front of him.

"Thanks for killing it." Eminney returned.

"Still need to show you how to butcher it properly." Rosie began, "I told you I would do it for you."

"You don't like my butchering skills, Rose?" Jace placed a hand over his heart in a show of mock offense.

"You cleaved the best part into little squares to turn it into ground beef! That's what you're supposed to do with the not tender parts. The good stuff you make into filet cuts."

"You must admit that Rosie's cuts are choice." Eminney pointed out, sticking more meat into her mouth. "Somehow, even after the cattle all transmutated into super cows, she knows how to butcher a hunk of beef like no other."

Rosie smiled and continued eating. She admitted she enjoyed the praise. It was well deserved. There had never been a knife in her hand she didn't know what to do with. She often wondered where on Earth she picked it up from. Neither of her parents had been particularly knife savvy from what she remembered. Just natural skill, she supposed. Well, now she was just getting big headed. She had to stop.

She hoisted herself up and took her two siblings plates and tossed them in the sink. The jury rigged water pump system that Jace had set up there was broken, so she couldn't do dishes. It was fine by her. She lit a few more candles around the house so that they could see when they made their way to their rooms later and walked back to the living room. She plopped down on the floor beside her brother and laid down closing her eyes.

It was too quiet. They were talking earlier right? She opened her eyes again. Em and Jace were looking at her. She sighed. "Alright. What is it?"

"I found a place we can go." Eminney said with a level stare.

Rosie immediately met her eyes with a defiant glare of her own. "I am not leaving."

"We have to, Rosie." Jace pleaded. "We will die if we stay. We don't have anything left here. Our water supply is running out and I can't find anymore fresh water near here. Plus, food is growing sparse. Today's hunt was a lucky catch."

"How will Mom and Dad find us if they come back and we're gone?!" It was a weak argument, but it was damn well good enough for Rosie to hold onto it with everything she had.

"Listen," Eminney tried to soothe her, "If we don't leave, all they'll find if they come back is our dead bodies. We've held off leaving for too long already. We have to go."

Rosie's face fell further and further until she finally just fell back against the floor and closed her eyes again, trying not to think of her mother and father hunting forever for them but never finding anything.

"Rosie, I know a way we can leave and they might still be able to find us." Rosie sat back up at this, but was still skeptical as she looked at her sister. "I found old letters the other day in some of Mom's stuff. They were letters from Aunt Emily and Aunt Bethanney."

This made Rosylynn's ears perk a bit as she heard this and it piqued her interest. She had heard a lot about her aunts from her sister and her mom, but never actually met them.

"In the letters they talk about this place that they would all meet up if they were ever in desperate need or in trouble. Apparently Mom and our aunts stockpiled provisions for months in this place and kept it hidden there under a serious lock and key type situation so that it couldn't be stolen."

What the hell? This was starting to sound like some Treasure Island X-marks-the-spot crap. But, it was definitely interesting. And, if Eminney was right, it would save them and their parents would still be able to find them. She might even get to meet her aunts for the first time.

"So, where is this place?" Rosie asked.

Eminney smiled, seeing that Rosie might actually be willing to cooperate. "It's at the place where Mom and our aunts first met."

"Where is that?"

Eminney scurried to the bookshelf and pulled out a familiar, old, worn, blue leather-bound book with metallic colored lettering and a big oval crest on the cover.

"The Geneva School of Boerne…"

"What were their names again…?" Jace asked half-heartedly. He didn't really care all that much. There wasn't even a one hundred percent chance that they would even meet their… cousins? No, that's weird. They weren't biologically related. Mom had earned 'sister' status with their parents through their close relationships with each other. Their kids had earned no status by him other than maybe 'long-lost acquaintances.' The only reason he wanted to know their names was so that he could put some names to the fuzzy, adolescent, drooling faces that were presented to him in his memories of their last meeting. A meeting that supposedly took place when he was eleven: seven years ago. It really didn't seem that long ago.

Em sighed. "Bethanney and Preston's children are fraternal twins named Alaska and Charlie."

"Wait," Rose looked up from her book and interjected with a quizzical look, "Charlie and Alaska?… Is Charlie a boy or is Charlie short for Charlotte? And Alaska? Is that a girl?"

Em laughed at this. "Yes, Charlie is a boy and Alaska is a girl. They're both Jace's age. Do you remember them, Jace?"

Jace thought back for a little while. "Were they the brunette twins? The girl was really loud and the guy was all standoffish?"

"That's them." Eminney smirked. "Mom always said Alaska reminded her a lot of Bethanney."

"What kind of name is Alaska anyway?" Rosie jumped back into the conversation once more.

Eminney looked slightly puzzled at this for a moment. "I can't really remember. I think it has something to do with a book reference or a character from a book or something. You can ask her when you meet her, I guess."

"So, what about the other ones?" Jace asked Eminney again, "There were others. What were their names?"

"Emily and Joe's kids are Alyosha, Ashling, and Phineas." Eminney listed them off on her fingers.

Again, Rosie briefly interupted. "ALYOSHA? What? What gender is that one?"

Jace ignored her. "I remember Phineas." He began, "My nickname for him was 'The Littlest Emo Kid.' He had really dark hair and he would hide all the time and never smiled or talked."

"Jace!" Em scolded him, "Please do not ever call him 'The Littlest Emo!' He's not emo. He's just shy and really introverted. He was a brilliant kid. I really liked him. You just have to get to know him."

"Looking forward to it…" Jace trailed off as a large, dirty stone that had apparently once served as a sign came into view over the steering wheel in his hands. He pulled to the side of the road right in front of the sign. He looked around and surveyed the area before he quickly opened the door and ran to the stone and wiped off some of the grime with his sleeve. Geneva School...

He heard the passenger doors opening on the car and turned toward his sisters. "Well, we made it." He stated unceremoniously.

He watched Eminney walk over to the gate blocking their car's entrance. "How will we get in?" she asked.

"We could jump it," Rosie suggested.

"I don't like that idea." Eminney touched the pendant around her neck like she always did when she was nervous about something. "That's a lot of land and we don't know what could be living on it. I would feel better if we were in the car and had some form of shelter going in."

She was right. Jace walked to the trunk of the car and opened it, starting to look for tools. "Did we bring wire cutters?"

As Eminney was coming over to help him look, they heard a loud crash and a cracking sound at the gate. They instantly both looked up and had their hands above their respective side arms. Another crash and a crack came right after the last. Oh, thank God, thought Jace. It's just Rosie.

She had delivered two blows with her foot going down one side of the gate. She made one more fierce blow at the bottom and pushed the gate with her hand. It gave way and fell immediately. She turned to them both and smiled.

"The hinges were rusted to crap," she explained and started walking back to the vehicle. "We probably could have driven right through it and the car would have been fine."

She slid right back into the back seat and shut the door behind her. Eminney and Jace exchanged a 'I love our sister' smile and got back into the car to drive into their new, temporary digs.