Chapter Text
I never thought, as I heard old Charlie waking everyone up with his first crow of the day, that the lives of me and my sister would change as dramatically as they did that day. I was – as always – up before dawn, helping my father tend to the barn animals while my mother stayed in the house cooking breakfast and my sister tended to Charlie and his hens in the hen house. And, as usual, I had to tend to my horse, Cobalt, before I was even allowed breakfast.
As I came up to the back door of the house, the warm smell of toast, eggs, bacon, sausages and tomatoes practically carried me into the kitchen where my sister Taylor was already sitting. It was a cold day that day. And it had started thanks to the rain from the night before. But the fire burning in the fireplace near the table was enough to keep the entire house warm. And the food; that kept your insides warm.
At the table, I sat across from my father – a typical tanned farmer whose blond hair was already greying – and next to my mother and sister. My mother was half American/half Japanese so she had the slanted eyes and dark hair but she had lighter skin than my Grandpa Hiro.
Then there was Taylor. Taylor was six when it happened. So sweet. So innocent. So… hyperactive. I could not think of one thing that was able to keep that girl in one place long enough to even take a picture… not that Mother wanted any cameras in the house. Taylor was the spitting image of Dad – blonde hair, light skin tone, light eyes – except she got the slanted eyes like Mother had.
Finally there was me. I was almost seventeen (the twenty-third of next month to be exact) and looked more Japanese than American despite how little Japanese I had in me. Heck, if you stood me next to Grandpa Hiro, the only difference would be that I had a darker skin tone than him… and he’s full blood Japanese. Okay, I also had green eyes as well, but I have no clue how that happened.
After breakfast, my father and I went back outside to tend to the crops now that the sun had finally peeked over the horizon. Taylor and Mother stayed inside doing household chores and going to school. Yes, Taylor and I were home schooled. Taylor took morning school while I took afternoon school. Again, that was Mother’s influence on the house.
Now I’m not going to bore you with what happened in the hours between breakfast and lunch, just that my father and I had fruit and vegetables to tend to. We lived on a working farm and often we took our produce into the nearby town to sell off and gain some coins. But mostly we used our own grown foods in order to keep ourselves alive. So it was that I didn’t think much of it when Mother ordered me to go into town with my sister and some fresh eggs and foods.
I should have known that something was wrong.