Sitting up on her makeshift bed, Cata yawned and stretched her arms as though greeting the new day before her. She changed from her sleeping gown to a new tunic dress, hand sown by her mother; Aventia. Cata was the spitting image of their mother when she was a child, and so she was granted the title of the favorite between her and her older brother Carasius who everyone calls Raz. After changing into a new dress, the big black hound entered the room and sat upright before her, licking her feet, never failing to make her laugh the way he showed her affection, and Cata showed him hers by way of giving him soft pats on the head. He was a handsome dog, jet black, with a white star upon his barreled chest, his cropped ears and docked tail gave strangers the impression of intimidation but to her he was just the farm dog beloved by everyone despite his size and appearance.
It was fall, and so the chill winds had begun to grow colder with each passing day, gradually making the shift to winter while the harvest was on its last leg. The harvest was worse than the year before despite having enough for the family of four, but Cata comforted herself at the thought that they would at least be together through the terrible times ahead.
“Rise and shine,” said her mother with a smile that looked stern in her eyes and who Cata looked up to from where she sat on the edge of the makeshift bed. “Time to break your fast,” she added, then left for the other side of the room.
She rose up from the makeshift bed, then paused to look at her companion beside her and give Ager one last pat on the head.
“Come, Ager.” She told the dog as though he understood her the way another person would. “We don’t want to miss our first meal.”
The dog got up on all fours and followed Cata to the center of the house where they prepared and ate their meals. Her Mother might have been the town’s designated seamstress but they could never afford a proper table just yet and so they had to improvise. The table was made out of hay, and like the way a mother bird would make a bed for her hatchings, attached four stacks of hay to each other with a rope instead of spittle.
Cata sat on the floor and waited eagerly for her meal while Ager seated himself next to her as her mother prepared her bowl of beef stew, still steaming from being cooked. Carrying the bowl, her mother went over to the door and shouted.
“Raz! Time to break your fast!” she said with ease. “Get it while it’s hot!”
Cata heard the shovel placed firmly on the ground from a distance, telling her that Carasius heard their mother’s call. A few moments later he appeared, not breaking a sweat from his day-to-day task before he broke fast with them. The winter truly was coming.
That first day of snow was no different from day when the family found him, found father. She placed her hands over her eyes and shook her head. The tresses of her hair swayed back and forth until Ager licked her arm.
“Not now, please.”
The dog whined, Cata’s eyes peeked out from her palms.
“All is well now,” she said, trying to ease his concern.
Ager tilted his head, a familiar habit she noticed whenever her sadness overwhelms her.
“Nothing,”
Raz having been called by Mother just a few moments ago, appeared before her.
“Get up,” He husked. “Food is getting cold!”
Cata obeyed and followed her brother inside, wiping the now visible streak of tears that rolled down her puffy cheeks. The dog placed his paws on her lap to lick her sorrows away, inducing laughter from the youth. Soon after, she got up the stack of hay where she sat and followed her brother to break her fast.
Privacy did not exist within the household, for it only came with one open room that served as everything else. The table at the center of the shack is their dining table while the rough-and-ready stove installed on the west side of the house is the kitchen. Mother sat at the end of the table - waiting for her to join them, glaring her eyes signaling for Cata to sit down so they could break their fast. When she did, Ager sat between her and Raz, waiting for his own meal.
“You can give it now,” Mother told Raz who then placed a wooden bowl in front of him.
For any other farm dog - grain porridge and meat drippings were enough, but having known him, she placed an extra piece of meat for the hound on his bowl with the use of her toes. Cata studied her bowl of stew, unlike her older brother Raz whose stomach grumbled before he took the wooden spoon and gobbled the meal before him. She studied the bowl in front of her, then turned to her side to look at Raz who picked at his teeth with his index finger, his hiccups began. Afterward, she began consuming her bowl of stew while her brother downed his hiccups with milk.
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Huffs echoed out from Ager’s barrel-like chest followed by a loud rumble from his throat making him sound far more intimidating than his usual cheerful mood. He rose to his feet paws landing on Cata’s lap again nearly knocking her out from where she sat. Mother swatted him off the girl’s lap, when it did not work, she had to smack him with her sandal that elicited a yelp out of Ager. Witnessing this spurred Cata to rise from her her seat and fling her arms around Ager.
“Matir!” she said, holding up a hand. “Stop! He won’t do it again!”
Mother raised her brows then placed a hand on her hip, not lowering her sandal with the other. Are you going to hit me if I don’t get out of the way? The tiny voice asked then it dawned on her that Mother would do it for the sake of teaching her a lesson. Her heart sunk for a moment prompting her lips to tremble at the thought. Mother raised the sandal up higher.
“No!” the girl said, tightening her grip on her beloved dog.
Cata met Raz’s gaze, his jaws flexing while he stood frozen. He lifts up a foot to approach her but then she was yanked out of her thoughts by Mother, who pulled her up to her feet. Raz took a step back, and Cata’s heart hardened just before Mother shook her.
“You spoil this dog too much, Cata!”
The hairs on the back of her neck curled up as she anticipated a blow to the face with the sandal that never came. Instead, the woman shook her so hard that Cata could hear the rattle of her own teeth.
Her lips parted to speak, but instead of words - a sob came out and followed by another. The sobbing did not last long.
“Hic,” she chirped. “Hic.”
Mother released her from her grip, wrinkling the new dress.
Raz needed no prompting as he took the pitcher of goat’s milk and poured it on his empty wooden cup. After placing a hand on Cata’s small back, he gently set the cup to her lips. Jolting up without warning nearly knocking the tankard and into her clothing. Her small hands held the cup, steadying it while she drank.
She placed the cup on the table.
“Ahhh” she said, parched and wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
“You both spoil this dog too much!” mother said now sitting back down but that did not stop her from towering herself over them despite nearly being dwarfed by Raz. “You need to do better and look out for him, gods!” she added, sighing heavily. “People will talk.”
For the first time in her young life, Cata saw her mother not as a model for her and Raz but just another imperfect creature with doubts and worries. She connected with this side of her mother more so than the authoritative figure that the latter presented herself as.
Mother slaps Ager as soon as she got up on her feet again, but the dog did not move, instead, he laid down by Cata’s feet and whined.
“What do you have to say for yourselves?” Mother asked, attempting to hide her frustration with a gentleness that did not suit her.
Cata heard the grinding of mother’s teeth.
“What do you want me to do?” Raz answered, voice low. “Watch over him while I work?”
“It’s your job!” mother clapped back. “You wanted to keep this dog; you better see to it he doesn’t get us in trouble.”
“I only have a pair of eyes!” Raz replied, not hiding his resentment. “Maybe if you did your part in training him, we won’t have to lose our appetites during meals.”
Mother seethed with anger, nearly boiling over before she raised her hand. Seeing this happen before her, Cata sprang into action.
she said, calm and soft. “Raz didn’t mean it.”
Cata’s shoulders shook, prompting her to clench her small hands into fists with her attention full on Ager.
A heavy sigh escaped mother’s chest, and she returned to her place on the table.
Their hands resembled prunes from the time spent washing spoons and cups, mother wanted them to be thorough when it came to cleaning anything and everything under the sun. The silence between them is bearable compared to the meal they had. No, shouting, no chastisement, but calm silence and Cata wondered if she truly knew her brother at all. Soon after she placed the kitchenware to dry outside on the ledge of the window, she approached Raz who sat by the wagon where he had made use of the space for the goods to take to Brixia - the Roman settlement north of the Po River. Beans, cabbages, turnip, wild berries, apples and lastly, animal skins from his hunt over the past few weeks judging from what could see.
“Raz,” she spoke with the wind howling lowly. “Do you think hates Ager because she misses him?”
The redness of his cheek from mother’s slap is visible even as the snow began to pile up. He smiles, then it disappeared so fast that she began to think it was a trick of the light.
“I wouldn’t know it by the way she acts,” he replied.
The aura Raz surrounded himself in is secretive, mysterious, his speech riddled with cryptic words, but she knew her brother enough to call him out on it.
“That’s not answering the question,” Cata said as she knelt down beside him, holding on to her brother’s shoulder for support. “I want a real answer.”
Raz’s smile is sad and again it disappeared as quickly as it formed.
“I would be angry too,” he said, looking over on the horizon. “But I wouldn’t blame Ager or any other dog.”
Cata thought with the awareness of his shifting moods that would trigger him to do things he would regret later on.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t.” She told him, placing her head on his shoulder.
Brother and sister sat in comfort together beyond what words could offer for as long as they were in each other’s presence. And yet, a thick fog of doubt clouded Cata’s mind about Raz and the lengths he would go through for her and their family. The thought quickly disappeared mid-way when she caught herself reflecting on it. Turning to her brother, she wondered if her feelings of doubt held any water.
“You’ll take care of mother while I’m gone, yes?”
Cata nodded despite not wanting to.
“Come, it’s getting cold,” Raz said, taking the hand that Cata had on his shoulder to help her up. “It would upset her if we stayed out to long and get sick.”
“I think matir’s temper would cure us of that and get us doing chores again in no time.”
The slow laugh that escaped him seemed as though he were mocking her at first, but it soon became apparent to her that he found it funny. The expression on his face said it all, followed by a laughing fit.
She felt her lips pull back into a smile, wishing it would last forever.
