Anya gave a bemused chuckle when she finally noticed Alannah expression. "You look like you just woke up for the first time. Here, take care of Tim, I have to go help Mama with dinner preperations. Please go sit on the back veranda, you can watch the evening sky and Tim can watch the butterflies."
"Alright." Alannah said in a barely audible voice
"Don't let him catch anything!" Santiago told her. "It'll go straight into his mouth!"
"Oh Santiago, you ate more than your fair share of bugs when you were his age." his mother chimmed in.
Santiago raised an eyebrow. "Women! A man can never get the last word in!"
Tim was beginning to fuss, so Alannah took him out back rather than stay in the front. The back veranda was covered and in the shade at this time of day, she sat on one of the padded benches so she could watch Tim. She sat Tim down on the patio and stared off into the woods.
Alannah noticed a vine of honeysuckle growing up and over a circle of tall poles that were adjacent the corner of the house. The flowers were brilliant white, yellow and reds and the air was filled with their alluring scent. The air seemed to vibrate with the buzzing of bees, and with the hum of a hummingbirds wings. The poles, Alannah realized, had actually been part of something, maybe a trellace of some sort - there were the remnants of braces that looked like they held a platform high above the ground, perhaps a watchtower of some sort . . . A shot rang out just missing her
As if echoing her thoughts, Alannah found herself unable to comprehend what was going on around her. It took her several moments to realize that someone had just shot at her. She looked over at the horses, she saw that they were no longer eating at the grass - but instead they were standing with their heads raised, looking about, their ears and tails twitching, listening for something.
Alannah swallowed past a lump in ther troat and noticed that her mouth gone suddenly dry. Without thinking, she bent down to pick up Tim as he played and darted for the back door. She found Anya and her mother-in-law chatting away as they washed vegetables the vegetables in the sink and then chopped them into pieces on a cutting-board. Anya looked up, when Alannah came in the door, noticing the expression on her face she set down her knife and went to Alannah.
"Alannah? What is it, was that a shot I heard?"
Unable to respond, Anya looked at Alannah and saw that her face had gone ghostly white. She immediately went to the back door, grabbed a shot gun and was out on the patio before anyone else could react to what just happened.