the family

(Franklin Mountain, Texas, 1854)

"Dumby!"

"No you're the idiot!" Stella Rune's cry was sharp and irritated, the kind of venom only a teenage girl could spew.

"Jed, give her the book back." Joey's command was apathetic, his eyes never left the window.

"But-"

Joey whipped around to give his little brother a warning glare.

Jed pouted for a moment before quickly shoving the book into his twin sisters chest as hard as he could. The twins were sixteen, merely two years younger than him but they acted like toddlers. Hell even Willie the four year old seemed more mature than them at times, he glanced over at the little one who sat on a faded wooden stool whilst churning butter and humming something to herself as she looked around the room giggling as if she saw things no one else could, her freakishly long ginger locks tangled around her tiny ankles.

"Nicely, please." he ordered the twins.

Jed crossed his arms before looking up at his brother, his brows furrowed into his icy blue eyes.

Rune sported a smug smile across her pale slightly sunburnt face.

Joey walked across the oak floorboards casually. He plucked an apple off the supper table and took a bite as he walked past his siblings.

"Where's Finley?" he gripped the stair railing, dreamily looking up into the spirals of steps above him. He took a bite of an apple while waiting on his siblings' reply.

"I don't know... playin' with Jim maybe."

Joey nodded.

"Ima go up and look for 'em, y'all best not blow while I'm gone." With this, Joey began skipping up the steps, his fiery red shoulder length hair bounced up and down against his neck as he went. Once at the second floor of the house he walked into the hallway that connected all the childrens rooms, suddenly he caught a glimpse of pale blonde hair in the crack of one of the doorways.

"Finley!"

Unsurprisingly, she did not respond.

"Finley, I told you to stay downstairs!"

There was the sound of giggles and books falling inside the room.

"Cmon Jim, get in the closet," she whispered loudly, obviously thinking Joey couldn't hear her.

Joey sighed, walking into the room. He scanned the area for his brother and sister, he saw nothing but a knocked over bedside table --which he would likely get in trouble for-- an empty portion of the bookshelf which sat lodged into the wall, and a pile of books on the floor beneath it.

He shuffled over to the slender wooden door wich sat nestled in the back corner of the room

"I can hear ya you know, ya aint slick. Try hobblin your lip a bit next time ya wanna hide." Joey whipped the closet door open to reveal his two little siblings seated in the fetal position in the cramped space. Finley's platinum blonde hair waterfalling over Jim's oblivious face.

Finley let out a dramatic groan.

"That's not fair, we didn't know you was comin up here!"

"You ain't supposed to be up here now, anyhow! Besides we ain't playin hide n seek, there's no cheating."

Jim crawled out from under Finley's grasp before sprinting down the stairs, almost falling down them, it was funny the lack of regard seven year olds tended to have towards injury, he could remember when both Rune and Jed went through that phase.

Finley crossed her arms letting out an angry huff.

Joey grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the closet, she flopped onto the oak flooring once outside of the closet and simply laid there whilst Joey looked over her.

"Finley cmon, I don't make the rules, you know how mad Pa'll get if he knows I let you up here."

Finley sighed before standing up and pushing past her brother towards the stairs.

Joey smirked. Finley was annoying sometimes but, it was quite amusing if you looked at it with the right perspective.

Once down the steps, Joey greeted his mother who had likely just got in from the garden.

"Hey Ma, what'll you want me to do with Jim, he's been actin out with Fin."

Lilith sighed, causing the worry lines in between her eyebrows to crease whilst she flipped a slab of rabbit meat with a spatula.

"Give 'em to your father Joe," she commanded distractedly.

"Not much we can do with her I suppose."

Joey nodded, "Yes'm."

"Oh and Joe."

Joey halted, turning his head towards his mother.

"Chop the wood for your father after, he's been huntin' all week. It's the least you can do." She must have noticed his pouty expression midway through as her tone shifted into a more threatening pitch and her glare met his. Just as she finished her command, almost as if on cue, Jim raced past Joey recklessly just in time for him to grab him by the arm.

"Yes'm," he grumbled. Sliding his hands down his suspenders, he propped the sturdy wooden door open with his foot, and dragged his little brother behind him doing his best to ignore his constant whining.

The summer breeze blew against his skin as he stepped into the yard. He could see his fathers figure wandering closer and closer as he made his way to the house. His father had a large animal carcass draped across his back. The family had a rule that there was to be no more than one visit outside the dome a month, and since Joey's birth, Mr.Barclay had spent every single allowed outing to hunt. Joey had always hated that his father hogged the one outing every month. He nor any of his siblings had ever set foot outside of the Dome, and his mother was slowly growing crazy from cabin fever.

"Did ya mother not expect me tah bring back a winner?" His dad's hoarse voice shook him from his thoughts.

"I-I suppose not," he faltered for words, adjusting his grip on Jim's arm, who had shut up once Mr. BarClay was near.

"Mama told me to chop the wood for ya. I'm not sure who's meant to tend the deer."

"Jed and Rune chop the wood, you skin the deer."

Joey nodded

"Yes'sir."

Mr. BarClay set the deer at the foot of the family skinning station, taking his youngest son from Joey and marching inside, slamming the door behind him.

Joey sighed.

"Old man's got a stick up his ass." He grumbled under his breath before hoisting the deer onto the rack hanging it by its horns.

The station looked like a hollow wooden door frame with a small low level metal bench in the back under a tin roof. Joey wiped his hands on his brown cotton pants when he was done. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his two little siblings sprint out of the house each holding an axe, their fiery red hair flying behind them as they cackled into the forest only stopping just before the barrier dividing the inner Dome from the dirty people who dwelled behind it.

He had never understood his fathers choice to call them "the dirty people." They seemed nice enough, one of the boys about Joey's age had even waved at him before. He had a few feeble memories of playing with them through the barrier, that was until his father found out of course, since then he'd been to scared of that stupid leather belt to walk within a twenty foot radius of it. Just as he was thinking about this he caught sight of a slender umber blue blur racing through the trees nearly thirty feet away. Joey's heart nearly rose out his chest. Without thinking, his legs began to move him towards the forest. Step after step, bare feet pressed against the fresh knee length grass as his body moved against the wind towards the enchanted wall that lay between him and whatever was out there.

Merely five feet away he halted. He did not --nor did he want to-- know what would become of him if he made contact with the barrier. He looked right and left into the forest behind the transparent wall, there was nothing. Nothing but the slight metallic shine of the violet blue tinted mist that made up the barrier. He sighed, his father and mother most likely expected him to have taken longer with the deer, his mother most likely still thought he was chopping the wood and his father was most likely already passed out on his rocking chair. He could afford a bit of investigation.

Suddenly the familiar umber blue made an appearance before suddenly darting back behind a nearby pine tree.

"Hello?" Joey's voice rang uselessly through the forest, he sighed. There was a moment of silence.

Just then a soft rosy brown hand wrapped itself around a tree branch nearly ten feet above Joey. Joey looked up instinctively, the mist wrapped itself around the boy as he crawled out from behind the tree to where he was squating on a branch merely a foot or so higher than Joey, his nose less than an inch from the perriwinkle mist.