"How's Eva?" Alec asked, leaning on the door to the stable and staring at me. He could have at least offered to help, but since it's Alec, I knew he wouldn't.

"Doing better, I think. She still hasn't heard anything, but with the evacuation planned, she's optimistic. At least it's given her a bit of hope he'll make it home," I said.

"I'm sure he will. The government would never have just abandoned them." He paused. "How are you? I know that this rescue attempt puts your dad in harm's way."

I shrugged and continued to pick up the straw to tidy up Jigsaw's bed. Even if he meant well, I didn't want to talk about Dad, not yet anyway. Barbara had been watching me out of the corner of her eye for the last few days and the last thing I needed was to think about Dad and have that wall come crumbling down around me. I didn't want to talk about Dad or what the Dunkirk evacuation plan might have meant for him. The less I thought about it, the better.

It wasn't as if I didn't want to think about Dad, he had been on my mind a lot since we heard about Dunkirk, I just didn't want to think about what could happen to him. The evacuation put him right on the front line since the paper reported that they would be using Navy ships since they could fit more soldiers on them. I knew what could happen, I had worked through every possible scenario in my head. If I didn't think about it, it wouldn't become a reality.

"Do you want to do something today?" he asked.

"Like what? There really isn't much to do here and we've done just about everything."

"Call me crazy-"

"-You're crazy."

Alec glared at me. "Rude." He shook his head. "Anyway, I thought we could do a summer project or something, to get our minds off the war and give us something to do."

"Go on, what's your genius idea?" I placed the pitchfork against the wall of the stable and walked over the straw to join him.

"We build a treehouse. It was something Dad always promised me he would do, but he never had the time. He still has to work on the farm and you have free time, so we can do it ourselves. It won't be anything too fancy, just a small box in a tree."

"You want to build a treehouse?"

"Yes! It could be fun. There's a tree on the edge of our farm boundary that's perfect for it. We have plenty of spare wood and it'll be fun. Promise."

I stared at him, trying to understand if he's being serious and intends to build a treehouse, or if it's something he thought of but will forget by the end of the week. Personally, I'm counting on the latter for it since Alec doesn't really have the attention span for continuing a project that would take up most of his free time. That, and I still didn't understand how he had all this free time when he was supposed to be helping his Dad out on the farm now that his brothers weren't around. He spent more time with me than anywhere else.

Still, I didn't hate the idea of a project now that the bulk of the work on the farm had been completed. I spent most of my time wandering around the farm in search of something to do and ended up spending time with the horses rather than people. It gave me something to do, but even that got boring after a while. Maybe Alec had the right idea when it came to having a project to focus on. I wasn't too sure about the treehouse aspect of it all, though.

"Who'll create the plans?" I grabbed the pitchfork from the wall of the stable and exited through the door, pushing Alec off it as I did so.

"Me. Don't worry, I have it all figured out and it'll be fine."

"Coming from you, that isn't very reassuring."

"It'll be fine, especially with your genius building skills. I'm sure you can handle anything."

I laughed and leant the pitchfork up around the side of the stable. "Flattery will get you nowhere with me. It's not a terrible idea, and it might be fun."

"Go on! Say yes. I know you want to."

"Alright, fine. I'll do it. If it's something insane and impossible, then I'm backing out, for now, it's a yes."

Alec cheered and started to jump and down like a child, reminding me a little of Eva when we were younger and she would get excited. He looked at me and grinned, running a hand through his hair and pushing his sleeves up his arms. I had a feeling the project would be abandoned quickly, but it did sound like fun and would be something to do, so how could I say no?

I needed a distraction from Dad, Anthony, the war, all of it and Alec had just offered that to me. To not take him up on the offer would be stupid, even if I did still have those confused feelings at the back of my mind. With everything that had been going on, I hadn't had much of an opportunity to try and understand what had happened between me and Alec down at the creek that day. Maybe I didn't need to understand it. Maybe there was nothing there to understand.

With my chores done, Alec and I returned to the house. Even the idea of creating the treehouse had been enough to excite him into wanting to create a plan right there and then. I liked the idea of leaving it for a day or two so he could really think it through, but Alec liked to do things the moment he had the idea for them and this was no exception.

Back at the house, he found a piece of paper and immediately started to sketch a plan for a treehouse whilst I watched. He wrote words and measurements against the sketch in tiny, completely illegible handwriting and I knew we would have to have someone redraw it or write so I could follow along.

"What are you two up to?" Jonathan asked when he returned from tending the sheep, Goose followed behind him. He had been trying to turn Goose into the perfect sheepdog; it wasn't all that successful.

"We're building a treehouse," I said. "Alec's idea."

"There used to be a treehouse down at the Brady farm, or at least there was when I was growing up." Jonathan sat on the sofa beside me. "Why now?"

"Something to do," Alec said, "a project we can both focus on rather than getting under everyone's feet. That, and it can work as a distraction from the war and everything."

"As long as your father's in agreement and all of Sybil's chores get completed on time, I don't see why you can't give it a shot. Although giving you two free reign might be a bad idea."

"Giving Alec free reign, you mean." I waved my hand towards the sketch. "Not that I can even read what he's written. "

"It's just a draft, I'll tidy it up."

"You better, or you're doing it on your own."

"Don't say that, I need you. If you don't help, it'll be a disaster."

"That's true."

Alec grinned and continued on with his sketch, adding more lines and words all over the page until it looked like a mess. How he would turn it into something coherent I didn't know, but I never pretended to understand what went through Alec's mind on the best of days. If he could understand it and make it a little more coherent, then that was fine with me and it meant that I could focus on building rather than the design element of it. As long as it worked, that's all I cared about.

When he had finished his sketch, Alec headed home to draw a clear one so I could follow along with it. I joined Jonathan in checking the vegetable patch. Since it would be the first crop grown on the farm in a while, Jonathan wanted to make sure it all went according to plan and nothing got in the way. The foxes hadn't returned after I repaired the hole in the fencing, but Jonathan wanted to be extra careful that they never got in again.

"We might end up with a decent crop this year, at least to keep ourselves fed over winter. If we do, we can expand outwards and maybe think of selling crops," Jonathan said, inspecting the plants.

"Progress!" I said.

"Definitely." Jonathan nodded and replaced the wire mesh that covered the plants. "So, a treehouse?"

"As I said, Alec's idea. He said Mr Thompson was going to build him one when he was a kid, but it never happened. Now is as good a time as any."

"I think it's a great idea, but I don't want you to use it as an excuse."

"An excuse for what?"

Jonathan sighed. "Barbara and I know you heard us the other day when we were talking about you opening up to us. You're not that good of a fake sleeper, you know. We don't expect you to be completely open and honest with us as you might be with your own parents, but we at least deserve to know what's going through your head."

"There's nothing to say. If the evacuation goes ahead, Anthony will be fine, so will Dad."

"But you don't know that."

"So you want me to think that something terrible is going to happen to them, is that it?"

"That's not what I said, Sybil. You can't keep how you're feeling to yourself or you'll explode. I just don't want this treehouse to become an obsession to the point you ignore how you're feeling."

"I'm going to take Jigsaw on a ride in the paddock," I said, turning away and walking down towards the paddock.

"Sybil!"

I ignored Jonathan and followed the track down to the stable where Jigsaw stood with his nose poking over the top of his stall. He whinnied when I approached and banged his foot on the ground, clearly excited to see me despite the fact that I had only left a little while before.

Jigsaw watched me as I prepared his tack for a small ride around the paddock but all I could think about was Jonathan and his comments. Alec had been the one to suggest using the treehouse as a distraction from what had been going on, not me. Besides, surely it would be better for me to have something to direct my energy towards rather than focus so much on Dad and what might be happening to him on the war front.

A distraction would be perfect, how could Jonathan not see that? I didn't want to think about what could happen to Dad and Anthony, I didn't want to think about the war and how I might be feeling. If I thought about it, I would never get anything done and I liked to be kept busy. I liked to have something to do with my time regardless of whether it acted as a distraction or not.

Eva may have been fine with doing nothing and just worrying about the outcome with Anthony and the war, but I wasn't. That didn't mean I hadn't thought about it. Dad and Anthony were always at the back of my head and that would never change until they were both home safely Just because I didn't mention it to anyone, didn't mean anything. I just didn't want to talk about how I was feeling with anyone, I never did.

"At least you can't ask me a million and one questions about how I'm feeling," I said, putting the saddle on Jigsaw's back and making sure the stirrups were tightened up enough. "Come on, I need to clear my head."

I led Jigsaw from the stall and out to the paddock where he kicked up the sand that covered the ground. Once I had closed the gate and was safely tucked away inside the paddock, I swung my leg over Jigsaw and made myself comfortable in the saddle. We started off slowly before slowly picking up the pace around the ring.

A good canter around the field would be the perfect thing to clear my head.

~~~

A/N - We are back with Chapter Thirty-Eight! Still making my way through this one, but I am close to the end!

Questions! Do you think it's a good idea for Sybil and Alec to build a treehouse? Is Jonathan right about Sybil?

Comment below!

First Published - December 11th, 2021