With great reluctance, I set my new card in my collection box and close it. I’d wanted to slot the upgraded eel into my deck right away so I’d be able to try it out in the morning, but only a fool plays a card with an unknown effect. There are summons that require a sacrifice to manifest, or deal damage to their summoner.

  Instead, I slide my Bog Hawk out of its well-worn card sleeve and press it to the skin over my heart to absorb it. My card box, I carefully place back in the display above our home’s mantle. Then I grab the mop.

  I barely finish in time, but Mom comes home to a clean house. Her nose curls at the dilute vinegar, but her tired eyes brighten. “Harlan, the entryway looks wonderful. At least one of my sons knows how to clean his messes,” she says wryly. “Oh, the nonsense my boys get into! Give me a hug.” After hugging, she goes on. “Some foolish parents complain their children will be the death of them, but you’re the life of me. My little tales about the Fenwick boys make me the life of the quilting club. Help me open up the shutters, and then you can tell me why our home is so marvelously clean.”

  Mom is delighted by my return of four blank cards to the family stores, and happy to share my excitement over finally getting my own Notable card. She is predictably less enthused about how I plan to use my free day tomorrow. “Tell me,” she says in a ritual we’ve repeated since she started letting me roam on my own two years ago, “why must you go out into the swamp?” As always, I can’t tell if she wants me to reconsider or to firm up my resolve by making me voice good reasons.

  “Because our land obligates us to send a member of our family to the army, Mom. When service calls, as it will in just two years now, I must have cards to be well prepared.”

  “Yes, but do you have to capture those cards yourself? You will be doing a service for our family, representing us there. We can lend you cards for it.”

  “You are generous to offer,” and it’s true, my parents are very generous with me, “but those cards won’t be mine. I won’t know them the same way as creatures I’ve watched. A good summoner knows more of a card than its text; they are always more than the facet they show in a familiar deck.” I pause, knowing she doesn’t love my other reason, but it’s true enough I have to say it. “Besides, playing cards you’ve slain yourself honors them. It would be wrong to let creatures who’ve earned their stories disappear without giving them a card to continue on to.”

  She sighs. “Sometimes I regret summoning up that card so often to entertain and babysit my children. He lived in an older time, and he fills your head with nonsense from it. But I suppose it may not all be nonsense. You crafted your first Notable card from the theoretical minimum of three Gossiped, when most call it wiser to wait for four. Were it my place instead of your fathers, I would have commanded you to wait rather than risk the elevation failing and wasting the contents of two cards, but in this case I would have been wrong. He taught you attentiveness to individual cards’ histories beyond what’s written on them. So long as that method continues working for you, I cannot complain too much.

  “As usual, I am summoning Grampi and sending him along with you tomorrow, so that you are not alone in the bog. He’s to defend you, not entertain you, so do not distract him overmuch with questions, and remember he won’t respond to your Orders.”

  “Yes, Mom, I know I’m not the one summoning him. Honestly, that was years ago. I was seven. Are you ever going to let it go?”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  She laughs. “Perhaps when you’re fifty.”

  Knowing a losing battle, I let it go. “I don’t object to being accompanied by a summon. It’ll be good to see the less-used aspects of Grampi’s card brought to the fore tomorrow. His card can emphasize softer parts of him when your deck tailors him to care-taking, but he sounds wistful when he weaves tales of his sharp wit and sharper blade.”

  Mom looks sharply at me. “Be careful with your words! Speaking freely like that about another’s card can be excused with family, but if you make a misstep like that in the army you might end up on the wrong side of a training duel or worse, of a commander!

  “Honestly, you’re too fond of that card. Fond enough that you risk tarnishing your honor. Though I do agree that letting Grampi stretch his sharp edges once and a while is good, being right is not enough to shield you. You must always respect the right of conquest. It’s not a card’s place to have say in how they’re used, nor is it yours. That right belongs only to its summoner. For your safety once you go away, practice a formal apology like you’d use in the army.”

  Straightening my back, I agree with her reminder. Practicing formality will serve me well. “Madam Fenwick. Mother. I am sorry for speaking rashly. My respect for a summoner’s command of their deck is undiminished, and I apologize for insinuating so. Though I would selfishly love to see its other aspects more often, I will always defer to your judgment in your cards’ use. We rarely have need for more sharpness here. If diminished is how it can best serve our house, so be it.”

  “A true believer would find that still presumptuous, but I trust you to read your audience when the time comes. Overall, well done.” Lesson finished, we move on to lighter topics. Soon enough, my little sister returns from the employee lodgings where she’d been sewing under their supervision, and the three of us start making dinner together.

  Cooking with family is wonderful. I don’t have to plan the meal or cater to anyone’s tastes, just chop, dice, and peel whatever I’m told to. As an aspiring summoner, I always volunteer to track all the timings, letting Mom tell me, five or eight minutes and reminding her the second each wait is up.

  Since I’m no longer the youngest allowed in the kitchen, I can foist the less pleasant tasks, like de-boning, on my sister like my older siblings always foisted on me. Her answering glare promises pins left in my tunic on her next turn to dry the laundry. This is how family should be. Not without its painful pricks, but close regardless.

  I hate to say that dinner goes well. We children dutifully thank Father for the bounty of his land, and Father in turn thanks the distant crown. At least Arvis does not stay silent in that portion, as he had last month in an act of brash defiance.

  His following spanking was embarrassing for everyone due to Father’s reluctance and weak strokes. Had another family been present, or even our employees, the Fenwick name would be twice shamed. I can imagine Boughwicks sniffing. "Bad enough that a fifteen year old need spanking," they'd say, "but worse that a head of house lacks the justice to do it properly."

  Any true noble would have him limping the next day. I suppose it is the common weakness of my family that all of us were glad he wasn’t. I will need to be harder to stand tall in the army, but I’m only fourteen. I still have two years to be soft. And not all of Arvis’s punishment was lacking. Mom heaped enough chores on Arvis for his disrespect that each of our employees have been able to take an extra day off.

  Today, dinner is blessedly quiet. Mom is pointedly polite with Father, forcing the distance of cordiality between them, but at least they remain cordial. She’s less kind at his side than she is with just our family’s children or with employees. My middle brother only mutters two resentful comments under his breath, quiet enough we can all ignore them. How it pains me that this stilted table can be called going well now, but my parents insist that we must give Arvis time and it’s not my place to question. If Bram or Izzy were here, they could, but my older brother and sister are both married.

  I ask to be excused and, once permitted, go to bed early. Tomorrow will be a big day.