"You can finally see what you're doing," Alec said, trying to hand me a plank of wood.

"I could see what I was doing before."

"No, you couldn't. You were constantly moving your hair off your face."

"Shut up and hand me the piece of wood."

Alec grinned and lifted the plank of wood a little higher so I could grab onto it. "You know I'm right."

The day after our trip to the lake, I headed up to the Thompson farm to accept Mrs Thompson's offer of a haircut. She had cut it back to its old length and it finally felt like a weight had been lifted, literally. I only ever saw growing my hair as an experiment so it was nice to have my old length back. It also meant that I wasn't spending most of my day pushing my hair out of my eyes and I could tie it back with a ripped piece of fabric rather than an assortment of pins that I usually ended up losing.

Having somehow overheard Alec's comment, Eva had teased me about it when she saw me in the village a few days later. Since we were in public, I had to refrain from hitting her, especially since I had tried my hardest to ignore Alex's comment. I didn't know why he had said it or what he meant by I, nor did I have the desire to find out. First, there was the small jolt of energy when he grabbed me - the second time that had happened - then the comment about my hair. Although I did want to accept that Eva might have been right, it was starting to look like she was.

I tried to ignore it and instead threw myself back into working on the treehouse. With my birthday behind us, Alec and I had started on the roof. It was certainly turning into one of the hardest parts of building the treehouse. I was perched on a branch just above the shell of the treehouse with Alec passing me planks of wood from inside. He had the better of the two jobs, but I was better with a hammer and that was an achievement in my book. Still, balancing precariously on a tree branch was not how I wanted to be. We were so close to finishing and neither of us wanted to get hurt until we were finished.

"We're so close to finishing, I can almost taste victory," Alec said. He stared up at me from the treehouse, watching me slide the plank of wood into place.

"Don't say that, you'll jinx it."

"Jinx what?"

I pulled the hammer and some nails out of my toolbelt. "Us finishing this thing."

"How would me being positive jinx finishing the treehouse?"

"Because something might go wrong. Dad always told me to never say something was going well because it usually ended up going wrong immediately after."

Alec frowned at me. "That's a weird superstition to have."

"Not really. At least it doesn't seem weird to me."

"Alright, no more positivity. I don't want the Vaughn family superstition to come true."

It wasn't a superstition, not really, but it was something that had happened on more than one occasion. There had been a few times before I started to believe Dad when I would come home from school and tell him that I think I did well on my reading comprehension test. I would be so excited, talking about how easy the questions were and that I might have finally achieved a decent mark. Of course, that never happened and I would always end up disappointed when I failed. After a while, I stopped trying to be positive about it in the hopes that Dad might have been right. He wasn't.

Still, it had almost become a family tradition to never talk about how well something was going, just in case. Dad had even jinxed himself once when he had been fixing the roof. He had looked at me said that the job had gone rather smoothly, but the moment the words left his lips, he dropped his farm and damaged several of the tires we had already fixed. I took that as a sign to never tempt the fates and hadn't ever tried to be positive about completing a task since. Several accidents might have been avoided by that action.

Trying not to think about Alec's comment, I started to hammer the nails into the wood, making sure they were in line. I could only do the ones right in front of me before I had to clamber around to the other side to secure those nails. It took a great degree of caution and complete stupidity. If we hadn't been hurt before, me moving around the branches like I was would certainly end in one if we weren't careful. We were walking a very fine line.

When Alec handed me another plank of wood, I decided to test my weight on the three we had already secured. Being able to sit on those would make the whole thing a little easier and safer than having to move across all the branches. I moved a little closer to the top of the treehouse, balancing cautiously on one of the thinner branches. Before I could even think about perching on the edge of the roof, the branch start to creak and snap under my weight. I had just managed to move onto a large branch before the one I had been standing on snapped and went hurtling through the branches below us.

My heart jumped to my throat the second the branch gave way, but I was safely balanced on the other branch.

"What was that?" Alex asked, unable to see.

"A branch."

"Were you on it?" There was a tinge of worry in his voice, an edge of concern.

"I was. Now I'm not."

"Maybe your dad had a point. Why don't we take a break for lunch? I'm starving and we can give my stupidity a chance to disappear."

"That doesn't sound like a terrible idea."

"It's been known to happen. Try not to break any more branches on your way down."

"Ha-ha."

I slowly made my way through the tangle of branches until I could feel the first rung of the ladder underfoot. Alec had already climbed down and was safely on the grass by the time I descended the ladder to join him. The branch that had snapped lay just a short distance away from where we stood and looked like it had snapped in half a second time before it hit the ground. I was lucky not to have been standing on it or I could have been killed. Maybe Alec would start to take the Vaughn superstition a little more seriously.

Mrs Thompson bought out some sandwiches for Alex whilst I dove into the lunch that Barbara had made for me. The two of us sat side-by-side on the grass, staring at Duchess and Jigsaw as they grazed and drank from the water bucket. Jigsaw had been pleased that I hadn't completely abandoned him for Juliet and that he would still be my ride to and from the village. Since Alec and I had been so focused on finishing the treehouse before the weather changed, I had only really had the time to groom Juliet rather than ride her, but Alec was determined to get me more confident at jumping so it wouldn't be too long.

"You're shaking," Alec said, noticing the slight tremble in my hand before I do.

"I'm cold." I shrugged, but I know by the look on his face that he doesn't believe me.

"It's still summer, and you're sweating. Unless you've got a fever or something, I don't think you're cold." He paused. "Is it because of the branch?"

"I was just standing on it before it fell."

"But you weren't on it when it fell. Trees can be temperamental. I've picked a fight with one before and lost."

"When was this?"

"Oof, last summer? My brother, Derek, dared me to climb to the top of the tallest tree on our property. I did it, just to be smug, but when I climbed down I misstepped and slipped. Fell right the way down and landed really hard on my tailbone. I squealed so loudly, Dad thought one of the piglets was in trouble. It took two weeks before I could sit down properly."

I looked at him and sunk my teeth into my lip, trying to keep from laughing. "Really?"

"Go ahead, laugh. It wasn't really my crowning achievement and it's a fun story to tell at parties. I wouldn't be surprised if all of Derek's platoon knows the story. That's why my family nickname is now Little pig."

"How did I not know that?"

"You clearly haven't spent enough time with my family. Mabel thinks it's funny, although to her I expect it's hilarious. If Derek was here, you'd never hear the end of it. Every single letter he's written since he left was to Little pig." Alec shook his head a little, but even he couldn't help but laugh. "We can swap places if you want, I could be in the tree."

I shook my head. "I'll be fine. I should be able to sit on the roof by now."

Although I appreciated Alec's offer and really didn't want to get back into the tree, I knew I would have to. Dad had always encouraged me to face my fears, no matter what they might have been and falling out of a tree definitely qualified as a fear. It had been one of the reasons why I had been so adamant to get back on Jigsaw after I fell off because Dad would have wanted me to. He always pushed me to overcome a fear, especially if there had been a cause.

When we finished lunch, I braved the tree once more and made for the few planks of wood that we had already put in place that morning. They supported my weight and I definitely felt a lot safer sitting on the wood than I had standing in the tree. It made the entire task a little easier, although I was a little concerned about splinters coming through my slacks; that wouldn't have been very comfortable.

Alec continued to hand me planks of wood, whistling to himself and seemingly having the time of his life doing almost nothing. I continued to nail down the planks of wood, straightening them out and making sure they were close enough together to prevent any water from getting inside it. We didn't know if the treehouse would be structurally sound, but if we could guarantee that it was waterproof, the rainfall wouldn't be much of an issue. Or so we hoped. Neither of us had ever built a treehouse before so we were going into it completely blind.

After sitting on top of the treehouse for what felt like several hours, Alec slid the last plank of wood up through the gap and handed it to me. I laid it across the top and slowly started to hammer the nails in. When I reached the final one, I found myself holding my breath, hoping that the nails went in smoothly and that we could succeed in finishing the treehouse without a single injury. The nail put up very little resistance and I let out a loud breath when it had been secured in place.

"I think we're done," I called, hoping Alec could hear me from inside the treehouse.

He cheered. "We did it!" Victory is ours!"

"Don't say anything else until I'm off this roof and on the ground."

"Roger that."

I knew he was smiling just by the tone of his voice as I shuffled myself off the roof and started to climb back down to the ground. Alec followed, climbing out of the treehouse just after I passed. He missed the last few rungs of the ladder and jumped to the ground grinning at me. Anyone would have thought we had won the war with the expression on his face, but building a treehouse on our own was a rather good achievement.

"We actually built a treehouse," Alec said.

"That we did. I'm surprised."

"Why? Did you not think we could do it?"

I shrugged. "More surprised that nothing went wrong."

"Sybil!" a voice called from behind us. I turned to watch Eva come charging over the cusp of the hill with an envelope in her hand.

"Maybe I spoke too soon."

Eva ran up the hill and stopped in front of us, breathing heavily, her cheeks flushed. The envelope didn't look like a telegram, it wasn't the right colour. I also knew the War Office wouldn't have sent me a telegram if something had happened to Dad. They would have sent one to Mum. My breath caught in my throat at the thought that Mum had written to me to tell me something bad had happened to Dad, that I would never see him again. Except, Eva looked pleased.

"This came for you. I recognised the handwriting and Aunt Margaret said I could give it to you in person. I think it's from your dad."

She handed me the envelope and I looked at the handwriting. It was Dad's alright. The same messy scrawl that was impossible for anyone to read, let alone me. He had finally written. I ran my fingers under the back of the envelope and pulled out the letter, handing it to Eva so she could read it for me. My hands were shaking too much for me to keep the paper still and I knew it would be impossible for me to read on my own.

"What does it say?" I asked.

"It says that they're on patrol in the channel." Eva squinted at the writing. "It doesn't say why he couldn't write sooner, but that he had one of the other men in his crew draw something for you for your birthday. He doesn't know when he'll be able to write again, but he'll try."

I reached into the envelope and pulled out a second piece of paper, unfolding it to reveal a drawing of a small bird. Alec peered over my shoulder at the drawing.

"That's my nickname. Little bird."

"It's sweet," Alec said.

Dad was alive. He had finally written. Maybe he had been wrong about thinking positively, maybe sometimes it made no difference.

The treehouse was finished, Dad had written, everything was fine.

~~~

A/N - Chapter Fifty! We're only seven chapters from the end of the story now! I'm still working on the sequel, but it's been a little so because I'm back at work. The writing continues!

Questions!

Are you glad they finished the treehouse? Do you think everything is really fine?

Comment below!

First Published - February 23rd, 2022