 “Are you going to cook?” Renn teased, poking her tongue out at him. “Do you remember...” she continued with a giggle, “last time when Dylan tried to help me and he started chopping the onion?” The memory became increasingly vivid the more she thought about it. It had not been quite so funny at the time, but they had all agreed later that, in retrospect, the whole fiasco had been nothing short of hilarious. “Next time,” she grinned, “I vote we leave the onion chopping to Flynn. He never has a problem; I think all his hair must protect him, or something.” Their elder brother had always had very thick and untidy black hair which seemed incapable of sitting flat. Renn did an imitation of the way it would stick up at the back using her fingers to imitate hair. Then she spotted fluffed-up Nico, scooped him up from the floor and put him on her head instead. “Tadaaa!” It felt good to laugh. “Seriously though,” Renn said when she’d regained her composure, “I think that sounds like a lovely idea.” She put Nico back down on the floor de-fluffed before looking up at Danny again with one of her characteristic sharp-toothed smiles. “We’ll pick and evening, and then when Flynn gets home I’ll jump him, and you can tie him to his chair.”
She smiled indulgently as Danny and Solarius began to bicker about the pie, and took the opportunity to collect together the sketches they had chosen. Renn slipped them into the black folder by her right knee so that she wouldn’t lose them; no matter how carefully she arranged the piles of paper, they never stayed that way for long. She didn’t notice Danny’s discovery of her drawing and when she looked back at him she assumed that he had just picked up his page of hieroglyphs again.
“I don’t know if it was deliberate,” she confessed, “I know I was named after Mum’s Grandma and...” she hesitated. She had been about to explain that Henry was named after their paternal grandfather...but his name died on her tongue. “and I know it took them a week to pick Flynn’s name,” said Renn instead, “they couldn’t make up their mind between your and Dylan’s name for ages when Mum was expecting...then it turned out she was having twins, and when you were boys it kind of solved the problem.” The talking helped, she just had to keep going. Excessive babble had always been Renn’s way of dealing with anxiety, nerves or general upset. “That would be brilliant,” she told Danny, resting a hand on his shoulder, “thank you, you’re a star.”
When Danny held out the drawing Renn was busy trying to arrange her sketches again.
“Who’s who?” she asked a little absently as she drew one sheet of paper out from beneath the wardrobe. Her gaze flickered casually upwards, the picture barely registering...and then it hit her. Renn bit down hard on her bottom lip as tears threatened again; Danny didn’t know what his own brother looked like. She took the drawing and looked down into the familiar eyes. She ran her thumb across his charcoal cheek as she fought to steady herself. ‘That’s your brother’ she was about to say before Danny explained about the man on the beach. Renn felt the world around her shudder as her breath caught in her throat. Her hand shook as she raised it to her mouth, her blue-green eyes growing wide. “Oh Aura,” she muttered, more to herself than to Danny, he was alive? Henry was alive! Her resolve crumbled and Renn began to cry silently, her tears dripping off her chin onto the sketch in her hands.
It took a while, and a few gulps of air for her to regain enough composure to talk to Danny any further. She had developed a stitch on one side.
“D-did...” Renn broke off and took another deep breath, “d-did the cheetah have a black tip to his left ear?” she asked taking hold of Danny shoulders and staring at him with imploring desperation.
“It’s so so important that you remember, Danny.” Her hands were still shaking, hell, she felt like all of her was shaking as she waited, barely daring to breathe.
“This...” Renn explained, her voice as shaken as her body, “this is your brother, its Henry.” It was enough to set her off crying again, and she could feel the sobs running away from her. It didn’t feel like she’d ever be able to stop.
“That’s him at seventeen,” she managed, pulling the sleeves of her jumper down over her hands in an attempt to dry her eyes, “the last time I saw him...Oh Aura,” she wept, clapping her hand over her mouth again to hide her trembling lip, “I thought he was dead.”
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