3: 3

3.

"You want me to kill the chicken?" I pointed at myself.

Darlene looked at me like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "What else? Before I married Xavier's father, I worked in his family's house for half a year. Everybody praised me for being hardworking and thorough."

"You think a lazy woman ever gets a man to want her?"

"It's my birthday today, and I'm in a good mood, so I'll teach you how to kill a chicken."

I looked over at Xavier. He assumed I was about to refuse, rolled his eyes, and his face soured all over again.

"Weren't you the one who kept whining that you wanted to come to my house? My mom's being kind enough to teach you, and you still have to go and upset her?"

I've been terrified of sharp-beaked animals since I was a child. Xavier knew that.

In my last life I begged Xavier for a long time, and he still made me kill the chicken.

He even said his mother making me do it was for my own good, and told me if I couldn't kill a chicken I might as well get out of his family's house.

I was wearing a white dress at the time.

I begged him over and over to let me change into something else, but Xavier's face was pure impatience.

"Aren't you the one who's used to wearing dresses? So what if you kill a chicken in a dress?"

The Simmons family was cruel, and even the chicken they raised was no better. The moment it saw I was scared, it came straight for me.

That big rooster chased me all over the yard. I fell more than once, and my dress got torn to pieces.

In the end the rooster crashed into the ground, and only then did I hack it once and get the thing killed.

The blood came spurting out and splattered across my face. I was so frightened I burst into tears, and out of instinct I turned to Xavier for comfort.

But he shoved me away in disgust and said I was making a fool of myself.

Darlene blamed me too, said I couldn't even do a little thing like this right, that she'd wasted all her good thoughts on me.

And the crowd laughed and laughed, said they'd never seen anyone so stupid, actually getting chased around by a chicken.

Seeing that I hadn't said anything for a while, Xavier gave me a push. "What are you doing? You really want to make my mom angry?"

He nearly knocked me over.

Coming back to myself, I said quietly, "But I'm really clumsy. Do you really want to teach me how to kill a chicken?"

When Darlene saw I wasn't refusing, her face eased a little. She picked up the knife lying nearby and handed it to me. "Go on."

I caught hold of Darlene's hand and asked, puzzled, "But how do I know when it counts as killed?"

Darlene let out a snort of laughter, as if she'd heard the funniest joke in the world. "How? Just let the blood out and that's it."

I nodded like I finally understood. "Then if I don't do it well, you can't blame me for it."

"Fine, I won't blame you."

As I walked toward the chicken coop, the chatter drifted up behind me.

"Isn't that big rooster of the Simmons' fierce as anything?"

"Sure is. Just a few days ago Darlene got pecked by it herself, scared her half to death."

"To kill this rooster today she even called in Grant Lawrence the hog butcher specially. Sending this girl to do it, isn't she deliberately making things hard for her?"

"Ugh, why do you care so much? Still, getting to watch a city miss kill a chicken today, now that's a rare sight."

They had no idea. The rarer sight was still to come.

Darlene said letting the blood out counts as killed, so today I'd let hers out properly.

I flipped the latch open with practiced ease, snatched up the rooster, and carried it over to Darlene like I was showing off.

"Auntie, look, I caught it!"

Darlene was stunned. "You caught it, just like that?"

Thanks to Darlene in my last life, I really did kill plenty of chickens after I married Xavier.

Darlene smoothed the hair at her forehead and gave me a sidelong look.

"Isn't that what work is. If you ask me you're just lazy, and it takes a—"

"Aaah!"

Darlene never finished the sentence before she was screaming.

4: 4

4.

The big rooster in my hands got loose for a second and jumped straight onto Darlene's head.

Then it dropped a runny yellow load of foul-smelling droppings that slid right down from the top of her head onto her face.

It was so disgusting she looked like a woman gone mad, some kind of shrieking ghost.

The people who'd just been crowding around her scattered, several of them gagging.

"I've seen a chicken drop its load before, but on someone's head? First time. That is just too gross."

"If you ask me, Darlene brought it on herself. Who tells a girl visiting for the first time to go slaughter a chicken?"

"And the very chicken that pecked her a few days ago, no less. Serves her right!"

Darlene frantically tried to shoo the rooster off, but the terrified bird raked several deep gashes across her face and still refused to come down.

She was screaming her head off, and Xavier just stood there gaping, forgetting to move at all.

Only when she was crying like a lunatic did I finally react and pull the rooster off her.

Her face had gone red, whether from shame or fury I couldn't tell. Probably both.

She wanted to curse at me, but the sight of the rooster clucking in my hands shut her mouth.

She whipped around and yelled at Xavier instead. "What kind of trash did you bring home? Nothing but trouble for me."

Xavier snapped to and immediately turned on me. "Ebony, are you doing this to my mother on purpose?"

I put on a wounded look. "But didn't you tell me to slaughter the chicken, ma'am?"

He was about to say more when the rooster flew straight at him and dropped another load right onto his white shirt.

Xavier nearly gagged from his own stench, forgot all about scolding me, and rushed off to change.

Darlene was beside herself. "Ebony, are you a curse sent to ruin this family?"

She'd finally caught on, and she'd guessed right too. Too bad it was too late. This was only the beginning.

I was busy chasing the rooster all over the place and pretended not to hear her cursing at me.

I even promised her,

"Don't worry, ma'am, I'll do as you say. I'll have the chicken killed in no time."

So I chased the big rooster around the yard on purpose, and plenty of guests got caught in the crossfire.

Kids were scared into crying and begging to go home, and quite a few people actually did leave.

I knocked over a good number of bowls and chopsticks too, and tipped over a lot of the dishes meant for today.

In no time at all, my chicken-chasing left the whole place in ruins.

Darlene forgot all about cursing me and just kept begging me to stop, saying she couldn't afford the damage.

Xavier, freshly changed, told me to knock it off too.

I turned a deaf ear, determined to prove myself. "No. This chicken did so many bad things. I am killing it today no matter what."

The more I said it, the more worked up I got, swinging the knife everywhere, until I hacked apart the new table Darlene had bought specially for the feast.

She watched with her heart breaking, too pained even to go change her clothes, and hurried over to stop me.

I looked at her and shook my head. "No. This chicken is too awful. Look what it did to you. I can't let it off."

Darlene felt like her chest was about to seize up.

Right at that moment, the rooster stopped in front of me.

I brought the blade down in a straight line, right along Darlene's belly.

Clang. The rooster's head hit the ground.

I grinned, fishing for praise. "I killed the chicken. See, I told you I could do it."

I looked up just in time to see the chicken's blood spray straight into Darlene's face.

"Ouch! "

The shock nearly turned her insides out, and in the end she just fainted dead away.

Xavier panicked and wanted to rush her to the hospital.

"No need," I said. "I've got a way."

The next moment, when everyone saw what I was holding in my hand, they were all stunned...