Shadows Fall Away by Kit Forbes

three bitchy Judge Craigs. The older Trambley women’s eyes bored into me, watching every move, flashing silent signals back and forth about the way I held my fork, cut my food. I think they even found fault with the way I sat. They probably thought I didn’t notice it but when you hung around the type of people I’d been hanging with you learned to keep your eyes open.
    It was actually worse than being on trial. At least there I had a lawyer ready to plead my case. Here I was on my own and it was easy to see Mrs. Trambley and the older daughter, Phoebe, would be Hanging Judges if they were behind the bench.
    “I appreciate everything you’ve all done for me,” I said, before dipping a dinner roll in the gravy at the edge of the plate. Big mistake. The signals flashed between mother and daughter again.
    “Quite,” Mrs. Trambley replied. “Dr. Trambley takes his mission of aiding those in need seriously.”
    “Far too seriously,” Phoebe added with more venom than a Cobra.
    “When it suits him,” Genie added, garnering a sharp look from her mother and sister.
    I did my best not to cringe. There was something so politely viscous between these females that it set my teeth on edge. There was obviously a lot more behind those clipped comments I wasn’t getting. And didn’t want to.
    I kept my attention on the food, a pretty tasty bit of roast beef, and occasionally glanced at the women. Genie, her bright, blue eyes hidden behind those little round glasses, looked as if she almost felt as out of place as I did.
    Phoebe was all hard angles, her face as set as cement, making it entirely possible that she’d never once smiled or laughed. The sharpness of her movements with the knife and fork looked to me like scarcely repressed rage, the way my one friend’s sisters had become after her boyfriend sexted another girl on her phone. It would be no surprise if that repressed anger flared into violent action someday.
    Mrs. Trambley was a wider and grayer version of Phoebe. Her mouth ringed by wrinkles like a neighbor of ours who kept her lips pinched closed at all times. “Never happy unless she’s miserable,” my dad had said.
    The maid seemed to confirm my opinion of the three. She steered well clear of Phoebe and approached Mrs. Trambley cautiously. She was obviously more at ease around Genie.
    The other obvious thing was that Mrs. Trambley had already formed an opinion of me that would never change no matter what I did from here on out. She’d made a sly comment about my build, sniffing that no respectable young man of my years had muscles like that, not even the fit young soldiers. It was only common laborers who developed such physiques. She added as much disgust to the word “common” as was humanly possible.
    I sipped my water. “I like to think it comes from wrestling temptation every day.” Sarah coughed to cover a chuckle, Genie cleared her throat, but neither Mrs. Trambley nor Phoebe were at all amused.
    “And how is it,” Mrs. Trambley said, “that you have not pursued an education into a respectable profession or settled yourself down into a military career? Am I to understand that you have simply traveled hither and yon at your leisure?”
    Though I knew I probably shouldn’t, I decided to give the old hag something to get upset about. “Not only at my leisure but with some loud friends who have criminal records and a lot of beer. And some of those friends include girls.”
    Not the wisest word choice, considering that even Genie was shocked.
    I watched Mrs. Trambley’s expression transform itself from disapproval to something that even surpassed disgust. She put her napkin firmly on the table. “Some young women—”
    “Deserve to be given second chances,” Phoebe interrupted, glaring at me. “Don’t you think so, Mr. Stewart?”
    That had to be one of the most unexpected things I’d heard—at least coming from her. “Maybe, maybe not. I guess it depends on what they did to need a