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fact that - like most students who miss an easy problem on an exam - he was unlikely to ever make that same mistake again.
    He finished his studies (including practicing his wards) and then attacked his chores around the station.  He let the horses out into the corral to graze and made sure they had fresh water.  He scattered feed for the chickens before collecting eggs from the henhouse.  While there, he also checked the aviary, which was in the same structure.  A raven had come in - probably during the night - from the Beverly farm.
    The message - as all such notes carried by birds - was brief and to the point:
     
    TROUBLE IN FIELDS - COME
     
    Errol crafted a short reply, stating that Tom was not present but that he’d pass along the message upon his return. He attached it to the proper bird’s leg and released it. The bird would arrive at the Beverly place in short order.  They hadn’t identified the specific problem, so he assumed it wasn’t an emergency. And even if it was, he wasn’t about to attempt anything without his brother. In fact, it was with that thought in mind that Errol clung close to the Station House for the entire day, doing little or nothing besides daydreaming of life in the cities.
     
    **********
     
    Near evening, Chad Sterillo, the mayor’s son, showed up with food - a salad, sandwiches, and fried potatoes for dinner, and baked ham and bread for breakfast.  He took away the pots and pans from the previous day’s meal, which Errol had thoughtlessly forgotten to wash - something that Tom would undoubtedly admonish him for.
    As to Tom, Errol’s brother had not yet returned, which was not totally unheard of.  What was unusual, however, was the fact that he hadn’t sent word.  Outside of one of Tom’s lengthy city excursions, Errol couldn’t recall a single day in the past seven years when he hadn’t received some kind of communication from his brother.
    Errol ate dinner in unaccustomed solitude, then made a short entry in his log before going to bed.

 
    Chapter 5
     
    Tom hadn’t returned by the next morning, nor had he appeared by the day after that.  Errol, untroubled on the first day at his brother’s absence, grew increasingly worried.  Tom had a reputation for being one of the most competent Wardens around, so any concern about him was probably silly. Still, Errol found himself going through his daily routine like an automaton, as anxiety over Tom gradually occupied more and more of his thoughts.
    Moreover, in addition to his normal chores, he found himself forming another habit: responding to messages from the Beverlys. Each morning a new note came from them for Tom to come by their farm, and each day Errol replied that Tom was not there, but he would inform him of their request as soon as he returned.  However, on the fourth morning of Tom’s disappearance (for lack of a better term), there was no such message waiting for him.
    This actually came as a bit of a relief to Errol.  The Beverlys, like most farmers in Stanchion, were decent, hardworking folk. However, whereas the patriarch, Dennis, had a tendency to be soft-spoken and restrained, his wife was the total opposite. A mail-order bride from a far-removed province, she was not the shy and demure spouse Dennis had been promised when he paid his marital fee. She was a brash and outspoken firebrand who spoke with a weird brogue, and she could administer as severe a tongue-lashing as Errol had ever heard.
    Somehow, though, this marriage of opposites had worked, producing three boys and six girls.  Moreover, while the boys all seemed to inherit the gentle demeanor of their father, the girls, unfortunately, took after their mother. In short, the Beverly women were a clan of shrill harpies, and Errol had always been of the opinion that it would be the girls this time around ordering spouses, because no man with knowledge of them would willingly marry into that family. Shockingly, however, the three eldest girls had