Chapter 1

Violet walked along the bookshelves, running her hands along the spines. She loved the feel of a book, the size and shape of it. Sure, you could get everything electronically, have the entire contents of this room in your phone or pad, but ... maybe the twelve year old was just old fashioned. Or she was turning out like her parents.

Yuck.

Smiling, Violet turned and walked to the other side of the room. The house her Daddy had designed for the growing family had a huge library, with books divided in various ways. Not just by subject, but by popularity. Each person, adult or child, could put a book in their own special section as well as keep a couple in their room. You could read someone's special book, and in fact that was encouraged, but it had to go back where you found it.

Today, Violet was going to look at her Dad's books.

As the oldest of the seven children, although just by six months, she was the most advanced in her reading. Cindy was close behind, but as she was now in Sixth Grade, Violet was more interested in "adult" books. Oh, not the stuff with sex in them, although her parents had never kept that kind of stuff from her. Her own lack of interest had been enough of a filter. No, she was just moving on to the same type of stories her parents liked. Maybe. It was time to see if she actually liked reading them.

She ran her light chocolate colored hand along the shelf, looking at the options. Large hard covers, comic books, paperbacks ... so many choices. Which were his favorites of his favorites? Maybe the ones that looked the most read?

On a middle shelf, there was a row of old, thick paperbacks. Many by the same author, Feist, with fantasy sounding names. They looked battered and well read. A good place to start. Violet reached and pulled the first book out, looking at the cover. It was dark blue, with a picture of a teen boy and a wizard, and given the title, "Magician: Apprentice", she could guess the relationship. She turned it over, reading the description, then flipped through it.

In the middle, was a book mark.

A photo. Of a naked woman, lying on a couch, reading this very same book.

Violet's eyes widened. She pulled the picture out, looking at it closely. It wasn't of one of her moms. She had seen naked pictures of her moms, or at least of two of them, as Mommy Taylor had painted them at various times, as well as just seeing them in various states of undress. Things were somewhat casual in that regard. The woman in the photo was very curvy, like Mommy Anita, but lacked the dark skin that Violet shared with her birth mother. She was also tall, like Mommy Rachel, and had glasses like her, but had curly red hair falling to her shoulders instead of being blond.

Who WAS this? A mystery mommy? Did her MOMS know Dad had a picture like this in his books?

And if not ... should she tattle?

She walked out of the library with the book, and wandered down the hall towards her bedroom. She had to think.

Taylor was singing as she cooked.

She loved cooking. She loved doing things for others. Especially ... her family.

Her family ... still, after over a decade of marriage, just that word gave her goosebumps. Taylor had so many people to love, and who loved her. Loved her unconditionally. Understood, accepted, and cherished all her faults and quirks. What more could any woman, any human, want?

Well, there was a part of her that wanted still more babies. Smiling, Taylor acknowledged that she was the happiest when she was pregnant, with a huge belly jutting out her short, thin frame. The four of them had decided, though, that four had been enough. Not enough children, mind you, but given practical and financial limits it had been decided that with Anita unable to have more and Taylor popping out four of her own, any more children would come from Rachel. She had given them a daughter so far, bringing the total to seven, and was pregnant again. That was OK with Taylor. What few regrets she had were wiped out by the love of her children and wives. And husband.

She looked up at the clock. Fred and Anita should be home soon. They had taken the boys out to the park to sled, and said they'd be home by dinner. They'd better be. It looked like the snow was really starting to come down out there. Plus, she'd pulled out Fred's grandmother's pierogi recipe and spent the day making them from scratch. That was a lot of work that shouldn't go to waste. Luckily, she had the two older girls to help. Speaking of which...

"Violet! Cindy! Get in here!"

She heard the scrambling from around the house, and in a minute her two daughters came running in from either side of the kitchen. Cindy made it first. Her skinny beanpole of a body slid to a stop next to the refrigerator, a grin on her face. Already the almost twelve year old was as tall as her mother, having inherited height genes from Fred's side of the family it seemed. Yet in most other ways she was her mother's daughter. Girly to the point of parody, she wore her long brown hair in a braid down past her waist and dressed in pink and white whenever possible. Today's selection was a pink skirt and white blouse.

Next in was Violet, the only one of the children not fathered by Fred but loved by all. She was Anita's mirror, Mayan in blood and just starting to show the curves that would soon make boys quake in her presence. Personality wise though she had seemed to take after Fred more than the others, perhaps absorbing it by osmosis, was an avid reader and would listen to Fred tell tales of history and adventure whenever she cornered him. Not that he ever shirked from such. Her dress tended towards jeans and t-shirts, today's being a black Bubblegum Crisis one that hid breasts just starting to take shape. She was holding a blue paperback in her hand.

"Cindy," Taylor ordered the giggling girl, "set the table. Violet, cut those onions up for the pierogi's." Cindy walked over to the cabinet and began grabbing plates, while Violet hesitated. Her mother looked at her questioningly, the girl also matching her height already.

"Mom ... can I ask you something?"

"Certainly. Can you do it while you chop onions?" Violet nodded and put the book down away from the cutting board, then grabbed the knife and began chopping. "What is it?" Taylor asked, grabbing the giant wok she planned on using. It wasn't Polish, but was great for large batches of the potato and cheese filled dough pockets.

"Um ... did Dad have a wife before you?"

Taylor would have dropped the pan if it wasn't already on the stove. As it was it clattered off the gas burner, and Cindy looked up startled from the table she'd been setting. Taylor just looked at her oldest in shocked confusion.

"Why do you ask THAT, honey?"

Violet went over and picked up the book again, and handed it to her mother. Taylor recognized it instantly, and seeing the edge of the photo sticking out her eyes teared up a bit and she looked up at her daughter.

"Oh, honey ... your Dad hasn't told you about her yet, has he?"

Violet shook her head, and Cindy slowly walked over entranced by this new mystery. Taylor pulled the photo out of the book, and Cindy gasped.

"Who is she, Mom?"

"In a way ... she's the one who made this family possible." She looked up at them. "Tonight, after the kids are in bed, we'll see if your Dad wants to talk. It's his story."

They sat in the living room, snow silently falling on the other side of the large windows. The four youngest were in bed, if not asleep, and the rest of the family surrounded Fred as the fireplace in the corner sent out its comforting light and heat. He was sitting in the middle of the couch, photo in hand, just staring at it. Rachel, belly round with their eighth child, sat on his right, hands on his shoulder, eyes darting between her husband's face and the mystery picture. Anita sat on his left, one hand caressing his leg, the other around Taylor who sat next to her. On the floor in front of them sat Violet, Cindy, and Freddy. His sisters had filled Freddy in, and as the eleven year old sat between them he looked up at his father with wonder. How many moms did he HAVE?

Fred looked up, eyes traveling between his three oldest, then he looked first at Rachel then his other two wives. He felt the love surrounding him ... and that finally made his mind up. He looked back at the photo, and sighed.

"I haven't seen this picture in years. I ... had forgotten I had left it there. It was in the book when I first met Mommy Taylor, and maybe I kept it there as a good luck charm. It seems to have worked," he added, looking around and smiling. The kids giggled at that, and his wives leaned in for quick kisses which also brought embarrassed giggles from the kids. They were use to all the kissing, though. Fred looked down at the kids. "Your mommies know about this woman. I've joked for years that she's the one who brought us all together. However ... I've never told anyone her story before. It's a sad one, although we were happy most of the time. You three are old enough to hear it, and more importantly understand it, and maybe I'm ready to tell it." His gaze again fell to the picture. "I still miss you, Lisa."

Fred loved Forts.

Forts were fun. Forts were fantastic. Forts were ... forty. Wait, that wasn't right ... What was right, though, was Fred was walking up to the gates of Old Fort Niagara.

He stopped with his feet just on the drawbridge, and looked up. Before him was the stone gate house. Through that, the courtyard, the Castle, the "underground" batteries ... he had been to this place so many times in his life he knew it by heart. So many memories were of his family driving up to the park for a picnic lunch and wandering around the battlements. How would it feel, now that his family was gone?

People were passing by him, so reluctantly Fred moved his feet and walked under the steel gate, through the short tunnel, and into the courtyard.

People and tents filled the yard, which laughingly Fred realized would have changed his feelings regardless of the events of the past month. Encampments, hundreds of re-enactors descending on the fort for a weekend, were new. It created a sort of renaissance fair atmosphere, except with guns and more accurate clothing. Noting the Native American warrior walking by dressing in just a small loin cloth, it also had a bit more for the ladies obviously...

Fred wandered around, taking it in. After a year of dealing with Mom's chemo, Dad's drinking and decline, all fit in among his teaching workload ... seeing all this activity and knowing it had absolutely nothing to do with him was wonderful. He could let it wash around him, safe in the knowledge he could just walk away any time.

A secret part of him wished he could have done that with his parents.

He came up to the "French Castle", a large two story rectangular stone building with a third story attic. An attic which Fred considered one of the funniest things his Dad had told him as a kid. He had to go up there again.

There wasn't exactly a line, but more a steady stream of people entering the Castle, and Fred joined them. The main doors were closed so they filed in through the end of the building, wandering past one long wooden bed where the common soldiers would sleep. Kids were looking at that in wonder. Fred entered the central area, with the stair cases going up, and saw a couple elementary aged kids looking at the stone well. There was also a redheaded woman there, probably a mother, who wasn't exactly fat but on the curvy side. Fred's eyes slid back to the kids, and chuckling he went over.

"See the severed head down there?" he asked. The two boys and a girl looked up at him, startled. The blond pigtailed girl's eyes widened.

"H-head?"

"Oh, my mistake. It would be the headless body down there. You know," he said, looking at the three of them, "from the headless ghost."

The oldest boy, wearing a Sabres shirt and hat, looked down into the well.

"There's a BODY down there?!? No way!"

"That's what the legend says," Fred replied, having their full attention. The redhead, who he now saw had glasses and a rather cute face, was also listening attentively along with others nearby. Fred looked down at the kids and lowered his voice a bit as if telling a great secret. "The story goes two soldiers were fighting for the love of a beautiful native girl, and they fought just outside this building. The one KILLED the other, and cut his head off! He tossed the head in the river, and the body down the well! And..." his voice lowered even more, " ... sometimes at night, if you are wandering around the darkened fort, you can see his headless body looking ... for his head!"

"Cool!"

"Awesome!"

"Let's look for his head!"

The oldest boy, now having a quest, dashed off into one of the rooms, and the other two quickly followed. Fred smiled. Who said history had to be boring?

It was a bit crowded down here, so Fred turned and ambled up the stairs to the second floor. He entered one of the large stone rooms, obviously an officer's quarters, and walked around a bit examining things. The park had picked up some better items to fill the rooms with, his memory seemed to be telling him. He was looking at the fireplace when there was a female voice behind him.

"See any extra heads in here?"

He straightened and turned. It was the woman from the well. Fred wasn't used to being stalked like this, and that thought caused him to laugh. Of course he wasn't being stalked! He did, though, give her a closer look. She seemed to be in her mid-twenties, compared to his thirty, wearing a blue Mickey Mouse t-shirt that was a bit oversized but tight where it counted. She had dark red shorts on that showed off shapely legs, and red hair that was all curl and flowed down to her shoulders. Fred cocked his head at her.