The first sentence alone gave me a good feeling for the scene. “breath of the devil” another thing I found imprressive was the dialect you gave the characters. It not only says about the charaters personality but also where they may be from.

For a scene-setter, this was perfect. From the little I have read of you so far, you’re eye for detail really takes a story from good to great.

I suppose for me, it is nice for a story to have a degree of containment within itself, and I kind of wanted a little more closure – but then on the other hand,you’re being very generous to any other writer who decides to pick up where you leave off!

Solid work – you’re definitely one to watch! MH :)

I agree with MH, you set the setting marvelously and continue to do so throughout the story. However, it seems as though there wasn’t a lot of closure to be had.

I do think the story was interesting when it came down to who her children actually are. That was clever.

I love the imagery of the children swarming around Ma Pearson like bees, chattering away at her. She’s a lovely matriachal character that I connected with immediately.
I also liked how you described the weather through the activities of the children, coming home bruised and so on.
Very nicely done Quick.

Really enjoyable read with lots of interesting characters.
You have a couple of typos, even with the colloquialisms a child named Toby or a child name of Toby probably works better with the dialect.