Chapter 13 #2
“Gossipy? Pushy?” Oaklin finished, delaying any real answer until they could move through the stab of fear thoughts of the meeting provoked.
They knew about Oaklin’s magic. Or rather, Ms. Chanda knew, and at least some of the others probably suspected.
Had word gotten out? Were the farmers now spreading rumors about Oaklin’s hidden magic instead of their torrid fictional lineage?
“All those things, yes,” Lior agreed with a laugh.
“But I haven’t heard a peep out of them about you since the meeting, which is unusual.
A new farmer is the biggest news since Mrs. Shin tried to raise guinea fowl in the back of her shop.
What a noisy mess that was. So for them all to have gone quiet was a little… unexpected?”
Lior was right; that was suspicious. Had Ms. Chanda told them not to say anything?
Or had they all been too consumed with the grim news of the coming summer challenges and not thinking of Oaklin at all?
That was the most logical, the most likely, but anxiety had a way of making everything about Oaklin.
“It went okay, I guess?” they finally answered. “I don’t know. It’s going to be a rough summer, apparently. Bugs and some kind of fungus or something. Not the easiest first summer to farm, but it wasn’t going to be easy anyway.”
Oaklin held the new wall plank in place while Lior lined up the first nail and pounded it in, pausing in their recap of the meeting long enough to get the top secure, then continuing.
“I guess I didn’t process just how many farmers there were around here.
That’s a lot of competition. Am I even going to be able to sell enough to stay alive here with so many other people selling the same things? ”
Lior paused in her hammering and turned to Oaklin, brow furrowed.
“You aren’t competing with them, Oak. You’re all working together to support the village.
It’s not like if they sell all their crops and you don’t sell any, you’re doomed.
If you ever didn’t make enough money, you’d still get what you needed.
That’s what the village aid fund is for, and the food bank. ”
Oaklin blinked right back, just as confused. “Village aid fund? I think Ms. Chanda mentioned that at the meeting, but I’d never heard of anything like it before then. The food bank too. What is it? How is it different from a general store?”
Lior huffed a puzzled laugh, hammering in another nail while she thought it over.
“Sorry, I’ve never had to explain this before.
It’s just a normal part of life in this region, especially in the small towns and villages.
You don’t buy food at the food bank; you just take what you need for the week.
And for the aid fund, you just go to the treasurer and explain your situation, and they give you money to help. ”
“But you have to pay it back with extra, right?” Oaklin said, finally catching on. They’d heard of those kinds of schemes before, even knew a fellow ex-cultist who had gotten sucked into one immediately after they were released.
But Lior’s confusion only deepened, then morphed into horror. “No, of course not! If you can contribute something back to the fund later, that’s great, but it’s not required. Did you really not have aid funds or food banks in…wherever you came from?”
Oaklin closed their eyes and shook their head, feeling like they were speaking two different languages.
Specific memories were either fuzzy or simply absent, as though a butcher had sliced a choice cut straight from Oaklin’s brain.
General information, on the other hand, was mostly intact…
including the struggles of life in their hometown.
Oaklin grimaced. “Back in Einkor, everyone worked for what they had. If you didn’t have enough, then you begged off neighbors or stretched what you had as best you could.”
“So you would just let people starve?” Lior said, voice raising in both volume and pitch. Oaklin bristled.
“It wasn’t like that,” they snapped automatically, though they had nothing to refute the point.
The specific memories weren’t there, but the vague impressions were damning.
Flashes of families getting sick by foraging the wrong things, losing a child or a parent to poisoning.
Families abandoning their farms in favor of more stable work in the city, with no one to sell their land to, knowing it would be taken over as soon as they left. It was all Oaklin had known.
“It wasn’t like that,” they said again, softer this time. “We were all just trying to survive. We could barely take care of ourselves, much less anyone else.”
Lior put down their hammer and laid a hand on Oaklin’s arm, sending a wash of sensation over their skin.
“Hey, I wasn’t judging. I’m sure you all were doing the best you could.
I can’t imagine how hard it would be to change things when you’re having to work yourself to exhaustion just to survive.
I’m glad you’re here now so you can see that it doesn’t have to be that way. ”
Lior moved to pick her hammer back up, then hesitated. “So, wait. You bought this farm expecting to have to do everything by yourself? Completely feed yourself and support the farm all on your own?”
“Y-yes?” Oaklin ventured in a small voice. It was the wrong answer, they knew that now, but it still didn’t soften the blow of Lior’s pure disbelief and…pity? Sympathy? Oaklin scowled. “Look, you don’t know what I’m capable of. I don’t even know what I’m capable of. I’m new to all this and—”
Lior held up her hands.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t know you well yet, though I hope I’ll get the chance to.
” Her cheeks colored and she quickly looked away.
“And you’ve already done incredible work here.
I just want you to know you have support.
The other farmers will help. Ryn, Jules, and I will help.
And if all else fails, Mossley’s Rest will help.
We’ve got you. So, you know, you’ve got some room to relax a little.
It won’t be the end of your world if a crop fails or something. ”
A massive weight fell from Oaklin, so suddenly they felt like they might float right through the cracks in the leaky roof and into the clouds.
They hadn’t let themself think the words in specifics, but the looming possibility of failure had been a haunting specter ever since they’d taken over the farm.
They would still do their absolute best to make the farm a success, but if something went wrong, they wouldn’t die at least.
Or if something took them away from farming their own land.
The tiny thought took root in the back of Oaklin’s mind, too small to take up much notice or cause too much panic, but there all the same. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to take some time off from the farm to help out on the other farms.
(Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to do so with magic.)
Oaklin mentally flinched away from the thought, then took a breath and steadied, let the tiny thought grow. A breath. Another.
They looked up, found Lior’s rich brown eyes on them, and felt something settle.
Oaklin stepped forward and rested their head against Lior’s shoulder, letting out an enormous sigh. Lior stood stock-still, then hesitantly lifted her arms to wrap around Oaklin’s shoulders, as if afraid of spooking a skittish horse.
“Thank you,” Oaklin murmured against the surprisingly soft fabric of Lior’s tunic. “I know I’m kind of a mess, and I really appreciate your help. And sorry for collapsing on you here—I just need a minute.”
“Take several, if you want,” Lior said, keeping her hold light so Oaklin could freely pull away. “You’re not a mess, and you can collapse on me anytime.”
So Oaklin did. They breathed in Lior’s soft scent, something light and natural, as if she’d been rolling in a field of lavender and sweet grass.
The shoulder under their forehead shifted with iron muscle—Lior’s sword arm, they realized—but the thought didn’t fill them with the terror it once might have.
Instead, they turned, laying their cheek against that shoulder, soaking in the comfort, the feeling of being protected and held.
The move also happened to place their lips within inches of Lior’s neck.
There was a beat where they considered: Could I? Should I?
The skin below Lior’s jaw called to them, begging for the gentlest brush of their lips…
Instead, they extricated themself with averted eyes and red cheeks and went back to work without comment.
By late afternoon, the plank had been replaced, the roof had been…
well, not fixed, but at least patched, and the sudden temperature drop of the spring evening didn’t permeate the house quite so badly.
Lior agreed to stay for a quick cup of tea as thanks, and as the hearth crackled and the water heated, Oaklin mulled over a question they’d been trying to suppress ever since their collapse in front of the library.
Lior had already seen them pass out in the street, kick a hole in the side of their own house, and express complete ignorance about basic human decency, and she seemed to still like them well enough.
Maybe she wouldn’t be too horrified if Oaklin simply put the question that had been plaguing them out there.
“I know how this is going to sound, but I have to ask,” they began, staring down into the tin of smoky tea leaves. “The Enchantrix is really gone, right? I assume if they weren’t, the church would know better than anyone.”
They instantly felt silly for asking, but always, always, some corner of their mind replayed that voice, the last words they’d heard as a free person.
“MY FOLLOWERS! GIVE YOUR MINDS OVER TO ME!”
Oaklin squeezed their eyes shut and awaited Lior’s answer.
“You’re not the first one who’s asked me that, you know,” Lior said, and Oaklin’s eyes flew open.
“Wait, really?”
The corner of Lior’s mouth turned up in a small smile.
“Yeah. It’s more common than you might think.
It was an awful time, and it ended so suddenly that a lot of people didn’t believe it was really over.
Everyone’s got scars. But yes, as far as I or any of the people in the temple here are aware, the Enchantrix is well and truly dead. They can’t hurt you anymore.”
Oaklin knew that. They’d been there. They’d seen the body fall. But that voice… The way it echoed in their mind, nothing like a memory, but like a real and present vibration in their ears, in their skull, and that stab of pain that always came along with it—
“Pause. Press. Breathe. Speak.”
The whisper was barely there, so faint Oaklin couldn’t tell if they’d imagined it.
But whether it came from Granny Ghost herself or was simply a vivid memory of her words, they pierced through the veil of Oaklin’s fear and pain.
They placed both hands over their heart, took in a deep breath, and blew it out slowly.
“I am safe,” they said.
“Yes, you are,” Lior agreed.
Oaklin peeled their eyes open and found Lior hanging back, just watching, not a trace of judgment in her expression. Oaklin managed a small smile and returned to the task of tea making, hands still shaking slightly as they scooped tea leaves into cups with something almost like calm.
The Enchantrix was gone. Oaklin had a farm and friends.
They were safe.
The tea was perfectly bracing after a day of hard labor, and Lior and Oaklin moved on to lighter topics, chatting until the sun began to dip toward the tops of the tallest trees of the western forest. When Lior finally stood to go, Oaklin laid a hand on her arm to hold her back a moment.
“Hey, feel completely free to say no to this,” they began, the words spilling out of their own volition.
Lior was leaving and Oaklin didn’t want her to.
They wanted more time. And so, they asked for it.
“I clearly have a lot to learn about Mossley’s Rest still.
Do you think you could show me around next week? Just you and me?”
As soon as it was out, Oaklin’s brain crashed into overdrive, telling them all the reasons it was a terrible idea.
It was dangerous to spend too much time with any one person.
Especially a paladin of the Three. Their magic would be found out, it was too soon, they would lose all their new friends, they—
“You know what? I’d love that,” Lior said, a small, shy smile curling at the corner of her mouth. Oaklin suddenly couldn’t meet Lior’s gaze or bear to look at that mouth, grinning down at the ground instead, head swimming with excitement, fear, wonder, and a bubbling sort of happiness.
It was a date. Was it a date? It was maybe a date and maybe a giant mistake, and Oaklin was thrilled. They flashed back to that moment when their lips had been so near the pulse point of Lior’s neck, so close to tasting the salty tang of her skin…
Oaklin and Lior worked out the details, making plans to meet up midweek as inside Oaklin’s chest, a new and startling lightness began to emerge.
It had been a good day. A good few weeks, even.
They’d survived their first market. They’d spent time with new friends.
They’d opened up, just a bit. It was a start.
Oaklin hoped Granny wasn’t watching—that would be mortifying, of course—but they couldn’t help but feel that she would be proud of them.