Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
The farm teetered on the borderline between summer and fall as Oaklin learned to live without the ghost. Without Emiline.
Autumn began its slow creep into Mossley’s Rest, with the scent of chill in the air each morning even as the afternoon sun still blazed.
Oaklin knew they needed to get in touch with their friends.
They’d been silent for almost two full weeks, except for a few brief words at the market, at which they’d worn brand-new gloves thick enough to contain the red glow.
They still hadn’t asked Lior to remove it yet, but they would soon. They were nearly ready.
Oaklin had promised their friends that they wouldn’t disappear again, and they intended to keep that promise.
But the void Emiline had left behind had swallowed them whole, the grief so heavy it eclipsed even the horror of what they’d done to her.
What the Enchantrix had done to her, rather.
There was even a strange sort of grief for Emiline’s son, who felt like a second ghost on the farm.
If he’d been as lucky as Oaklin, this would be his land, his crops, his animals.
In a way, Oaklin was living a legacy for both of the Eires.
They were determined to be worthy of it.
Granny probably would have said something like, “You already are.”
But then, Granny wasn’t there anymore. Oaklin would have to calibrate the compass of their legacy on their own.
It was hard to know how to be around their friends, considering their relationship to Emiline…
when she was alive. And they were only the beginning.
Ms. Chanda, Brim and Alin, Grer, and nearly every regular customer at the market, all of them had known and loved Granny Emiline.
It was inevitable that Oaklin would have to sort it out, but the autumn harvest was beginning, and it was so easy to sink into work and flow with the rhythm of the land, letting day slip into night again and again.
But after therapeutically harvesting the dwindling tomato crop in the turn-of-the-season sunshine, until there wasn’t a single tomato left on the vine, Oaklin finally wrote to their friends—including Dara—and asked to get together three days hence to remember Emiline Eire.
Emiline deserved to be celebrated… And Oaklin’s friends deserved to know the truth about what happened to her.
So did Sister Talla, who Oaklin included after only a brief moment of hesitation.
Emiline had genuinely cared for Talla, and it felt right to try to make a connection, or at least to smooth over the inherent tension that came from their association with Lior.
Perhaps Talla would hate them even more, knowing what they’d done to Emiline. But, perhaps not.
Regardless, Granny would want it this way.
Finally, Oaklin added extra notes at the bottom of two of the letters.
First, for Ryn:
P.S. I finally figured it out. Can you bring your paints over as soon as possible?
And then, for Lior:
I know it’s short notice, but do you want to come pick apples with me tomorrow after your library shift?
That done, Oaklin magicked the letters on their way and turned their attention back to the fields.
There was enough light left in the day to make a good push at digging up the sweet potatoes, and so Oaklin threw their whole heart into unearthing each gem as the late season wildflowers waved in the breeze, tended by bees and butterflies alike.
Emiline had worked hard to get Oaklin in shape to run the farm, and the growing season was so close to over.
Oaklin wasn’t about to let her down.
***
By the time Lior arrived late the following afternoon, Oaklin had already been picking for hours, surrounded on all sides by crates of crisp ripe apples in red, yellow, and green.
Processing them all would be their primary form of entertainment for the first month of winter, no doubt; whatever couldn’t be sold before the final market of the year would become applesauce, pressed cider, canned slices, apple butter, and possibly even fermented cider, if they got up the courage to try.
They gathered the last bunch of apples from the branch in front of them, then climbed down the ladder and deposited them in an empty crate so they could meet Lior halfway across the field.
“My deepest apologies, I’m pretty sure I smell disgusting,” Oaklin said with a wry grin.
Lior leaned in for a quick hug regardless of the smell. “You’re fine. I managed to wash my face and change clothes, but my hair still smells like dust and old books. We’re even.”
“Absorbing the general library odor, or did something happen?”
Lior coughed. “I may have been daydreaming about coming here instead of paying attention to my shelving. I knocked a whole box of old ledgers down onto my head.”
“Oh, so it’s my fault?” Oaklin said.
“Yes, all your fault! I can’t be expected to work under such conditions,” Lior said, bumping Oaklin’s shoulder with her own. “But seriously, I’ve been worried about you, Oak. We all have been. How are you holding up?”
The yawning chasm of grief and shame opened beneath Oaklin, but they took a steadying breath and stepped back from the edge.
Instead, they led Lior over to the picnic basket they’d brought out to the orchard with them, barely containing their moan of delight when Lior produced a box with two enormous sticky buns from Ryn’s shop.
Once they’d served themselves an early dinner with a heavy dessert, Oaklin answered Lior’s question with another one that must have seemed unrelated to her, a question they’d been wanting to ask for months.
“Before the memorial tomorrow…can you tell me more about the woman who lived here before me?”
Lior’s expression lit up in a way that made Oaklin’s heart ache.
“Of course! I absolutely loved that lady. Everyone in this village loved Emiline…or loved to hate her, in a few cases,” Lior said with a fond smile. “She did the farmer’s market, of course, but she also provided all kinds of apothecary and magical services.”
“You mean she sold potions and tinctures?” Oaklin asked.
“Among other things,” Lior said. “She’d help out the other farmers when they struggled, share her time and magic to make sure everyone had enough to eat.
She checked on people who were sick. She was a big reader, always in the library asking for something interesting to ‘stick her nose into.’ I got her into our most explicit romance novels, which I found hilarious and Talla found horrifying.
She was close with Sister Talla, which boggles my mind, but they clearly loved each other.
She always grumped that she didn’t have enough time to do every little thing for everyone and waved it off anytime someone tried to praise her.
She was just…here. For everyone. And she was appreciated. ”
Lior’s smile grew mischievous. “Even if her way of being there was mostly through tough love that not everyone wanted to hear.”
Oaklin barked a laugh and wiped a tear away, hearing Emiline’s ghostly sigh and sharp tone clear as day in their memory. “Gods, that’s exactly it!”
Lior frowned. “You say that like you knew her too.”
Oaklin rubbed at the hem of their sleeve, their eyes downcast and their smile so very sad. “I did. Promise not to think I’m crazy if I tell you the truth?”
Lior raised an eyebrow. “Well, now you have to tell me. I promise to be open-minded.”
So, Oaklin told Lior about the ghost: about meeting her for the first time, about her stern instructions for Oaklin and her no-nonsense way of loving them.
And about her deaths. Both of them.
“Oh,” Lior said when Oaklin finished. “Oh.”
She took a long, agonizing moment to cover her eyes and breathe, her face shifting through myriad expressions before settling on a pained, thin-lipped grimace.
“We knew she’d probably been killed by cultists. She told us all what she was planning. Knowing the details…”
Oaklin cringed away from Lior, burying their face in folded arms propped on their knees. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I know I—”
“No, Oaklin,” Lior interrupted. A hand gripped Oaklin’s elbow, reassuring. “I don’t blame you. It wasn’t you. The Enchantrix killed her. It wasn’t you.”
Before the months of lessons and love from Emiline, Oaklin would have protested, gone hoarse with arguing.
Now, they simply looked up, saw the truth in Lior’s eyes, and let themself be pulled into a fierce hug.
Oaklin curled up in Lior’s arms and let themself comfort and be comforted as their shoulders shook and their chest heaved.
Oaklin had cried a lot in the past week, but having someone there to hold them while they fell apart let their body feel safe enough to really let go.
It was ugly, and it hurt, but Lior held on and rocked and cried with them, their tears mixing together in the copper strands of Lior’s hair.
After a while, the sobs subsided, and Oaklin wiped their face with a cloth from the picnic basket. And all the while, Lior ran a soothing hand over Oaklin’s back, murmuring kind words and soothing Oaklin’s wounded heart.
“This explains a lot, you know,” she said after a while.
“You were so secretive in those early days. I thought it was just the cult stuff. No wonder, though. You had a ghost living in your house and couldn’t say anything!
Must have been so irritating…on multiple levels, actually.
The secrecy, but also, Emiline was an awfully spiky gal to have as a roommate.
Pathologically incapable of letting anything slide, am I right? ”