17. Fiella
The next letter found me in an unexpected place–tucked under the water jug I used to water my plants.
Dear One,
You can call me whatever you’d like.
I am glad that things have been getting better for you. Very glad, actually. You deserve peace and prosperity. Happiness, too.
I am holding up. I am tired, always, but the work I do is important. I’m needed here, and it is a good feeling to be needed.
I am conflicted, though. I don’t belong here.
I have been trying to avoid tonics recently, but I might consider it. I’m used to aches and pains, though. It comes with the territory.
Your friend,
Two
I placed the letter back where I found it, making a mental note to respond later, when I wasn’t quite so busy.
Days went by without any appearances from Redd, and I hated to admit that a small part of me missed his presence. He was grumbly and annoying, but he was strong. And having an extra set of hands around made the cleanup effort go by so much faster.
I had spent an entire five days just cleaning up beetle carcasses from every single nook and cranny in the shop. It was almost as though they were multiplying–every time I felt I had made progress, more appeared. I purposely avoided counting them (because I was protecting my fragile sanity) but there were a lot.
Sookie was around to keep me company, and she even brought in a few of the other local cats with her from time to time. She always seemed to be hanging around with a huge orange tabby and a smaller striped cat. I could just tell they were the cool cats in town, they were better than all the other cats. It was possible that I was biased.
I had left my windows and doors open for as long as I could stand it, but the cold air was relentless. I could’ve sworn it was getting colder instead of warmer, but that must’ve been my imagination. According to the calendar, Moonvale was rapidly approaching the mild season, so warm sunny days were only a few weeks away.
For today, though, it was gods damned frigid.
I was convinced that the horrendous smell of the beetles combined with the fumigation brew was still lingering in the shop, but I could sacrifice my sense of smell to spare myself from the relentless shivering.
I eventually sealed up the sack of beetles I’d been collecting and decided to pay a visit to my neighbors to see how they were faring. Mayor Tommins hadn’t been bluffing when he had mentioned that I wasn’t the only one with issues–the problem seemed to be fairly widespread.
I knew how hard it was to ask for help, even when it was needed.
“Hey, Lune!” I called out as I pushed open the door to the plant shop. Lunette hadn’t been struck by tragedy, as far as I could tell. She was one of the lucky ones. I wondered what kind of good luck charm she was carrying around with her.
“Coming! One sec! Just hang on and don’t touch anything!” I heard her voice call from one of the back rooms. I busied myself by admiring her new display of decorative mosses. There was an especially eye-catching moss patch that seemed to reflect light in a dazzling, glittery display.
Lunette had a knack for tracking down the most gorgeous plants in the whole realm. I had spent a lot of my silvers here, buying plants for my cottage and my shop. I couldn’t help it, I was obsessed! Even if I killed them from time to time, Lunette never judged me when I came back searching for replacements. I had developed a decently green thumb over the years. Not entirely green, but certainly green-tinted.
A few minutes later, Lunette appeared from the back room, covered in dirt, her eyes rapidly darting around the shop.
“What’s up with you? You look like you just rolled around in a mud puddle. Everything okay?” I asked, moving to the next table to admire a dazzling pothos vine that had pink spots. I made a mental note to get myself one of those too, once my shop was back in order.
She grabbed a towel from a nearby table and started wiping off her hands. “Oh, everything’s fine, just got a shipment that wasn’t packaged well, and things became a mess. I’ve got it handled,” she answered hurriedly.
“Anything I can help with?” I asked. Lunette was usually pretty chill–it was unsettling to see her looking so rattled.
“No, no. Just an accident. Nothing I can’t handle,” she explained while wrangling her orange hair back into its twist.
“Was it more of those toxic plants?” I asked hesitantly.
She looked at me guiltily but didn’t answer.
“Lunette! You better be filling out all the paperwork for those. I’m going to be pissed if you get thrown into the mayor’s dungeon and leave me neighborless!”
“They’re not all toxic! Only a few of them. Okay fine, most of them. But I won’t get in trouble this time, I’m certain. Kizzi and Mayor Tommins requested them–apparently, they are in need of some spotted thorn ivy plants for one of Kizzi’s potions. I didn’t ask too many questions.”
There was a lot of information to unpack there. If Mayor Tommins was backing the plant imports, then they couldn’t be that dangerous, I assumed.
Lunette refused to let me help her with cleanup. Something about how I never paid enough attention and would probably touch my face after touching something poisonous… Whatever! To each their own!
We chatted for a bit, until I began to sense that she was just humoring me to be polite and her mind was stuck elsewhere. I knew how to read a room.
I left, feeling vaguely concerned and more than a little confused. That was strange.
I decided to check on Kizzi instead–maybe she would need some sort of help. Fates knew she had helped me so much recently; it was about time I returned the favor.
Kizzi’s shop was a mess. But that was nothing new. Just looking around made my heart rate increase in secondhand anxiety. My own mess was something I could handle. Anyone else’s mess was panic inducing.
Kizzi had been having strange shop mishaps for as long as she had been running the shop, so she was used to dealing with minor tragedies. Like my blue hair, that I was becoming strangely attached to.
Whether things had gotten worse lately, though, well that was what I had come to find out.
The racks of bottles and test tubes and jars were disorganized, the sachets of herbs and flowers were randomly piled into baskets, and cauldrons of mysterious coagulated liquid were haphazardly placed on counters.
Honestly, this whole place was a hazard. It was amazing.
I picked up a bowl of worms with a shiver, moving it away from the edge of the counter. “You really need to do some organizing in here, I don’t understand how you can find anything you need in this chaos.” I called out. My toe jammed into a stack of cloths that was piled in the middle of the floor.
Kizzi sighed dramatically from behind the workbench. “It only looks like chaos to you because your brain didn’t create it. This all makes perfect sense to me! Watch this. Quiz me. I’ll close my eyes and find exactly what I’m looking for. What’ll it be?”
“Uh, okay, weirdo… How about dried dragonfly wings?” I asked skeptically.
Kizzi pinched her eyes shut and stuck her arms out. “Wings… wings… last time I used a wing was yesterday when I made that anti-nausea potion for Old Man Wilbur, they were in the barrel under the…”
Kizzi tripped over a carton, and I caught her before she could faceplant into a cauldron full of boiling green liquid. I was her prince, here to rescue her and save the day!
“You dumb ass! See, I told you. By the way, you should’ve just done that with your eyes open, it would have proven your point just fine,” I said, pulling her upright.
“Yeah, whatever, those damn sprites won’t cut me a break. I swear they keep moving everything! See, I could’ve sworn that I left this basket of tree bark back behind my desk but now it’s on the table with the cryptids. I would never do that! I keep flammable materials away from bug parts on purpose. I’m constantly putting things back where they belong, it’s exhausting!”
“You’ve been pretty busy lately, right? With all the madness that’s going on in Moonvale?”
“Yes!!” Kizzi exclaimed, flailing her arms dramatically. “I swear everyone has needed my help! It’s a pain in the ass!” She glanced at me when I let out a quiet huff. “Not you, babycakes, you know I love helping you.” She patted me on the cheek and left behind a smear of something warm and viscous. I wiped it off as quickly as possible.
“You know I can help you, right? I’m an expert at organizing random bits and bobs. You’ve seen my shop, it’s flawless! Er, I mean–it used to be flawless!” Kizzi snorted out loud, so I amended. “Okay fine, maybe I know what you mean by that organized chaos thing. But at least when I misplace things it doesn’t matter to anyone but myself. You could really do some damage. No offense,” I said, gesturing to my colored hair.
“You look fabulous, and you know it. But you’re right, I need to get this shit under control.”
“You do. At least we’ve got each other’s backs.”
“Forever and always, bestie. Now, you know I love you, but I need you to get out of my hair so I can trip over barrels and make messes in peace. If you see any sprites on your way out, give them a one-two-punch for me.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure Kiz. I’ll beat up some tiny harmless creatures for you.” I rolled my eyes. “To the moons!”
Her voice called after me. “To the suns!”