Chapter 1 #2
A bell hung over the haberdashery’s door tinkled as another customer came in. Terryl shooed Yerina away. “I’ll stop by later. Haze said they left you a note in the back.”
Yerina hugged her friend again before hurrying out the door. Fitting the key into the lock, she noted how the handle was starting to come loose from the wood.
“Girls, could one of you remind me to add fixing the doorhandle to my list?” she said.
“Eunji can’t remember where she left her shoes,” Bioon said. “You can’t trust a five-year-old.”
“They might, and besides, saying it out loud helps me remember too.” Yerina winked at the kids. Holding her breath, she pushed the door open.
Stepping back into the Mighty Leaf, Yerina slowly exhaled. “Oh… Oh my.”
She stopped in the middle of the main room and turned in a small circle, eyes roving over the space.
Well, almost the middle. A sizable chunk of the floor had been torn away to create a depression that meandered around the center of the room.
More floorboards were pried up to expose a broken water pipe.
One might call the interior a mess. Yerina pushed past such thoughts, willing the anxious fluttering of her heart to slow. With a deep breath, she looked around again, letting herself take in every detail.
There were more tables than she remembered, scattered around the room.
Several of the new additions came in varying heights with low stools or cushions rather than chairs.
All looked comfortable and the appropriate height for the surface, though hardly any matched.
Art hung from some of the walls, new and old pieces alike.
The serving counter sported new shelving behind it, with rows of glass jars Yerina remembered pushed up against ones that had come after she’d gone.
It was like when she’d seen Terryl; a beloved friend. A little older, but otherwise the same at heart. Well, the hole in the floor was a touch alarming. It was the sort of enhancement she’d envisioned the Leaf would add during her years away. Just—finished, rather than under construction.
Yet, as she followed the direction of the disrupted floor, the faint chalk lines still visible, indicating Haze’s original plan, Yerina saw it.
The Leaf in its final form, with a beautiful water feature directing guests around the shop, the flow of water adding to the ambience.
Statues and other art could adorn the pool, perhaps a lotus in the center.
She could hire one of the local mages to do underwater illumination or maybe have a series of lanterns along the pond’s sides.
So many possibilities sprang up in Yerina’s mind.
Bioon sauntered inside. “This is what you dragged me up here for?”
“It’s amazing!” Eunny yelled before she and Anadae scampered off to explore.
“Be careful,” Yerina called after them. To her sister, she added, “It just needs a little cleaning up. Have a seat. I just need to check the back.”
Yerina trod the familiar path to the teashop’s back room.
That was in need of some dedicated cleanup, too.
The stove needed a good rake out, and everything looked as if it could use a wash.
Or at very least, a solid dusting. In the back where the supplies were stored, she saw that they’d need to do a full inventory.
The sealing enchantments on the storage containers were still in working condition, but several would need to be freshened by the end of the season.
Yerina stopped beside the back room’s long sorting table and twirled around, allowing herself a quiet laugh so Bioon wouldn’t hear her.
Terryl was right; the Mighty Leaf needed some love, and Yerina had so much to give.
It would be work, and a lot of it, but Yerina had spent many of her years post-the Mighty Leaf managing Haze’s Central District shop in their stead.
Haze might’ve left her a bit of a mess, but it was one Yerina knew she could handle.
Not just clean up, but fashion into something even better.
Sweeping aside a few pencil stubs Haze had left on the tiny desk wedged into the corner, Yerina found one with a decent point left and a scrap of paper, and sat down to begin her list of tasks.
It was only as she reached for a new sheet to tackle inventory that she remembered her original purpose.
Casting about the “thought piles”, as Haze called them, Yerina found a folded slip of paper with her name on it resting atop a stack of old receipts bearing Haze’s scrawled notes.
Dearest Yeri,
I’m sorry I can’t be there in person to welcome you back. There’s been some family trouble in Central that I’ve got to handle in person. I wish I could be there, because I’ve a confession and I’m sorry you got to hear it by letter.
The Leaf is in a bind. If you’re reading this, then you’ve seen the poor dear needs some love.
I’ve left my reno plan and the names of some new supply contacts.
The tricky bit is that my loan for the shop was taken out in Central, and they’re demanding the balance early.
You have until midsummer to get the Leaf in the clear.
I know that’s not much time, Yeri, and again, I’m so sorry. But if anyone can do it, it’s you. Once the town gets that you’re serious, they’ll come around. Here’s my deal for you—save the Leaf, and she’s yours. I’ll try to check in at the solstice and bring the paperwork.
Haze’s signature was more of a scribble than a discernible word.
Yerina stared at the letter. Read it again, and again, hearing the words in Haze’s breezy voice.
Midsummer. Only a little over a month away to pay back— She dug around the piles until she unearthed the shop’s ledger and found more notes from Haze.
It wasn’t a heart-stopping number, but it didn’t elicit sighs of relief either.
The Leaf had some funds set aside for Haze’s “renovation plan,” which was more like a list of potential ideas with question marks, but the amount would only go so far.
Yerina stuffed the letter into her pocket. She’d come here to manage the Mighty Leaf, and that was what she would do. If they didn’t meet the lender’s deadline, it was still several more weeks in the teashop than she’d had before.
And… If she did it… If they saved the Mighty Leaf, it would be hers.
The beloved shop, not just hers to manage but to own as well.
With Bioon, of course. Yerina would be sure her sister was well rewarded for her support.
But the shop, the town, the Valley itself—it would be her home.
Again. As Central District and Graelynd had never been.
Instead of going through the shop to reach the front, Yerina went out the back and into the small courtyard behind the row of shops to which the Mighty Leaf belonged.
A short stairway led up to the loft above the teashop, and Yerina added checking its condition to her list. If it was habitable, staying there would save a few coins from staying at Sylvan’s inn.
Every copper was going to count, for Yerina knew that midsummer would be upon them in the blink of an eye.
She continued her trip around the shop’s exterior. The berry patches planted along the side wall needed pruning, and the window boxes should be replanted, but overall, the Leaf’s outside appeared in better shape than the interior.
Pausing outside the entryway once more, Yerina gazed around at the nest of shops down at this end of the street.
The haberdashery, the bakery, a curio shop that looked new.
She could just make out the inn at the far end, where the street opened up onto the main town square.
Further out, the road wound its way toward Sylveren University in the distance.
Home, for the next month and a bit. Yerina shivered as giddiness bubbled up within her. She turned to go inside, but movement up the street caught her eye. A silhouette, one as familiar to her as Terryl’s or the Leaf.
Dexter Burl stared at her from where he stood on the front porch of some shop.
Everything faded to the background in Yerina’s mind except for him.
Over five years since she’d seen him last. Five and a half, because even though there was no point in keeping track, her head and her heart had done it anyway.
Did he still think of her? About how they’d left things.
Have regrets about the way…no, not regrets.
Yerina would do it again, every time, make the same choices.
Leave. The memory of Bioon appearing outside her dormitory, eighteen and pregnant and resolute in her refusal to give any details, was seared into Yerina’s mind.
How Bioon’s steely facade had only showed signs of cracking when she’d leaned into Yerina—of her own volition.
Tucked her face against Yerina’s shoulder and whispered that she needed her sister to come home.
It was hardly a choice. There were no other options.
And whatever emotions Yerina might’ve felt, they melted away the moment Bioon sagged in relief at hearing her sister’s assurance.
Bioon’s quiet, “I knew I could depend on you.” Yerina knew her duty was fulfilled.
And months later, Eunny came into the world, became Yerina’s entire existence.
A living affirmation that she’d made the right decision.
So, no, not regrets, but did Dexter too think back on those memories of them with a wistfulness? Take them down like they were delicate and kept up on a shelf, stored but never forgotten? Memories to be held between gentle hands for a few moments before they were put back for safekeeping?
He looked… good. Even at a distance, she could see how his big frame had filled out more.
At twenty-one, Dex had still held a bit of gangliness, limbs lacking the heft he now had at twenty-seven.
He’d let his sandy brown hair grow a bit too, the floppy strands down past his ears if they’d have hung straight.
The temptation to run her fingers through them, to tangle as her hands became fists, pulling him down to where her mouth could reach—it was strong enough to make her hands twitch with anticipation.
Yerina had missed him. His friendship and whatever else that might’ve been stirring so many years ago.
A heated yet innocent kind of love that was the product of youth.
Dexter was still here, because of course he was, a Valley-born through and through.
He was one more familiar, dependable thing in this place Yerina loved and cherished precisely for how changed-but-not it remained.
Nostalgia sent a happy warmth through her chest. Dexter was still in Sylvan, and even if they never exchanged a single word, his presence was the last, subconscious piece she’d been waiting to see fall into place.
Everything would be all right. Somehow.
Yerina waved to him, and, after a moment, Dexter softened a touch. His shoulders lost their stiffness, and his hand lifted in return.
She started to call out to him, but a crash sounded behind her, followed by Eunny’s crying and Bioon’s annoyed voice. With a rueful laugh, Yerina waved again before going back into the Mighty Leaf.