Chapter 61 - The Farm in Irttat

 

Chapter 61: Harvest and Hibernation 05

Elves were the spiritual essence of plants, and by their ancient customs, every elf who died was buried beneath a great tree in the forest, to return to the embrace of the natural world.

Sophia was laid to rest deep in the Peace Forest, beneath a flowering old linden tree, beside a pool of deep green water, its banks covered in fresh, white irises, their moist petals seeming to absorb every sound around them.

White iris bloomed for a long time, from the blazing heat of May all the way to the bleakness of deep autumn.

Sheltered by trees, beside still water, with flowers growing lush around her, it was a good place to sleep.

The funeral was soundless, save for the soft rustle of footsteps on fallen leaves, as though announcing the final notes of this summer's song.

The cicadas in the trees kept calling, unseasonably, bewilderingly.

Elves had no gravestones. At the place of Sophia's burial, people laid down long, unbroken trails of flowers and fruit. Come next year, the white irises along the lake's edge would spread here as well, growing more abundantly and beautifully than before.

Everyone marked the occasion in their own way. Linnea had brought her harmonica, and played a quiet requiem for this elven neighbor she had known only briefly.

Lucita, for her part, brought a bowl of luo flower wine — the kind Aurora had brewed in spring when the luo flower was in bloom, opened in late summer, its sweet and clear fragrance carrying far in the air.

She poured the bowl onto the earth beside the grave and let it soak into the soil, a farewell libation for Sophia. 

The elves laid Sophia bare in the earth, praying for her return to nature. The half-bloods brought full-bloomed daisies and lilies, heaped at her resting place so she would dream sweet dreams underground. And Mavis —

She had wound a black crape around her arm, pinned up her loose hair, a typical funeral etiquette in the human world.

She had attended this funeral by the most solemn customs she knew, even though those customs were unknown to anyone here, making her stand out as someone apart.

It had been a long while since they'd met. Mavis looked more withdrawn than ever, with deep circles under both eyes, her dark gaze lowered to the iris blooms at her feet, wrapped in a mist that was difficult to read.

The mourners left gradually, one by one. Only the mother, Daisy, remained sitting cross-legged at the foot of the tree, her head bowed slightly, perfectly still, as though she might take root there beside the tree and meld into the surrounding green.

Mavis stared at Daisy's back in a daze. Lucita looked at the black crape around Mavis's arm, and the hair swinging in the wind.

Two strands of loose hair fell across her cheek. A breath of wind, and the strands barely grazed her lashes.

Throughout the entire funeral, Lucita had not heard Mavis speak a single word.

She suddenly thought that for Mavis, Sophia was not simply her closest friend, she was the only person who had ever witnessed Mavis's past. 

And now, that past had been buried along with Sophia's death.

The past...

Lucita lifted her face to the sky, visible only in fragments through the enclosing treetops. Between the dense branches and leaves, it looked impossibly wide and far away.

July was coming to an end. The weather turned cool. The west wind picked up, carrying off the pot marigold petals by the gate.

Lucita sorted through the remaining berries and dried them all together in the sun.

The sugars concentrated into the thin, wrinkled berry skins. She scooped a handful and let them pour through her fingers. The dried fruit fell into the wicker basket with a bright, rattling patter, a pile of five vivid colors.

Blue, orange-yellow, and pomegranate red, bright and mingled together. Pop a few into your mouth and they were almost cloying-sweet, but more delicious than even Teresa's sweets.

On the last day of July, Lucita estimated that her reply letter should have arrived by now, and made ready to set off for Tirol to collect it.

From the moment she got up, the sky had been overcast, heavy grey clouds pressing low, as though the gap between sky and earth had narrowed to something unprecedented, weighing down the spirit.

The returning moisture of rain on its way filled the air with a salty, faintly fishy smell.

Linnea wrinkled her nose. She wanted fish soup.

Breakfast was, as usual, Lucita at the stove and Violet tidying.

Lucita marinated three small crucian carp in finely chopped rosemary, thyme, and sea salt, fried them until golden and crisped on both sides, and lifted them from the pan, the pale white flesh already visible through the cross-cuts along the belly.

A thorough pan-fry is the key to a milk-white fish soup.

For the accompanying ingredients she chose dried pickled radish, finely chopped and stir-fried in a generous amount of oil until fragrant, then covered with water and brought to a boil. When the radish broth was bubbling steadily, she lowered the pan-fried carp into it.

Using what was at hand, Lucita opened a little luo flower wine and splashed it in as well, to remove any fishiness and deepen the fragrance. They did have grape wine stored at home, but grape wine was too sweet; barley ale foamed too easily. The relatively clean, clear luo flower wine was just right.

From there it was a matter of simmering on low heat.

Out of consideration for Linnea's throat, Lucita let the soup cook a little, then lifted the whole fish out, removed the head and large bones, ground the flesh in a stone mortar, and returned it to the soup to continue simmering.

The resulting fish soup was thick and creamy white, rich and smooth in texture, intensely savory, the kind of soup you could simply lift the bowl and drink straight down.

A satisfying breakfast. Lucita stretched, rubbing her eyes.

Violet had lived in the forest long enough to read the sky very well, and suggested: "Take a rain cape. It may rain today."

Lucita nodded and went along with it without argument. This sort of sky would look like rain to anyone.

She rummaged through Grandma Sandy's wardrobe and pulled out a rain cape and wooden clogs.

These rain articles were somewhat out of date by the standards of the current human world. Synthetic rubber had been developed and, valued for its waterproof properties, had been adopted by some people for making rain cloaks and rain boots, to widespread approval.

In the major cities, new-style rain gear had gone into production and become a standard item in any respectable middle-class home.

Of course, over a wide range of places, rain capes and wooden clogs were still the rain gear of choice for fisherwomen and hunters, and prized at that — Irttat, naturally, was the same.

 

Fortunately, Lucita had her personal space. Bringing these along was no trouble. She even packed some leftover fish soup from the morning, planning to have it with smoked ham and garlic bread for lunch on the way. 

There was of course no carriage. The single communal carriage was town property, and had been only lent to them last time by Javena out of consideration for what they were undertaking.

The townspeople rarely traveled out. Ordinary dealings with the human world were not something they generally sought. The scattered independent small cities out there lay tucked in the mountains themselves, retaining many customs from before the industrial age arrived, and remaining relatively closed off.

Perhaps the elders in those small cities had a vague awareness that deep in the mountains was a place called Irttat, but they held a respectful fear of the mysterious and didn't ask too many questions. Except for Palmer, whose family had been making the journey to Irttat for trade across generations.

Even so, the townspeople remained deeply reluctant to venture onto human territory.

Lucita didn't want to reveal that she was going to study magic, and had no particular reason to borrow the carriage from Javena anyway, so she simply set off on foot.

Her half-blood constitution was strong and her step light, and with her ability to direct the wind element and ride it, a round trip was roughly a day's journey, not so far after all.

Delphine hadn't come with her. Lately she and Linnea spent every day at school together, picking up a great deal of knowledge about the outside world and filling in considerable gaps in her general understanding of things.

The two of them were inseparable from morning to night.

Overcast skies pressed down from every direction. The deep forest rose up around her, ancient trees looming, their dark crowns nearly piercing the oppressive sky. The branches and leaves shut out the little light that remained, making the forest interior darker still.

The soil was slightly damp, the persistent fishy smell not quite gone.

The berries in the undergrowth had nearly all fallen. The lower wild rose thickets were still in bloom, and the robins flew low, restlessly settling on the branches.

Lucita walked the forest path in uneven steps, her mind as calm as it had ever been.

It had been a long time since she had been this quietly alone.

She opened the pocket watch in her hand. The glaring deep reds that had dominated when she first arrived were completely gone, even the human world's panel, the deepest of them all, was only orange-red now. That shift was probably the restabilized spatial layer buying them all a little more time.

The elves' and merfolk's colors had already softened to a tender spring-shoot green, vivid with life. And in reality, they were just that: their diminished homelands rebuilding, brilliant new civilizations and steadily growing populations. It was only a matter of time. 

The spatial layer had been the most immediate. From the moment the origin of space had remerged with the world, the deep red color had instantly faded to yellow, and was continuing to lighten as the world stabilized, magic recovered, and vegetation grew swiftly back.

It was a good thing.

That was as far as her thoughts went.

She was not a native of this world. A series of accidents had caused certain changes to happen here, and she had somehow found herself carrying what might be called a responsibility for its salvation, but there was something she had never had the chance to tell the creator god Gaia:

What did any of this have to do with her?

Her past was not here, which meant she had no particular sense of belonging to this world. She had no desires of her own — wanting nothing meant having no anxiety.

The world had been broken by its own inhabitants.

If the people of that land became intoxicated by the beautiful dreams of the night and refused to wake, refused to stand and defend what was theirs, chose willingly to be slaves to those in power, silently enduring the ravages of those who destroyed them, and in the end could only be saved by an outsider… Then it would only be broken a second time, and a third. 

The people of Grande had risen up. They had gotten their medicine. Even though they ultimately failed, the spark of defiance had been planted in every heart.

That single spark, in the vast dark of the night, mattered more than anything. People would begin to want — to want freedom and dignity — and that wanting was enough to make people break through anything.

Rather than waiting again and again for a savior to come and feed them, bleating and helpless, lambs awaiting both the hand that fed and the hand that slaughtered.

She turned the pocket watch in her fingers, then pocketed it with a quiet, wry laugh.

She would act out of compassion when she encountered people or things in need of help, as she had when she encountered the plague and brought medicine to the people of Grande. But she would not stop walking for a responsibility that was not hers.

She still had many things she wanted to do. There was still so much of this world she hadn't properly seen.

Magic...

Viktori, the capital of Kenting, what kind of place would that be?

The rain had been building for a long time. The sky had turned yellowish, muggy and oppressive, but still it held off, as though reluctant.

Lucita passed through the forest and knocked at the post office window.

The familiar golden-haired girl drew back the curtain and called out impatiently: "Who is it?"

"I'm here to collect a letter."

The girl pulled open a drawer and rummaged through a collection of papers, some snow-white, some faded yellow, for a long time, finally producing a parchment-colored envelope and handing it over. 

On the envelope, a signature in deep blue cursive script, the long trailing hook at the end of the final letter sweeping elegantly across the page.

After handing Lucita the letter, the girl took the opportunity to open the door and carry a pot of azaleas in from the window ledge, and added a word of warning: "Rain's coming. Did you bring a rain cape?"

"Thank you for the reminder. Yes, I did." Lucita smiled and nodded, settled her hat on her head, and left.

The girl watched Lucita walk away carrying nothing on her back at all, and muttered: "She brought one. Where's she keeping it..."

On the way back, the rain broke suddenly. After a whole day of building tension, the air finally opened up.

Lucita found an overhang, put on her rain cape, changed into the wooden clogs, and continued through the forest.

The forest was large. She began walking at dusk and was still walking as night came on.

The rain did not let up. Leaves on the old trees in the forest were washed by the urgent rain, rustling and shaking.

She couldn't see the path clearly. Her limbs caught on brambles every so often. Once, a branch grazed her cheek.

Lucita pressed her rain hat low and pushed through the undergrowth in silence.

Her hem brushed against a wild rose. The rose trembled briefly and shed a few petals.

Something made Lucita pause. She stopped, and looked back.

She stood for a moment, then bent down and pinched off the rose, and tucked it into the collar of her coat beneath the rain cape.

This was not a comfortable rain to walk through.

"That way, perhaps you can stay in bloom a little longer."

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