Chapter 64 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 64: Harvest and Hibernation 08
Lucita hadn't been deceiving anyone.
The black tea biscuits she had originally planned to bring to the festival had been carried off by Linnea to share with her friends, and in the process had inadvertently caught on. Which meant she genuinely needed to think of something else to bring to the festival now.
As it happened, it was the season when everyone went into the forest together to gather chestnuts, and chestnut pound cakes had begun appearing on Teresa's shelves. Split roasted chestnuts were packed into children's snack pouches by parents. Their slightly gritty texture and natural sweetness made them sweeter even than candy.
Every household was cooking up chestnut paste: a slightly grainy, dark brown thick spread, its sweetness adjustable by controlling the amount of white sugar added, so that every family's batch came out at a different consistency, doneness, and sweetness.
People quietly compared notes. If your chestnut paste was notably delicious, and children came trooping over to beg for it, well, you could walk down the street with quite a spring in your step.
Linnea went excitedly to gather chestnuts with Jessica. Violet, with nothing pressing to do, took her longbow to the Peace Forest to hunt. Lucita counted out enough silver coins, spent a morning circling the street, and came back with the sugar bowl, cheese jar, and spice jar in the house all replenished, and a few new empty jars besides.
These new jars were for the chestnut paste.
Beyond eating the paste straight with desserts, Lucita had other plans — fold it into cream to make chestnut cream for cakes.
Soft cake, fragrant cream, the slightly gritty texture of chestnut, all the things children loved assembled together. A cake covered entirely in chestnut cream... who could say that wasn't more eagerly awaited than black tea biscuits?
Linnea and Lucita spent three full days gathering chestnuts, filling two whole jars, each one large and beautiful.
Chestnut paste was stirred into the cake batter before baking, folded into cream before whipping, and crushed chestnut paste was layered generously inside the baked deep-brown cake.
The chestnut paste filling had been soaked in sugar syrup beforehand, so crushed into a paste it didn't come out dry or bitter, but smooth and sweetly fragrant.
The final scoop of chestnut cream, a trembling mound that wobbled twice on the wooden spatula, was spread over the surface of the cake.
A wooden spatula alone wasn't going to give a perfectly smooth finish, so Lucita didn't try for one. She simply spread a layer evenly over the surface to wrap the whole cake, then set a single large whole brown chestnut on top, and a few small purple perilla sprouts arranged around it as garnish.
Linnea: "Wow —"
Lucita urged her to cut it and try a piece. Linnea, however, circled the cake several times, unable to bring herself to touch it.
"It's too beautiful!" she kept murmuring.
In the end, this cake mostly ended up in Linnea's stomach. The cake and cream, fragrant and sweet without being cloying, left her so full that she was wrinkling her face at Lucita's door in the middle of the night: "Sister Luci, I ate too much. I can't sleep."
Lucita, both exasperated and amused, lit the living room lamp, rummaged through the magical herb basket for quite some time, and put together a digestive potion for Linnea.
Pale purple, faintly sweet and sour — one measure, and it took effect quickly. Magical herbs were not to be compared to ordinary medicinal plants.
The great chestnut cake incident passed quickly enough. Linnea, who never learned her lesson, was still asking Lucita to bake her cakes every single day.
Lucita turned a deaf ear.
Violet had recently taken up her own people's ancestral calling: hunting. True to her nature as a hunting elf, she had been bringing home bear hides and rabbit pelts in succession over the past several days, piling up a great heap in the living room.
The pelts were taken to Elsia's tailor shop, made into clothing, and in less than a week they were ready.
Except for Delphine, who had no physical body, all three received a pair of soft rabbit-fur boots. The leather, dyed pure black, had been buffed to a quiet shine, with a small silver clasp at the ankle in the style of the human world. Wearing them, they looked rather like people of substance.
As a side note, Linnea's wool short cape from earlier had been completed by now as well: a small thing, dyed flame-red, and it suited Linnea perfectly.
Elsia had also thoughtfully sewn a small white pompom to the tip of the cape's hood, which bobbed and swayed with every step Linnea took, endearingly charming.
As soon as they received the new clothing, it was time to start preparing winter padded garments.
Unlike the other neighbors, all three of them had only arrived this year, and needed new clothing for every season, made fresh each time.
Fortunately, none of them had a human body's fragility against the cold, so there was no great urgency to the preparations.
Lucita bought a quantity of cotton and ordered from Elsia's design pattern book: a deep blue puff-sleeved padded coat for Linnea; for herself and Violet, simple black long capes, the kind that made you invisible if you stood still in darkness.
Not long after the end of autumn harvest, the time came for the annual harvest festival.
This was a genuine religious observance, a day of worship for the creator god.
Unlike humans who could only approach the divine through doctrine and legend, the people of Irttat — by virtue of their own long lives and the even longer lives of their neighbors — had accumulated far more knowledge, and their reverence for the divine was correspondingly deeper. It was not the blind submission that had been conditioned into people through a symbolic institution, but a genuine gratitude toward Gaia herself.
Among the elves and merfolk, there were still elders who had survived from the prehistoric era, and who told the young the stories of the miracles they had witnessed.
The earth split. Mountains collapsed. Rivers ran dry. Only the divine garden, the Esti Range, remained clear and green and alive with growth.
When they were hunted to the edge of extinction by humanity, brought to the brink of despair by the great disaster, the creator god and great mother had guided them to the divine garden, and let them settle beneath these mountains.
From then on, the Esti Range descended from the divine realm, lost at the edge of the continent, separated from the plains outside by range upon range of mountains, and yet close to the independent city-states that also happened to be nearby.
For the people of the Esti Range, there was no need for doctrine or scripture, no need for priestesses walking the world on behalf of the divine. There was only the creator god Gaia herself, and only the simplest reverence, and that had sustained them through all these years.
Every autumn harvest, people offered up rich and plentiful offerings, loaded onto beautifully decorated carts and drove three circuits around the town, in gratitude for the divine protection and bounty they had received.
In Irttat, to prepare for the festival, every household had its own task to fulfill.
Lucita was new this year, and was naturally not assigned anything as important as preparing the offerings — her task was to make decorations.
Quite a number of townspeople had been given this task.
People went in groups of two and three to gather bouquets from the forest for the festival. Grandma Gina cast several brass wind chimes, and Lucita threaded them with flame-red maple leaves sealed in resin.
Linnea was busy tying ribbons on the flower bunches, though they came out rather crooked. Even Delphine, working with spatial energy in the air above her, tied neater bows.
Violet... Violet looked around, set down the vase she had been filling with water, slipped off to the kitchen, and scooped herself a third spoonful of chestnut paste from the jar.
In the busy, unhurried days of late autumn, the harvest festival arrived.
The center of the celebrations was, as always, the square at the activity hall.
The decorated cart stood beside the altar, its four canvas corners hung with brass wind chimes. Strings of resin-sealed flame-red maple leaves swayed beneath them, chiming softly with every movement of the horse.
Around the horse's neck hung a large flower wreath crowded with cosmos, begonias, evening primrose, and azalea, a warm festive abundance in all the blazing colors of the autumn forest.
Following the customary arrangement, two long rows of tables were set out on either side of the square.
Cakes of every kind, floral pastries, chilled plum wine and luo flower wine, fluffy pancakes with maple syrup drizzled over them, preserved fruits, sweet tea. Every color, cold and hot, rich and light, everything looked sweet and inviting.
Wild ginger bouquets with dew still clinging to them were interspersed between the dishes, large blooms like butterflies, fresh and white and standing straight in the wind.
Lively cosmos and begonias on slightly shorter stems ran continuously down the long tables in a blaze of color.
On these tables each household had placed its most prized festival treat, and Lucita's chestnut cake met with unsurprising approval from everyone who encountered it.
On appearance alone, the brown cream looked more enticing, and far more suggestive of sweetness, than the plain white fresh cream that was the usual standard. And the chestnut on top made it perfectly clear: the color of the cream was from chestnut paste folded into it.
Cut open, the dense chestnut filling and the soft, sweet chestnut-flavored sponge were both enough to delight — she had worked chestnut into every part of the cake.
One small slice each, and the chestnut cake was gone. Those who arrived late could only look on regretfully.
Linnea smiled so hard her face went stiff, and had to stop to knead her own cheeks.
Lucita assumed she would calm down after that, but when it came time for everyone to vote for their favorite treat, the chestnut cake's commanding lead set Linnea off again.
Small enough to slip through gaps easily, she kept wedging her way to the very front of the tally board until she finally demanded that Lucita lift her up to see, and the other children immediately copied her.
For residents with half-blood constitutions and excellent physical strength, lifting a child was, naturally, as effortless as eating or drinking.
In the end, the chestnut cake took first place in the autumn baking competition without a single competitor coming close.
Linnea threw her arms in the air and cheered.
Amid the commotion, the older women lined up to load the altar offerings onto the decorated cart.
Persimmon cakes that had been frosted and dried for a long time, sweet and concentrated; steamed pumpkins, round and plump; large roasted sweet potatoes with caramelized, wrinkled skins, sugar running from them.
Venison, roe deer, and boar, all small ones, roasted whole, their hollowed cavities packed with lemon, apple, and spices so the skins didn't dry out but stayed crisp and fatty.
It must be mentioned that this year, having discovered the secret of good boar meat, people counted this among the gifts of the divine and placed the castrated young boars front and center among the meat offerings, to express their gratitude accordingly.
Representatives of everything harvested this year, apples, pears, cherries, and luo flower wine, and even the largest turnip anyone could find, were each selected and placed on the cart.
The offerings were stacked high on the decorated cart, and the cart began to move slowly forward.
No one rode the horse. Javena walked at the head, leading the cart in three circuits around the town, with the townspeople following along in happy noise behind.
Along the route, each house they passed had its own small table outside, also laden with food, a little of everything, set out for anyone passing to help themselves at will.
This was a custom that had been passed down from the time Irttat was first established: solidarity and sharing.
By today, the people were no longer living in daily anxiety about survival, no longer struggling for food and clothing in the early days of clearing the land. They lived in comfortable abundance, but the custom of solidarity and sharing had been kept, and every year's autumn festival maintained it.
Lucita moved the long wooden table from the living room outside, and covered it with dishes and pots.
With the remaining chestnuts, she had also made a batch of braised chestnut chicken. The texture of chestnut flesh was different from fruit or vegetables, not clean and light, but dense and slightly "muted," with a woody fragrance that suited meat perfectly.
The chicken thighs were tender, the broth generous, braised until everything was wonderfully soft, the chestnut flesh sandy and yielding.
Beyond that, dried berries, small dried fish, red-braised boar, leek and turnip soup. The aromas intertwined, smelling of happiness.
People ate and paused and ate again, making their way down Parrot Street and out to where the town bordered the Peace Forest on the west.
Linnea had Delphine sitting on her shoulder — she had this time taken the form of a robin.
Lucita held Linnea's hand, walking alongside Violet, patiently listening to Linnea recount the brave deeds of her most admired archery teacher, Daisy.
Then, all at once, her gaze sharpened slightly, fixing on a certain point in the Peace Forest.
"What is it?" Violet, the only household member who could match her sharp attention, noticed Lucita's change immediately.
Lucita looked a moment longer, then drew her gaze back and shook her head: "Nothing. My eyes are playing tricks."
Violet pressed her lips together.
On the second circuit, as they passed the front gate of their house, Lucita told the others: "I need to stop by the washroom. Don't wait for me."
Linnea and Delphine nodded without much thought, and Linnea even waved thoughtfully: "Off you go, then!"
Violet looked as though she wanted to say something, thought better of it, and took Linnea's hand instead, giving Lucita a nod.
The food on the table outside had gone down by more than half. Lucita slipped around the table and into the house, rummaged through every corner for some time, and finally produced a small bottle of orange blossom essential oil.
She also filled pouches with fine salt and white sugar, then took a bundle of dried barnyard grass from the medicine box.
She pulled the gate shut behind her, crossed the empty Parrot Street, and entered the Peace Forest from the western edge.
She moved quickly. The crowd had just passed by and wouldn't be back for some time.
Lucita didn't take the familiar small path worn by passing feet, but pushed through the brambles, forcing her way forward with difficulty.
By the time her face was covered in small scratches that hadn't had time to heal, she still hadn't seen an end to it. Lucita spent a moment regretting she hadn't brought a sickle, another moment wondering if she was imagining things, and then pressed on patiently a little further, and the way suddenly opened up before her.
Ahead rose a taller mountain, steep and craggy, its cascades rushing cold and stark, the cool mist spattering her face.
Beneath the waterfall, a stream wound down from the mountain peak in a long winding curve.
Red leaves lay all along the stream bank, and among them crouched a flame-red fox, nearly blending into the color of the world around it.
The water drifting with red leaves was the mountain's hair, and the flame-red fox was the mountain's ornament pinned in it.
Yes. This was her, the flash of flame-red Lucita had glimpsed in the Peace Forest.
The first words out of Lucita's mouth when she saw the fox were: "So red fur is a camouflage for autumn?"
Somehow, she read a trace of speechlessness in the fox's eyes.
Lucita smiled slightly, and took out from her space the things she had brought — orange blossom essential oil, fine salt, white sugar. These were arranged in small dishes around her. Then she produced the dried barnyard grass, raised a small flame at her fingertip, and lit it.
The barnyard grass burned slowly from the root upward. A thread of white smoke rose, blurring Lucita's vision.
In the scent of orange blossom, she felt a faint relaxation, and then her vision cleared.
The fox was still crouching before her, but that flicker of human emotion a moment ago seemed to have been a trick of the eye, its gaze had turned innocent and blank.
Lucita held the fox's eyes for a few wordless seconds. The fox flicked its full tail, turned, and bounded away into the deep forest.
Lucita watched the direction the fox had disappeared, her lips moving softly.
"Eternal creator god Gaia, divine presence over all things, mother who illuminates the world, I ask for your blessing.
I offer the autumn harvest as the people's prayers for winter snow.
I pray that this winter, deep snow will cover the fields, so that next year's wheat will grow fuller and richer.
I pray that this winter will not be too cold, so that the livestock will not shiver and fall ill.
I pray...
I pray that you will come before me, as you came in the sea full of golden light six months ago."
No sooner had the words left her lips than the scene before her began to waver.
Gaia's voice came through, faint as something very far away, yet somehow close against her ear: "Child, you wanted to find me?"
"Nothing pressing," Lucita said, and there was a smile in her voice. "Only, I caught a glimpse of Mother Divine actually appearing at the autumn festival, and found it rather wonderful. You looked quite charming as a fox."
Receiving this compliment, Gaia had no concept of embarrassment — but she found this very human style of praise faintly strange. No child had ever spoken to her like this.
Then again, Lucita was a traveler from another world, not one of her children. She kept forgetting.
Gaia said by way of explanation: "That was a gift my children gave me. Sometimes, when I hear their festival songs, I come here to look. They seem very happy. If only the other children were this easy."
"The other children..." Lucita sat cross-legged on the ground, propped on her arms, tilting her head back to look at the sky as though that were where Gaia was. "As it happens, I'm just about to go and pay a visit to some of your other children next year."
"I am glad you are willing to help save my children."
"Save?" Something slightly ambiguous passed through Lucita's voice, but she didn't pursue the subject and instead said: "You look a little unwell."
"I —" Gaia gave a low, quiet sigh.
The sigh lingered and echoed long between the mountains and the forest, like the murmur of wind.
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