Chapter 70 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 70: The Ship of Exile 04
Living in a hotel was not a long-term solution.
Lucita took her coin purse and, through the hotel attendant and owner, tracked down the name of a reliable property agent.
In Viktori's housing market, the most common options were the low flat-roofed houses of the slums, or shared rooms in older buildings in the city center.
Properties like Western-style detached houses with private courtyards, the sort rented to the middle class, generally didn’t see very good business. People at that level tended to be financially stable, often staying in the same rental for decades without moving.
This made it a difficult niche for a property agent to work in.
Once she had a client, however, the agent was highly enthusiastic, immediately presenting several properties, but none of them quite satisfied Lucita.
First, she needed a yard of reasonable size.
They came from deep mountains, open wilderness, and the sea. Moving to a city was a novelty, but they couldn’t live without any outdoor space at all. They couldn’t just open the living room door straight onto the street.
In the long run, it would suffocate them. Especially Linnea, who was still a child.
Second, the house had to be close to a main street, and ideally connected to a shopfront.
Their money, if they didn’t squander it, would last a full year without trouble. But sitting back and spending without earning was not a good way to live.
Having a source of income wasn't just a practical necessity. It also helped maintain the household's vitality, satisfied social needs, and brought a little variety to daily life.
Ideally, it would be close to the center of the city. In a capital where most movement depended on the public tramcar, walking from the southern outskirts to the northern outskirts still took several hours.
Too far from the center would greatly reduce the convenience of everyday life.
The trouble was, these requirements were in certain ways contradictory.
Small merchants with street-side shops were typically not wealthy, and therefore rarely in a position to afford a spacious private courtyard in the expensive heart of Viktori. Those who owned independent courtyards were mostly estates belonging to major merchants and nobility, with no reason to combine them with a small street-facing shop.
The agent puzzled over this for quite some time, and finally rummaged through a pile of papers to produce a commission letter, handing it over with a hint of hesitation: "Have a look at this please."
Lucita took it. She and Violet unfolded and read it together.
The property was situated between six of Viktori's main streets, at the intersection of Briar Street and Rose Street. The shop front faced south-to-north along Briar Street: Number 21, Briar Street. There was also a separate courtyard gate facing Rose Street.
The yard was shaped roughly like a boot, about ten meters on each side. The house was two stories, a Romanesque brick-and-timber structure, with a small attic room above overlooking the street.
The shopfront was not large, a standard street-facing unit, but more than adequate for Lucita’s purposes.
She felt her interest quicken. She folded the paper and couldn't help asking: "A place like this, and someone's actually willing to rent it out?"
The agent touched her drink-reddened nose, a slightly sheepish smile on her face: "You wouldn’t know, but right behind this yard, Rose Street No. 13, there’s an abandoned cemetery. The previous tenant thought it was a bad omen and refused to stay. That’s why it’s being rented at a low price. And as luck would have it, the market’s been slow lately, so it’s just been sitting in my portfolio."
Lucita gave a half-amused expression: "Is that right? Then it seems we'll be getting a bargain."
"That you will!" The agent slapped her knee. "So when would you like to go take a look?"
“Now, if you like.” They had nothing urgent at the moment. Getting settled was the one pressing matter.
"Right then!" The agent agreed readily and disappeared into the back room to find the keys to No. 21 Briar Street.
The moment the agent was out of sight, Linnea's eyes went wide and she hissed: "Luci!"
Lucita soothed her with a pat on the head, smiling slightly.
Both she and Linnea had mental gifts, and the agent was an ordinary human. They had both easily read the agent's true thoughts.
In truth, the previous occupant had been driven out not merely by superstition but by repeatedly hearing voices coming from the cemetery without being able to find anyone responsible. After two years of that, they couldn't take it any more and rented the place out, moving somewhere else.
Linnea was unsettled by the concealment. Lucita was not.
In her experience, things of a mysterious nature were far simpler to deal with than interpersonal disputes and property complications. If the house were cheap because of contested ownership or legal entanglements, she would have needed to think twice.
Of course, even if she didn't personally mind, now that she had the knowledge of the concealed problem, she had every reason to negotiate the price accordingly.
The public tramcar charged by the trip: a single copper coin regardless of distance, the same whether you rode one stop or from the city’s south end to its north.
No. 21 Briar Street was not far. They rode two stops, got off at the sign for No. 20 Briar Street, walked a short way, and found the shuttered shop front.
There was nothing particularly striking about it, identical to every other street-facing shop along the block. Two grey stone pillars flanked the entrance, a few low steps leading up to a narrow portico wide enough for two people.
The sign above the door was old, heavy with cobwebs. The square wooden board was carved with the words "Sansa's Flower Shop," and the lettering had been painted over with white milk paint along the carved lines.
The agent took out her brass key and opened the shop door. A great cloud of dust immediately billowed up.
She coughed and fanned her hand, leading the group inside: "You see, it's been empty for a while, but the shop is still in very solid shape."
And indeed, the shelves on either side were neat. A counter stood at the back, and behind it, a tasteful wooden door. Nothing appeared obviously broken or rotted. The wood grain showed no significant cracking, and the brown lacquer was largely intact. A wipe-down would probably bring it back to a shine.
Lucita gave a noncommittal "mm" and let her gaze fall on the wooden door behind the counter.
"That door leads to the courtyard at the back. On the left as you enter is the main courtyard gate facing Rose Street." The agent noticed the direction of her gaze and took out another, smaller key to open the wooden door. "Please, come and have a look."
Passing through the shop and into the yard, the space opened up suddenly before them.
As it turned out, the commission letter had not been inaccurate about the courtyard's size.
A cross-shaped path ran down the center, with a flower bed on the inner side. To the left by the main gate, a large stretch of lawn held an old linden tree. On the other side, another patch of lawn had been planted with shrubbery.
This house had clearly gone without care for a very long time. The flowers in the bed, and the delicate shrubs, had all died. The lawn grass had grown into wild tangles, dandelions sending up their defiant tall stems and gold flowers. Of the entire yard, only the linden tree still held onto its last dignity, opening its thin, early leaves in the cold dusk of early spring.
Following the stone path inward, the two-story residence came into view. Its style carried a reserved solemnity, with unadorned bluestone walls. The building was at least ten years old.
The windows were narrow iron-frame casements with winding botanical patterns, topped with pointed arches. The glass was coated in a layer of dust, making the interior impossible to see.
Inside, the furniture was all in place, draped in rough cloth. Uncovering and checking around revealed no obvious damage or decay.
The ground-floor living room was very large. To the left of the living room was a spacious study with a window facing Rose Street. To the right was a shared washroom and kitchen; the kitchen window looked out on the courtyard flower bed.
The staircase was bifurcated, situated just behind the fireplace near the entrance, leading directly to the upper floor.
The second floor was the main living area. Beyond a washroom, a music room, and a storage room at the far end, four bedrooms were arranged on either side of the corridor.
Lucita's eyes lit up as she pushed open the first door.
Delphine drifted in behind her. “Four bedrooms. We could keep one as a guest room.”
Without her physical form, only Lucita could hear her spirit voice. Lucita shook her head: "Delphine, we don't have a guest room. The fourth bedroom is for you."
"Me?" Delphine pointed at herself, astonished. "I don't need a bedroom. You know I don't need to sleep at all. Even when I rest, I can just float anywhere."
"Then where would you put your new flute? Where would you hang the wind chimes you made yourself? Where would you keep the shells you collected?"
"In my space, of course." Delphine flicked her sleeve. "Look. The space I opened myself is enormous. I can fit so many gems and crystals in it."
That last sentence let a little of the dragon nature slip through. Lucita smiled.
"That way, couldn't you just leave home at any time?" she said. "Delphine, I think somewhere in this world should belong to you. Even if it's just a small room. Even if you technically don't need it. Our house in Irttat even after the extension didn't have quite enough rooms, but this is different, isn't it?"
Lucita trailed off at the end, and gave a slightly embarrassed cough: "Ah — I'm not projecting, am I?"
"Of course not." Delphine spun in a circle, materialized into her human form, and landed on the floor, eyes bright: "You're right. I do need a room, to put my little shells in, and to hang my wind chimes."
The two looked at each other and smiled.
"It seems there's still so much I have to learn about the business of ‘living'. What a fine feeling."
Downstairs, Violet was looking at the dead plants in the yard. The life energy stirring in her was almost ready to spring forth and revive them.
Linnea had plunged into the music room to investigate this unfamiliar instrument called a piano.
Everyone was pleased with the house. Now it fell to Lucita to negotiate the price.
The red-nosed agent, seeing that all of them were young, touching and marveling at everything with eager curiosity, opened with a lion’s price: 150 gold coins per year, including the shopfront.
But Lucita could read from the agent's emotions what she actually thought was reasonable.
A standard courtyard in the city center rented at around 80 gold coins, and adding a shop front, an estimate of around 100 gold coins was more reasonable.
Factoring in the house’s “haunted” history and how difficult it had been to rent out, Lucita pressed directly down to eighty gold coins a year.
The agent tried to negotiate for several rounds. Lucita simply brought up the fact of the cemetery and the reported disturbances.
She watched the agent's expression shift through several colors: "I see, you had your eye on this place before you even found me, and did your research thoroughly?"
Lucita smiled and said nothing.
"Well then. You know your business." The agent gritted her teeth, said nothing further, and drew up a rental agreement at 80 gold coins per year.
Lucita hadn’t pushed too hard. For a house with a haunted reputation, the figure was fair, and the agent was eager to rent it out for whatever she could get. So they reached an agreement quickly.
Violet and Linnea returned to White Pearl to collect the belongings they had left there. Lucita and Delphine in her physical form began cleaning the house, planning to clear out at least the bedrooms so they could move in.
By dusk they had found the gas valve, and turned it on. The gas lamps came alive.
With a sudden flare of light, every lamp in this building that had been silent for years blazed on. Through the dust-grimed glass, the light fell across the dried and withered plants of the yard.
For this house, it was the first beautiful evening it had known in a long time — and for Lucita and the others, it was the same.
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