Frozen Tear

by Wyverness

Summary:

Winter at Lockwood Farm should have been a season of rest, with only a few animals and the limited crops in their new greenhouse to care for. Time to decide what improvements they should spend their late-Fall windfall on, time to experiment with recipes for artisan products, time to determine what to plant in the coming year…

However, Trisha, Brandy, and Neel aren’t ordinary farmers, and the supernatural threat looming over Stardew Valley doesn’t hibernate. The bonds they have formed—with each other, and with their new friends and lovers—will be tested when disaster strikes. And as the old year wanes and the new one begins, the ranks of those preparing to face the long-buried threat in the depths of the mine continue to grow, but so, too, do the signs that their time may be running out.

This is Part 3 of the Gifts of the Valley series, and I strongly recommend reading the earlier works before diving into this one. Updates Tuesdays and Fridays

Notes:

As a reminder, the Gifts of the Valley series treats the game’s 112-day calendar as canon, and characters’ ages are about 3 times what you’d expect in our world. The farmers and their love interests are in their late 60s to mid 70s, which is the equivalent of early to mid 20s.

Chapter 1: 01 Winter Y1 - Brandy

Fire! Brandy woke with a gasp, looking for the threat, but there was no sign of flames in her cabin… only a searing heat against her chest. She fumbled with the satin cord around her neck, and the pain stopped as soon as she got the metal disk hanging from it away from her skin, though it felt just as hot when she poked it with one finger. “Fuck!” She’d felt the badge vibrate whenever someone not in the guild went into the old mine’s upper cavern—mostly their neighbor Demetrius, looking for mushrooms or something—but it had never heated up like this. That meant someone was in the mine who really, really shouldn’t be, and she had a terrible suspicion of who it might be.

She lunged out of bed, jammed her bare feet into her boots, and grabbed her coat off its peg without bothering to put it on. A few seconds further delay as she doubled back to snatch her utility knife off the table, and she bolted out the door. Across the packed-dirt road that ran between their cabins, she saw Neel doing the same, until he slipped on the icy front stoop and landed on his ass. An ass that was wearing satin pajamas, rather than her own sensible sweats… “I’ve got this, hon!” she called over her shoulder. She shoved one arm into a coat sleeve as she ran up the back road.

She should have picked up her phone, too, she thought, making her way up the uneven, snow-covered path as fast as she dared. Rasmodius’s “alarm” spell on her guild badge had worked as advertised; she could only hope that the ward he’d put on the mine really would slow down an intruder long enough for her to arrive while they were still in the entrance cave, because if she had to go deeper into the mine without being able to give anyone a heads-up, Trisha was going to be pissed. Had Ab—whoever the intruder was found out that Marlon and Gil got stranded in Grampleton when the snowstorm blew in? The two had called her and Neel to update them, but who else would they have told about Gil’s out-of-town doctor’s appointment? She swore as she stumbled over a fallen branch the snow had hidden. Her phone would have come in handy as a flashlight, too. Instead, she spared a few precious seconds to unclip what looked like a cheap plastic ring from the little carabiner holding it to her knife. When she shoved it onto her thumb, an eerie light rose around her; it cast no shadows, which made depth perception tricky, but at least now she could see some of the obstacles in her path.

By the time she finally reached the flatter ground up by the carpenter’s shop, her lungs were burning almost as much as her badge did whenever she checked it. If the senior adventurers had to go out of town again, she decided, she was going to set up an air mattress in the guild cabin. She fumbled her utility knife out of her pocket with half-numb fingers as she neared the mine entrance, just in case, only to drop it in the snow as a scream issued from the darkness inside—in a voice she knew all too well.

That wasn’t the only sound she could hear, and she threw herself to the ground as a cloud of wings and ear-piercing squeaks and squeals poured out of the cave. She twisted around for a better view, her hand groping through the snow until she found her knife—thank Yoba she hadn’t unfolded it—but relaxed as she got a better look. These were the normal bats Marlon had warned her were passing through a few days ago, not a mass-release of monsters from the depths of the mine. Not exactly harmless—they could carry some scary diseases—but they weren’t headed off to attack the town.

But it was late enough, or more like early enough, that they should be going into the cave to sleep through the day, not out, and she had a damned good idea what had startled them into flight. Once the animals had passed, she stood up, shoved her knife and ring back into her pocket, and stalked into the cave.

The darkness inside was broken by a flashlight dropped on the far side of the space, and the beam showed a figure huddled in the corner, arms clasped defensively over their head. Another few steps proved that yes, the hair pulled into a ponytail beneath the bicycle helmet was purple. The other woman hadn’t noticed Brandy’s arrival, and as she got closer, she could hear her girlfriend sobbing. She picked up the pace, worry warring with the sting of betrayal. “Abby?” Ordinary bats wouldn’t attack, but they’d bite if scared, wouldn’t they? “Are you okay?” She crouched beside her.

Abby took a couple of shuddering breaths before lowering her arms. “Brandy…” She slowly got to her feet and turned to lean against the wall, the scabbard of the sword she wore at her hip clattering against the stone. “I’m all right. I think.”

A part of Brandy wanted nothing more than to wipe away the tears that streaked her girlfriend’s face and tell her everything was fine—but it wasn’t, because this was bigger than just the two of them. “You told me you wouldn’t do this,” she said instead. They had only been dating for a few weeks, but the promise she’d extracted had come well before that. “It’s dangerous for you to be here.”

“You know I’ve been practicing my swordsmanship for a while,” Abby said, scowling at her boots. “Way longer than you, in fact.”

“You’ve been practicing moves that work against other people with swords. That’s better than nothing, but it’s not the best training for what’s actually down there.”

“Which you won’t tell me about, beyond the vaguest hints! How am I supposed to train the right way if you won’t help me?” She pulled a little farther away from Brandy. “I was keeping Sam company on his latest community service gig when I overheard Lewis on the phone with Marlon, something about him not being able to get home because of the blizzard, and… well, I decided today would be the day I venture into the caves. I figured I could take a quick look around and be back out before anyone else could get here. But I got scared. I couldn’t do it! It was like my knees had turned to jelly. I knew better than to go into the elevator shaft—I don’t know jack about climbing—but when I finally worked up the courage to try the ladder… how do you fight so many monsters at once? There had to be a million of those bats!”

She should probably keep this to herself, but… “They’re not usually there, and those weren’t monsters. Just ordinary bats flying south for the winter. The mine’s on their route.”

Abby stared at her, then gave a shaky laugh. “So I freaked out over nothing, huh?”

“That many bats aren’t nothing. You didn’t get bitten or scratched, did you? That’s a whole different sort of risk—Doc Harvey’s kind, not the guild’s.”

“I… I don’t think so.”

Fresh worry stabbed at her. “Are you sure? Adrenaline can make it hard to notice small injuries, or even big ones.” She grasped Abby’s chin with her other hand and tilted her face a little, trying to get a better look. She should have picked up the flashlight on the way over.

Her girlfriend pulled away and shook her head. “I ran pretty fast when they started pouring out of the hole… I guess I’m not as tough as I thought.” She hunched in on herself, fresh tears welling in her eyes.

“Listening to your instincts when they tell you to get the fuck out isn’t weakness.” How much of those instincts were her own and how much was Rasmodius’s creepy “second thoughts” spell was less important than the fact that Abby had listened to them. Against her own better judgment, she laid a reassuring hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder. “Courage isn’t not feeling fear, it’s knowing whether it’s worth doing the thing despite being scared shitless.”

Abby sniffled. “Like you’re ever afraid of anything.”

“Pfft. I’ve just got a fucked-up standard for what ‘worth it’ means. I get scared, too. Like when I heard you scream, and had no idea what had happened. I hoped it was just the bats startling you or something, but Marlon says sometimes one of the things in the mine finds its way out. What if you were really hurt?” She brushed away a tear on Abby’s cheek with her thumb… and left a smear of dirt behind. Or… fuck, given what she’d been told about what the bats left behind in the cave every year, it probably wasn’t just dirt she’d gotten on her hands when she’d hit the ground.

Before she could suggest they move this chat to somewhere that wasn’t covered in literal shit, Abby threw her arms around her. “I guess when you have something to lose, it’s normal to be afraid,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, Brandy, I know I broke my promise and I really hope I haven’t screwed up too badly for you to forgive me.”

“Abby—”

“No, please listen, Brandy, I… I really like you. I have since the day you got here. And not just as a friend, even if it took me way too long to figure that out. You know that, right?” She loosened her embrace enough that she could look her girlfriend in the eyes.

“Sure, but—”

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this… But I can’t keep it in anymore. I’ve felt this way for a long time.”

“Abb—”

“You’re strong, and brave, and really nice, and I didn’t know I felt this way about other girls until I met you—I mean, I’ve known I was bi since forever but like I told you last week, high school sucked so much that I never imagined I could trust another woman enough to fall in love with her.” She pressed their lips together.

For a moment, Brandy leaned into the kiss. Half the fun of a good adrenaline rush was how easily it could turn into a different kind of excitement, after all. But she was familiar with the effect, and this wasn’t the time and definitely wasn’t the place. She pulled away and placed her hands on Abby’s shoulders, holding her at arm’s length. “Abby…”

Her girlfriend’s lower lip quivered. “I really did fuck this up, didn’t I? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I—”

“Abigail!” She gave the other woman a little shake, and she finally fell silent. “I’m pissed at you about this, yeah, but the we-need-to-talk kind of angry, not break-up mad. But we’re standing in at least half an inch of bat shit, and I hit the deck when the swarm came pouring out of the cave so while I hope to Yoba that what’s soaking through my pants is snow, I’m pretty sure not all of it is. Plus, I don’t have a clue whether me coming in here shut off the alarm or if Neel is still getting blasted and doing a frantic wardrobe change before charging up the mountain after me. We need to have a long chat, but we need to have it somewhere else.”

Abby’s gaze dropped to the floor, then to Brandy’s clothes, and her own. “Oh. Ugh, yeah, let’s get out of here.”

There was no wind outside, but the air was still fucking freezing and the sky was barely beginning to brighten in the east. There was, however, an unexpected source of extra light. “Greetings, young ones,” Linus called as they crossed the footbridge, waving to them from the ledge by his tent. “It’s a bitterly cold morning to be outside this early, if you aren’t accustomed. Please, come share my campfire.” He added another chunk of wood to the small but growing flames.

Brandy glanced at her girlfriend. Abby, though better dressed for the weather than herself, was already starting to shiver, or maybe shaking from the adrenaline wearing off. In either case, it wouldn’t hurt to warm up before having that talk—that would give her a chance to sort through her own feelings, too. “Thanks, that’s really nice of you,” she said, and led the way up the slope. He waved the two of them to the pair of crates beside the cheerful blaze, then ducked into his tent to find a seat for himself.

Brandy scrubbed her hands with some clean snow before holding them out to the fire. As the feeling started coming back into her fingers, a new thought popped into her head. “Do you have your phone on you? I didn’t think to grab mine on the way out the door, and I should let Neel know the emergency’s over.”

Abby set the helmet she’d just pulled off on the ground beside her and reached into her coat pocket. “Of course. I figured it’d come in handy if I ran into trouble, since you said you’d gotten cell service working down there.” She unlocked the device and tapped the screen a few times before handing it over with hands that were still trembling. The text app was already up, and she even had Neel’s contact selected.

Hey its Brandy

U can guess who it was cuz of the phone

Bat shit is fucking nasty but were both fine so you can chill

“The phone wouldn’t’ve helped much if I hadn’t figured out how to wire Maru’s gadgets into the power down there. At first we had to turn them off whenever we left, to save the batteries,” Brandy said, handing it back. She glanced at the tent; Linus was still inside, loudly rummaging through something, so she kept her voice low as she asked, “Why, Abby? I thought you understood there was a reason, even if I wasn’t allowed to tell you what it was. There’s got to be more to this little stunt than just some ‘when the cat’s away’ shit.” She had a sudden pang of sympathy for how Trisha must have felt last Fall.

Her girlfriend bit her lower lip and leaned closer to the fire. “How’d you put it, about knowing when something’s worth doing? I had to, Brandy. I—I can’t explain, not really, but there’s something wrong down there. Something that needs me to fix it.”

Brandy felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. “Abby, love, that’s exactly why you shouldn’t be in there,” she said, getting up from her crate. She crouched beside the other woman, taking her hands. “What you’re hearing, or feeling, or whatever, is—”

“Is not what you fear,” Linus said. Brandy jerked upright; she hadn’t heard him come out of the tent. The old man placed a rough wooden stool on the ground, but didn’t sit. He studied Abby for a long moment, then turned to Brandy. “You need to take her to Max. Not now, of course, he’s a terrible grouch if you wake him up too early. But once the sun’s been up a few hours, yes, go see him.”

“Who?” The only Max she knew was a bartender back in the city, and while she could sure use a stiff drink, that couldn’t be who he meant.

“Tch. Sometimes I forget. Rasmodius. Take her to Rasmodius.”

“But Marlon and Gil said we couldn’t because—”

He waved her to silence. “I’ve heard the reasons, theirs and his. If he does give you trouble about it, tell him I sent her, and if he doesn’t approve, he can haul his stubborn self out of his tower to discuss the matter with me in person.”

Abby had been looking back and forth between the two of them with growing confusion, but now her face went as pale as the snow around them. “Tower? You’re talking about the wizard? No, I—I can’t go there!”

Linus, Brandy saw out of the corner of her eye, looked as surprised by the outburst as she was. “Abby, he’s—well, he’s kind of a pompous windbag, honestly, but not in a nasty way. More like Elliott, the type that forgets most of us don’t eat dictionaries for breakfast. Trisha’s spent way more time with him than I have, but the stuff I know about the mine that I didn’t get from the guild? It came from hm.”

Her girlfriend shook her head. “Can’t we just wait until Marlon and Gil get back? I mean, I know they’ll be pissed, but…”

“They can’t help you.” Linus scooted his stool a little closer to the fire and sat down at last. He leaned forward, his weathered face kind. “They might accept, based on my word, but they can’t teach. Not what you need to know, anyway. Tell me, why do you fear my old friend so?”

“I’m not afraid of him,” Abby said.

“Then why not speak to him?”

“Because… because he’s probably… my father.” Her voice had dropped to little more than a whisper.

The old man burst into laughter, clapping his hand over his mouth to muffle the sound, and then to cover the coughing fit that followed. “Young one…” he began when he could speak again.

Abby shook her head, ponytail whipping around her. “I’m serious! Dad’s always throwing it in Mom’s face when they argue. How can he believe I’m really his when we’re nothing alike, and what about all those ‘long walks in the woods’ she used to take, and—” She broke off in a sob and covered her face with her hands.

“Oh, love.” Brandy wrapped her arms around her girlfriend, because bat shit or no bat shit, this called for hugs.

The amusement that had crinkled Linus’s eyes was gone. “My deepest apologies. I spend so much of my time alone with nature that sometimes I lose sight of how cruel we humans can be to one another. I can assure you that your worry is groundless, though. I’ve known Rasmodius for his whole life, and he would never stoop to an affair with a student nor another person’s spouse, let alone someone who was both. Even if there’s the slightest chance I am mistaken about that, you could not be the result of such a relationship. Magic has its limits.”

Abby lifted her head, and Brandy could tell she didn’t have any more of a clue what the old man meant by that last bit than she did. Then her eyes widened. “Wait, back up—what was that about Mom being his student?”

“Uh, Caroline told me he’s the one who taught her about all the fortune-telling stuff,” Brandy said. “You didn’t know?”

“All she ever said about him was to keep my distance,” Abby said. “I figured she got the tea leaves and other stuff from books, since the internet wasn’t a thing when she was young.” She sniffled. “But… his hair’s purple, too.”

“Love, I’m pretty sure taste in hair dye isn’t genetic.”

Abby’s eyes dropped. “I don’t—I mean, I do dye my hair, but…”

“Ah, it is amethyst then, rather than plain quartz.” Abby gave Linus a sharp look, and he smiled sadly. “Diamond was mine. My hair was blond in my youth, and if anyone noticed it becoming, perhaps, a little paler, it was dismissed as early greying. Max—Rasmodius doesn’t have that issue, and while the color doesn’t come from a bottle, it’s one he chose for himself.”

“But… if you’re like me, why do I need to go to the tower?” Abby protested.

The old man sighed. “Was, young one. Was like you. Long enough ago that I had almost managed to forget their voice, until I heard its echo in your music.”

Brandy tensed. That sounded a lot like what Abby had been talking about. “Do you mean the… what’s in the mine?”

“If that mewling whine could reach this far, we would all be lost already. But oh, I can believe the mountain cries out, for what I did to them.” He stared into, or maybe through, the fire. “Take her to Rasmodius. Tell him there’s no need for one of his concoctions, for she has already accepted the charge, even if she didn’t know what she was doing. The last sage of the mountain recognizes his successor.” He stood abruptly. “Feel free to remain by my fire if you wish, but I have said all I can bear, for now.”

“Brandy, what is he talking about?” Abby whispered as he vanished into his tent.

“It’s a really, really long story, and I will fuck it up if I try to explain, ’cause I don’t understand some of it myself. But Rasmodius can give you the details. Are you ready to get out of here? We can meet up later this morning and go see him.”

Abby looked down at herself. “I can’t go home like this,” she said. “Dad’s always in the shop bright and early for a new season, and I… well, we both kind of reek. I don’t think I could hide what I’ve been up to. Could I maybe get cleaned up at your place?”

Brandy thought about it for a minute. She could use some time to herself to sort through it all. On the other hand, if Pierre—or worse, Caroline—saw their daughter coming home covered in bat shit and mine dirt… well, their reactions would not be good. “Sure, I should have enough propane for us both to get hot showers. My clothes’ll be a bit big for you, but I can find something for you to borrow while I put what we’ve got on through the laundry.”

“Thanks. And… maybe we could save a little fuel, help each other get clean?” Abby looked up through her eyelashes.

Brandy recognized when adrenaline was doing the talking, and gave her a crooked grin. “You haven’t seen my shower. If we both squeeze in there we’ll need Neel and a crowbar to get back out, and none of us want that.” Not to mention she was still kind of pissed at her girlfriend, but Abby didn’t need Brandy dumping that on top of all the other shit that had just landed.

“Ugh, no.” Abby stood up and, with a final glance at the patched-up tent, started down the mountain path “Well… I’m sure we can think of something else to pass the time while the laundry’s going, instead.”

The sun was just breaking over the horizon when they reached the farm, turning the snowy ground into a blinding field of white light. They hurried inside the cabin, where Brandy dug through her dresser for a change of clothes for each of them before insisting Abby take the first shower.

Brandy took her time when it was her turn, trying to sort through all the night’s shit. At least the searing heat from her badge hadn’t done any damage; the Adventurers’ Guild logo wasn’t too tacky, as such things went, but that didn’t mean she wanted it branded onto her skin. But her feelings were still all tangled up, relief that Abby hadn’t gotten injured—or worse—battling with hurt anger that she’d shrugged off the promise she had made. But if it really was the mountain, not the demon, calling to her, did that change things? She’d assumed Abby would eventually catch on about talking to Rasmodius and maybe become one of the sages, with Brandy as her shield, but everything seemed to be happening ass-backwards, instead.

The water pounding out of the shower head didn’t offer any answers, so once she was sure she’d scrubbed off any hint of bat shit she shut it off. By the time she dried off and put on some clean clothes, she’d decided it was best to wait and see what Rasmodius had to say about all this.

She cracked open the bathroom door and was unsurprised to find her girlfriend curled on her bed, fast asleep. “Love the rush, hate the crash,” she murmured as she pulled a blanket up over the other woman, then grabbed the laundry basket and went outside to deal with that and her barn chores.

Chapter 2: 01 Winter Y1 - Neel

It was proof of how tired Neel was that only after bringing the day’s coop gleanings into Trisha’s cottage and finding her already out for the day did he realize she might not know what had happened during the night. He covered a yawn as he approached the greenhouse door.

“This is really neat,” she said as he opened the door, not looking up from the greenhouse bed she was studying. Her tablet lay on the edge of it, filled with typed notes and doodled diagrams. “As long as the air’s kept at a moderate temperature, we can set the beds to different ones to support crops from multiple seasons simultaneously. That means I should be able to grow all of the wild seeds at once after the yams have been harvested, so I’m working out the numbers.”

“Nice,” he said, with a mental wince at how flat his voice had come out.

She turned to him, her brow furrowing in concern. “What’s wrong? Bad night?”

He tried for a warmer tone. “I take it you slept through the commotion a few hours ago?” He’d gone back to bed after Brandy texted him, but he had been too wired to do more than stare at the ceiling.

“Apparently so? Did one of Marnie’s roosters escape and come over for a visit again?”

“I wish it had been something that mundane. Our guild badges lit up.” He rubbed the spot where his lay beneath the many layers he’d put on against the Winter chill. Marlon had told him it would get “warm” if someone with magic entered the mine cave. He had a gift for understatement; the sensation had been closer to having someone set his chest hair on fire. “Brandy said she’d handle it, but I was wide awake after that.”

“Oh, Yoba! What happened?”

“Well, I got a string of texts from her—using Abigail’s phone—as I was about to start up the mountain, and I saw Brandy heading into the barn as I was coming out of the coop a little while ago, so I’m assuming everything’s settled, but we should go drag the details out of her.”

Trisha grimaced, but before they could leave the relative warmth of the greenhouse, the subject of their conversation strode in, bringing an icy draft with her. “Whew! Winter doesn’t kid around here,” Brandy said, closing the door behind her. “Did Neel fill you in, Trisha?”

“As much as he could. Abigail went in the mine? Is she all right? You got there in time?”

“Scared shitless by a mob of bats—normal ones, not monsters—but not hurt.” She pulled off her stocking cap and ran a hand through her hair. “The entrance cave, on the other hand, is not shitless, by a long shot, which is why our clothes are in the washing machine while Abby sleeps off the adrenaline hangover.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “How early is too early to take her to Rasmodius for a crash course on sages and shields?”

Trisha’s eyes widened. “You told her about that? You know what he said—”

Brandy scowled. “No, I need him to tell her, because I don’t want to fuck something up trying to explain it myself. And Linus says he can stuff all his shit about waiting for her to show up on her own, ’cause it’s already a done deal.”

“Linus? What does he have to do with any of this?” Neel asked, since Trisha was just gaping at their friend.

“I don’t have your knack for memorizing shit, but the short version is that he used to be the sage of the mountain and says he can tell she’s the new one now.”

Trisha’s mouth snapped shut at that, and her expression grew thoughtful. “He did mention once that he knew my grandfather. You said he thinks she is a sage, not just that she could become one?”

“He specifically said she didn’t need a potion, like you and Emily did,” Brandy said. “I, uh, think this might be my fault, kind of? He said something about amethysts that I didn’t really follow, but Abby seemed to know what he was talking about and I did give her one of the ones we found in the mine. Not sure that cancels out the fact that she fucking promised me she wouldn’t try to go in there.”

Trisha pursed her lips, then shook her head. “Let’s not worry about assigning blame. Rasmodius’s idea of an early visit is around eight, but he might still be recovering from Spirit’s Eve. He looked pretty rough yesterday.”

“We’ll give him until nine, assuming Abby’s up by then,” Brandy said. “She’s not the only one who needs some answers.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Neel asked.

To his relief, Brandy shook her head. “I think between Trish and me we can keep Abby from bolting. You wanted to give ice fishing a try, didn’t you?”

“As tired as I am, I think I’ll wait a bit to start practicing for next week’s contest,” he said. “If you’re sure you don’t need me for anything here, Trisha, I’m going to head up to the spa after breakfast.” Objectively, he knew he wasn’t still feeling the snow soaking through his pajamas, but he hadn’t felt completely warm since, not even while his guild token was still burning in his hand.

“You go on,” Trisha said. “Brandy can fill you in on anything guild-relevant that might come up.”

“Yeah, I’ve got this one. Speaking of breakfast, though, I’m gonna go check on the laundry and then see if Abby’s awake so I can get started cooking. By the way, Neel, be sure to wear something you don’t care about when we go to clean the cave in a few days.”

“Noted,” he said, wrinkling his nose, but as she left the greenhouse his mind was already churning through the likely fallout from this revelation. He and Brandy had talked about the possibility, but now it was no longer a hypothetical; even though it sounded like she was currently upset with her girlfriend, he couldn’t see anyone other than Brandy becoming Abigail’s shield, which left Trisha with him. The formalities could wait for some other time, he decided, watching his friend trail her fingers over the tiny shoots the yam seeds she had planted yesterday were already sending up.

But as he returned to his cabin to shower and change, he found himself wishing he could discuss this unsettled feeling with his therapist. Was there any way he could get at the underlying concept without going into details that would make Dr. Ramirez think he was losing his grip on reality?

Chapter 3: 01 Winter Y1 - Abigail

Abigail opened her eyes and stared at wood paneling that was definitely not her familiar fish wallpaper. Her face burned as she realized she was in her girlfriend’s house, in her girlfriend’s bed—alone, dammit. She had only meant to rest her eyes for a minute while she waited for Brandy to finish in the shower, and then… well, she’d felt her energy flagging as they hiked down the mountain slope, and Brandy had still been pretty annoyed, but there ought to have been some cuddling, after all that.

With a sigh, she sat up and looked around. Her phone sat on the table, and Brandy had plugged it in to charge, because she was thoughtful like that. Judging by how bright the light streaming in through the windows was, she must have a dozen messages from her father demanding to know where she was. She considered ignoring the device, but… things could have gone a lot worse last night. Letting him know she was all right was the least she could do.

When she unlocked the screen, she discovered it was earlier than she’d thought, and the only text waiting for her was just a few minutes old; maybe that was what had woken her up.

Sorry dad I’m at brandy’s

I’ll be home to stock stuff in a few hours but I promised I’d help out with some things here today

Did going to see the mysterious wizard count as “helping out”? She shrugged and put her phone into airplane mode; working out exactly how much she’d lied to her father could wait until later.

Where was Brandy? Out tending to something on the farm while she waited for Abigail to wake up, no doubt. She sent a quick text—then jumped as Brandy’s phone chimed from across the room, where it was plugged into a different charger.

That meant she’d need to go outside to find her girlfriend. Abigail’s boots were on a mat by the door, looking like they’d been scrubbed, but there was no sign of her coat, and she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of venturing outside in just a sweatsuit, especially one that was so oversized. The drawstring of the pants Brandy had loaned her kept them on her hips, but she had to fold up the hems to keep them from dragging on the ground, and the sleeves of the top half-covered her hands despite the cuffs.

She was about to pull aside the front curtain to see if she could spot Brandy—or one of the other farmers, though that would be more awkward—when a shadow passed by it.

Her girlfriend eased open the front door, and looked relieved to see Abigail standing there. “Good, you’re awake. I just got everything out of the dryer.” She nudged the door further ajar with the plastic basket she carried on her hip. “How do you feel about pancakes for breakfast?”

“You don’t have to cook for me,” Abigail protested, even as her stomach rumbled.

Brandy placed the basket by the door, which she kicked shut. “I’d be cooking for me and Neel anyway, so it’s no big deal to do a double batch. If you don’t like pancakes, though, I’ve got some protein bars you’re welcome to help yourself to.”

“Pancakes sound way better, if you’re sure you don’t mind,” Abigail said, and dug her clothes out of the basket before retreating to the bathroom to change.

Neel joined them as Brandy began ladling batter onto a hotplate, and to Abigail’s surprise, he was followed inside by the farm’s owner. Trisha carried a white plastic bottle wrapped in what looked more like a pharmacy label than a product logo, but the “Elemental Diet HC-3” wasn’t what stood out most. There was something different about the petite, green-skinned woman; she seemed to take up more space in the room than usual, though Abigail couldn’t put her finger on why.

By some unspoken agreement, no one brought up her pre-dawn adventure until after they had finished eating, or drinking in Trisha’s case, though Abigail wasn’t sure whether the tension coiling through the room as the farmers discussed the status of various chores was preferable to all of them chewing her out. Hoping to stall the inevitable a little longer, she insisted on doing the dishes—and took her time about it—but she could only draw the process out for so long. Finally, she set the last clean plate on the stack and turned to her girlfriend and the others. “Um… I guess I’d better get this over with, huh?”

Brandy glanced at Trisha, who checked her phone. “Rasmodius should be up and about by now,” she said. “Don’t look so worried, Abigail! He might come across as a bit intimidating, but he’s really a very kind person, under the gruffness.”

That was not the part that made her the most nervous, but apparently her girlfriend hadn’t filled the others in on everything that Linus had told the two of them. It was weird how reassuring that startled bark of laughter from the old man was, in retrospect. As she pulled on her boots, Abigail cleared her throat. “Brandy said you know a lot more about… all this… than she does. Could you, I dunno, maybe give me a preview or something?”

Trisha shook her head as she shrugged into her overcoat. “I don’t know if I should. I’m still learning, myself, and I’m not sure how different things are for you.”

“Then you just—that is, something’s changed about you today, but Brandy made it sound like you’ve been part of whatever this is for a lot longer than that.”

“I don’t think I’m the one who’s changed since the last time you saw me,” the farmer said with a wry smile. She pulled a pair of earmuffs out of her purse but didn’t put them on yet. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to tell you this much… Brandy said Linus called you the sage of the mountain?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know what that means!”

Trisha nodded and slipped the earmuffs into place. “I’ll leave it to Rasmodius to explain the details, but I’m the sage of the forest, and have been since a few days after I moved here. I think that’s what you’re sensing about me, thanks to… whatever changed, since Spirit’s Eve.”

Thanks to tasting a piece of the amethyst Brandy had given her, from what Linus had said. That had been when the feeling of something wrong in the mine had gone from a whisper to a scream, anyway. She had spent most of the morning after Spirit’s Eve in bed, pleading a stomachache from too many sweets at the festival, but by noon she had sought out Sam as a distraction to keep from running straight up the mountain, promise or no promise. But when she’d heard that the usual guardians were out of town… somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that the new guild members might also share Marlon’s uncanny ability to tell when she was nearby.

Or maybe not so uncanny; Brandy had mentioned an alarm, though Abigail had never seen any sign of one. She almost opened her mouth to ask about it, but she recalled the look of betrayal from her girlfriend back in the mine cave. She hadn’t broken up with her on the spot, but now was not the time to push her luck for mere curiosity.

Neel didn’t join them as they started for the forest. “No reason to drag him with us,” Brandy said, following Abigail’s glance as he peeled off from the group and headed for his cabin. “This isn’t a guild thing—I’m only coming along because I also want to know what the fuck’s going on.”

“And to confirm what Linus said, though from what you told me, he’d do that himself if Rasmodius asked,” Trisha said.

They all fell silent as they walked. In far too short a time, they were standing at the base of the tower, and somehow Abigail was in front, blocking the option of running away while they waited for someone to answer the door. Which would happen at some point after she knocked. She swallowed hard and raised a hand.

Before Abigail’s knuckles could touch the weathered wood, however, it swung open. The wizard standing there looked much less intimidating than he usually did when he showed up at festivals; instead of his usual flashy robes and hat, he was wearing flannel trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, both in the sort of gray that had probably started life as black. The large mug clutched in one hand even had cartoon birds painted on it. “Good morning, Trisha, is something—” The range of emotions that crossed his face when he saw her instead might have been funny, if she weren’t so nervous; his brow drew down in irritation, then rose in surprise, followed by a wince. “She’s going to kill me,” he muttered, and stepped back from the doorway. “Well, don’t just stand there; come inside and explain yourselves.”

Her friends stepped forward, giving her a choice between doing the same or having them run into her, so she entered the tower. The interior looked almost like she had pictured it. A cauldron bubbled away in the middle of the floor. Mystical symbol were drawn in chalk and surrounded by candles on an expanse of stone laid into the wooden floor. A number of crystals were scattered across a wooden table… along with a copy of the Grampleton Gazette, open to the crossword puzzle, and a half-finished bowl of oatmeal.

The little touch of ordinariness made the whole situation that much more surreal, and she barely noticed as Trisha shut the door behind them. “Sorry to drop in so early, but I figured this couldn’t wait,” the farmer said.

“Indeed not,” the wizard replied. He returned to the chair in front of the bowl. “I’m afraid I am not prepared for hosting large gatherings. One of you will need to stand.” He gestured, and Abigail jumped as the stool beside the cauldron slid across the floor to the table.

“You two grab the seats. I might fall asleep if I get too comfy,” Brandy said, leaning against the wall by the door and crossing her arms over her chest.

Abigail glanced at Trisha, who swept a hand toward the table, offering her first choice. She lowered herself gingerly onto the stool, leaving the cushioned chair for the other woman. Nodding off wasn’t something she was worried about; even if she hadn’t had an unintentional nap at Brandy’s place, she was way too keyed up. She was the one who had broken the “rules,” however, and claiming the better seat felt out of line.

For a long, uncomfortable time, no one said anything, and Abigail found herself trying to study the wizard without being obvious about it. Aside from the hair color, which wasn’t even that similar to hers, he didn’t resemble her at all, further supporting Linus’s claim.

Finally, he cleared his throat. “Since none of you seem inclined to start the discussion, I suppose it falls to me. Ms Martin, how much do you understand about what has happened to you?”

Part of her wanted to respond with Nothing, because no one will tell me anything! but that wasn’t entirely true. She swallowed again. “I think it started on Spirit’s Eve. Um. Or maybe it was years ago, when I was a kid…” She stumbled through an explanation of her weird ability to eat quartz, what little she remembered of the night she’d sampled the amethyst Brandy had given her, and, finally, her attempt to get into the mine and the conversation with Linus. “He said I was the sage of the mountain, whatever that means, and that I should tell you I didn’t need a… a ‘concoction’? And Trisha said she’s the sage of the forest. But no one will tell me what the f—what a sage is.”

The wizard had absently continued eating his breakfast as she spoke, but now he set aside the spoon and leaned back in his chair. “The short version is that a sage is one of five wizards with extraordinary power granted to them by means of a metaphysical bond with the local embodiment of their elemental affinity,” he said.

Abigail fought down a sudden urge to check whether she could see scraps of dictionary pages mixed in with the oats and raisins in his nearly empty bowl. The alternative was wrestling with the words “wizard” and “extraordinary power” being used in connection with her boring life. “Ooookay, I think I’m going to need the longer version.”

The lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. “As I anticipated. There are seven elemental powers that shape what we call magic. The polar elements, which have no sages, are creation and destruction. The material elements are metal, wood, fire, air, and water. Corresponding to these are the sages of the mountain, the forest, the hearth, the sky, and the sea. Trisha’s grandfather was the previous forest sage, and when she arrived on his old farm, I recognized in her the potential to take up that role herself. She accepted the charge.”

“So you’re one of them—us—too? But why? What’s the big deal about Stardew Valley, anyway? Or are there teams of sages all over the place?”

That caught the wizard off guard. “I’m not aware of any similar ‘teams’ elsewhere,” he said. “However, popular media to the contrary, there’s no secret government or other worldwide organization overseeing all of magic, so it’s not impossible that there could be others. As for myself, I was once the sage of the sky, but I have not held that title for eighty years. With your awakening, there are currently three sages; I shall arrange an introduction to the sage of the hearth once I have had a chance to apprise the holder of that title of this new development.”

“What, you’re not going to let it be a complete surprise, like you pulled on the two of us?” Trisha said.

“It would not be nearly as amusing with an imbalance of awareness,” the wizard said, shaking an admonishing finger at the farmer. No, at the sage of the forest, who was on friendly enough terms with him for teasing banter. “Since I’ve already told the mountain of the hearth’s existence, fairness dictates that I extend the same courtesy to the hearth.”

His expression sobered as he turned back to Abigail. “I may seem to make a jest of this matter, but the duties of a sage of the valley are not to be taken lightly.”

She listened in growing apprehension as he explained the real reason she had never been allowed to go into the mine. “Does my mother know about this?” she demanded when he was finished. “The demon, and the sages, and all that? Brandy said she said you’re the one who taught her about fortune-telling.”

“She knows enough to fear for your safety when you began expressing an interest in the mine,” he said. “Caroline came to my attention when your parents first moved to Pelican Town. I did my best to teach her, but her gifts lie in the realm of soothsaying, not spellcasting. That and the fact that your father was, shall we say, less than enthusiastic about her new hobby led her to discontinue her studies under my tutelage after you were born. I have respected her wishes to keep my distance, from both her and you, but she does send word whenever she divines something that touches on the demon’s seal. This has largely consisted of a conviction of the inevitability of the demon’s release by an untrained magician.” He took a long sip of coffee. “She also insisted that her daughter shared her own talents as a diviner, and was therefore unsuited to the study of greater magics.”

Abigail pursed her lips. “I mean, I sometimes get results from my spirit board, but that’s pretty rare. And even when I do, I usually don’t understand what the message means until after whatever it is has already happened!”

His brow creased. “A diviner’s strength comes from a shallow affinity with several different elementals. Someone so attuned to metal as to find a focus stone in childhood could not possibly sustain other connections, and your mother is well aware of this.”

“I, um, never told her about the quartz thing,” Abigail said. “Sam and Sebastian were there the first time, but we were all pretty freaked out about it and I swore them to secrecy. But hang on, rocks aren’t metal? I mean, mostly. And quartz definitely isn’t, though amethyst gets its color from metallic impurities. I studied this stuff to try to figure out what was up with me,” she added in response to Trisha’s look of surprise.

“An understandable approach,” the wizard said. “To answer your question, the labels I’ve given for the elementals are merely symbols to encompass substantial subsets of the universe. Some historical traditions—including those that have formed the basis of much popular fiction—acknowledge only four material elementals, with wood and metal conflated as ‘earth.’ In essence, ‘wood’ represents the organic components of what might fall into that broader category, such as soil and plant life, while the inorganic parts, including non-metallic minerals, fall under the heading of ‘metal.’”

“Okay, that makes some sort of sense. So, what are we going to do about the demon? The mountain’s been trying to warn me about something wrong down there for ages.” Her own conviction in the statement startled her a little, but it felt true.”

“Indeed, there have been other signs that the seal at the base of the mine may be breaking down. My original plan was for Trisha to reinforce that binding once her control over her power was honed sufficiently for her to defend herself against the demon’s influence. The appearance of a second sage—and now a third—has changed that in some respects, as a renewed seal would be stronger with more elementals in support. There remains, of course, the difficulty that the depths of the mine where the demon is bound are currently inaccessible. The task of restoring that access has fallen to the Adventurers’ Guild.” He waved a hand at Brandy, and Abigail turned on her stool.

“According to what the guys say, Neel and I have made it about a third of the way down,” her girlfriend said. She looked more thoughtful than irritated, now. “We’re getting close to the part where we’ll need more support to deal with some of the monsters—either magic swords, or someone on the spot who can cast spells.”

“Trisha has made excellent progress in her studies, and I believe she is ready for a brief foray into the mine to test her defenses,” the wizard said. Judging by the way her eyes widened, this was news to the farmer. “My only reservation in that regard is that you haven’t yet formally chosen a shield.”

“That’s been… kind of complicated,” Trisha said, with a funny glance toward Brandy.

“What, having trouble finding one the right size?” Abigail asked.

The wizard’s bushy eyebrows rose. “You haven’t informed her?”

Brandy glared at him. “Everybody kept insisting that I shouldn’t say anything to anyone. If there were exceptions, that would’ve been nice to know in advance. Sorry, Abby. I’ve been wanting to tell you about this ever since Marlon let it slip that the ward on the mine said you had magic.”

“Is that what you meant about there being a specific reason I couldn’t join the guild?”

“Yeah. They only take potential shields, and the rule is that we can’t have any magic at all. That keeps us safe from the demon—but not the monsters it creates.”

The wizard nodded. “A reasonable summary. In short, Ms Martin, each sage of the valley traditionally takes a shield—a person without magic who acts as both a defender against physical threats and an anchor to the nonmagical world. It is a partnership that requires a great deal of trust, on both individuals’ parts. Most often, this is a romantic relationship, though that’s not a requirement; my own shield was my twin sister. For that matter, Trisha’s grandfather never found someone to serve in that role, though that was far from an ideal situation.”

“A defender… so I’m supposed to, what, just stand around and let someone else protect me? I can do a pretty good job taking care of myself. I’ve been studying swordwork for longer than Brandy!” No way was that all training going to waste.

“Working magic requires concentration—often intense concentration. No matter how adept you may be with a weapon, having someone to watch your back when you are, for all intents and purposes, unaware of the material world around you is critical. By all means, continue your physical training if you so desire; I have no skills in that direction, but Linus in his prime was no slouch with a quarterstaff, and Patrick Lockwood was quite an accomplished swordsman.”

“Wait, what?” Trisha said. She shook her head. “Just when I think I’m starting to figure out who Grandpa really was! Anyway. Neel and Brandy have both sort of been training as my shield, but I can only pick one, so…” She looked at her friend.

“We’ve already talked about the possibilities, and we’re on the same page,” Brandy said, cryptically.

Or maybe not so cryptic, after all. If sages and their shields were usually lovers—not that she and Brandy were, technically—and Brandy had known about this magic thing for so long, then… But had her adventure in the mine broken the trust between them too much for that?

If Trisha still hadn’t settled on which of her friends would be her defender, it wasn’t something she needed to figure out right away, either. “All right. So in order to go into the mine and fix whatever’s wrong with the seal, I need to learn enough magic to keep the demon from attacking me. Where do I start?”

Chapter 4: 02 Winter Y1 - Sebastian

Notes:

When I logged onto AO3 to do a final polish on this chapter, it was late at night and I absentmindedly started editing Chapter 2 instead. Most of the edits were just minor wording tweaks, but I did add an extra sentence at the end that folks who've been reading each chapter as it's posted might want to take a quick peek at. It makes Neel's headspace a little clearer, and I liked it too much to revert back to the previous version. Sorry about that—I promise I don't make a habit of doing more than fixing typos in already-posted work!

“I can’t believe you’re dragging me to this,” Sebastian muttered as they crossed the bridge.

“C’mon, Seb, Elliott came to our concert—the least we can do is return the support,” Sam said. “He liked our music, so you know he’s got good taste. And Neel will be there!”

“It’s not like we have to do everything together,” Sebastian retorted, though he was looking forward to seeing his boyfriend. Neel had texted him yesterday with an invite to join him at the spa, but he had declined, probably too fast. His boyfriend had been busy on the farm since then, making sure the farm’s outbuildings were holding up against the sudden cold snap that had ushered Winter into the valley.

Sam picked up his pace as they reached the library, pulling open the door before Sebastian had a chance to read the printed notice hung on it. He gave his best friend a fishy look as Sam swept a hand at him to go first. If this was some sort of early surprise party, he was going to strangle—

He stopped short in the entrance as he took in the magazines on display. A blown-up copy of the cover, pieced together from multiple black-and-white printouts, hung on the front of the desk, and the familiar title graphic of Ansible and Scroll stared back at him. He even recognized the cover art; the current issue was loaded onto his tablet, waiting for him to find time to read it, but he hadn’t paid any attention to the featured stories, since he’d bought the issue for one piece in particular. But on the poster, one of them had been filled in with yellow highlighter:

Fresh New Voices:
“The Tourist Trap”
by Elliott Carmichael

A couple of their neighbors were now peering around the corner of the shelves to see who was letting in the cold air, so he tried to keep his face neutral as he moved further inside so the door could close behind him. “You knew about this, didn’t you?” he whispered to Sam as they approached the study desks that had been designated as audience seating. Abigail and Brandy were already there, near the back, and he headed toward them.

“Yup,” Sam said, grinning. “I happened to be in the library when he got the news they were interested. I don’t have a clue what the story’s about, but if it got into A&S it’s got to be good, right?”

That was debatable; not everything the magazine published was to his taste, which was why he’d never bothered with a subscription, only with individual issues that had work by authors he knew he liked. But they’d also never printed crap by pretentious literary authors determined to “reinvent the genre”—usually without ever having read anything in it—so that was a point in Elliott’s favor.

There were even more people in the library than he had realized; it felt like half the town was here, including both his mother and stepfather. The one person he’d most looked forward to seeing wasn’t, however. And there was another conspicuous absence… “Where are Neel and Trisha?” he asked Brandy as they joined her in the back corner by the card catalog.

“Trisha got all dressed up, and then on the way here she got excited about some kind of wild root and took a tumble into a snowbank trying to pull it out of the ground,” the pink-haired woman said with a grin. “She didn’t want to show up looking like something Dagger dragged in and drafted Neel to help her do damage control on her outfit.”

Another wave of cool air passed through the room, and he turned to see his boyfriend entering the library. At least, he assumed the heavily bundled figure was Neel; he recognized the coat. His guess was confirmed as the new arrival pulled down the scarf wrapped around his face and grinned at Sebastian, but he didn’t join them; instead, he paused to say something to Gunther, who pointed him behind the checkout desk.

When he finally reemerged, he made his way over to Sebastian, slipping a chilled hand into his. “Hey. Reading’s delayed a bit; Trisha managed to soak her hair pretty thoroughly, and it takes a while to dry it. Elliott doesn’t want to start without her, so Gunther will be making an announcement in a few. Want to check out the museum while we wait?”

“I thought it was empty?” Although that would mean no one else would have any reason to be there…

“Used to be,” Brandy put in. “We’ve turned up some rocks and stuff to donate. Gunther’s even written up notes about our finds.”

“The displays are still pretty sparse, but ‘rocks and stuff’ doesn’t do them justice,” Neel said.

The curator, meanwhile, had moved to the front of the room, where he cleared his throat. “Apologies for the delay, but I’ve been informed that we don’t have our complete audience yet. The reading should begin in about thirty minutes, so please feel free to continue browsing the shelves or the museum while you wait.”

No one else was moving in the direction of the building’s other wing; either they had already taken a look earlier or didn’t realize it was more than empty shelves now. Neel was still looking at him expectantly. “Sure, why don’t you show me around?” He glanced at Sam, unsure if the invitation had been meant for the wider group.

“It’s pretty cool,” Sam said, pulling out a chair and dropping into it. “I wander through it sometimes when I need a break from working on lyrics here.”

As Neel led him toward the other room, his mother glanced up from whatever book she was discussing with Jodi, and he returned her wave self-consciously, moving on before she could praise him for “finally getting out of the house” or something. The museum side of the building did look better than it had the last time he’d been here, not long after the old librarian had failed to show up for work and Mayor Lewis had discovered the building had been ransacked. Everyone had feared for the old man’s safety… until they’d discovered just how much of the budget he’d been embezzling under cover of “upgrading resources.” The local authorities had tracked him to the Zuzu City airport, but not in time to stop him from skipping the country. That whole mess had been a one-week wonder in the national news, and he had barely dared leave his room until some other scandal had finally drawn off the reporters that had converged on Pelican Town.

There was still more empty space than anything else, but the new curator had done his best to fill in the gaps with informational displays about not only the items present but the sort of minerals and artifacts that might commonly b found in the area. “Is this the same topaz you showed at the fair?” Sebastian asked, pausing in front of an oblong chunk of translucent yellow-orange stone.

“It’s the clearest gemstone we’d found in the mine at that point, so we waited until afterward to bring it to Gunther,” Neel said, slipping an arm around Sebastian’s waist. “But wait until you see the aquamarine we turned up last week! It was almost a shame to donate it; if I knew anything about gem cutting I might have tried to make something with it instead.”

Sebastian listened to his boyfriend explain the real background behind each of the pieces as they strolled slowly through the room. The gemstones had mostly come from the mine; after the test of the safety app they’d hired him to create, he had a much deeper appreciation of how much danger the other man was glossing over in his descriptions. Most of the minerals were from the mine, as well, though a few, along with the scattered artifacts, had turned up on their farm.

“You should have seen Trisha’s face when she dug through the soil after her hoe hit something metallic and found the head of that chicken—Sebastian?”

It took him a moment to register Neel’s concern, because he had caught a glimpse of the next exhibit on the same table. For a dizzying moment he felt like a child again, being scolded by his mother to keep his hands in his pockets if that was the only way he could remember not to grab everything that caught his eye in a store, because the urge to pick up the stone laid out on black velvet beneath a small spotlight was that strong. “Is that—” He tore his eyes away long enough to look at the small metal plaque in front of it: FROZEN TEAR.

“It’s pretty neat, isn’t it? Clint nearly dropped his geode hammer in surprise when he broke open the one with that inside.”

“I’ve never seen one in person before,” Sebastian said. He’d read about them in one of Abigail’s mineralogy books when they were in school and had been curious, but photographs didn’t begin to capture the reality. It looked exactly like a large drop of water that was somehow suspended on the fabric beneath it instead of sinking in. “You found one here? I thought they only formed in the arctic.”

“I don’t know the details, but apparently there’s a section of the mine that’s cold enough for them. We’ve found three so far, but the other two are long gone.” Sebastian looked at him, and he shrugged. “They don’t quite sell for precious stone prices, but we’re trying to fund some major improvements on the farm, so every G helps. If I’d known you liked them… Well, I’ll keep an eye out for another.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Sebastian protested, even as his gaze darted back to the donated stone.

“We’re in there on a regular basis, and I’m sure we didn’t find the only three in the entire mine in a matter of days.”

Before Sebastian could think of a response, someone rapped on the doorframe behind them, and they turned to find Sam leaning through the opening. “Trisha finally got here, so the show’s about to start.”

“Thanks, we’re on our way,” Neel said. “This should be interesting; Elliott asked me to coach him on reading aloud, but he wouldn’t even tell me the genre of the story. I know just enough to have a guess about what the title means—let’s go find out if I’m right.”

“Sure.” He reminded himself yet again that his boyfriend was a better judge of people than he was, and he seemed to think Elliott was okay. As they left the museum wing, however, Sebastian couldn’t help one last glance at the frozen tear display, wondering at the strength of his own reaction to the stone.

Chapter 5: 02 Winter Y1 - Elliott

Elliott paced nervously in the space that the librarian had cleared in the library’s storage room for his use prior to the reading, careful not to jostle the rickety tray table holding a glass of water or the folding chair beside it. He appreciated the thoughtfulness involved, but now he wondered if he would have been better off declining. Perhaps mingling with whatever few townsfolk had decided to attend the event would have taken his mind off of his nerves better than treading back and forth in this small, cramped corner. He glanced at his phone screen yet again; it was nearly the scheduled time, but the person he privately considered the guest of honor must not have arrived yet, for his host had promised he would relay word as soon as Trisha made her appearance.

He jumped and nearly dropped the device as the door opened, but it was neither his girlfriend nor the librarian who appeared in the rectangle of brighter light. “Good afternoon… Neel,” he said, almost certain he had gotten the name correct this time.

There was no correction, verbal or otherwise, from the newcomer. “Hi, Elliott. How are your nerves holding up?”

“They shall be a great deal steadier if you are here to inform me that Trisha received my text and is here.” He really ought to have discussed this with her sooner, but she had been busy with her new greenhouse and other farm duties over the last few days. A quick conversation prior to the reading was not ideal, but better than letting her be taken by surprise by certain elements in his story.

“So, good news, bad news. She got your text, but not until pretty late—she spent most of the morning in the forest, so she didn’t realize you wanted to see her ahead of time until she was on her way back to the farm to get ready. We might have made it here with a few minutes to spare, but someone spotted a snow yam’s leaves sticking out of the ground and just had to collect it. And then discovered the snowbank behind her was much deeper than expected when the root came loose suddenly and she stumbled backward into it.”

“Oh, dear. Is she all right?”

“She’s not hurt, and I’m sure she’ll be laughing about it later, but she was soaked to the skin by the time Brandy and I hauled her back onto her feet. In the interest of avoiding hypothermia or frostbite, she went back home to change and I promised I’d let you know what was up. She’ll be here as soon as she can, but she also wanted to know if you’d be okay with me filming on my phone, in case she can’t make it before you get started.”

“I—” He forced himself to take a deep breath and consider. He was tempted to take that coward’s path, hope that he might reach his planned stopping point before her arrival and then have that talk with her before she could view the recording—and perhaps informed by her friends’ reactions to the story.

The door opened wider and Gunther joined them, making the tiny space feel even more claustrophobic. “I was coming over to see if you wanted more water and heard enough of that to get the gist. If you’d like to wait, I don’t think it would be a problem; everyone here is having a good time browsing the shelves or checking out the museum exhibits.

“That’s a relief,” Neel said. “Trisha was really upset about the idea of not being here to support Elliott, and a phone video’s just not the same.”

“Great, I’ll let the audience know about the delay,” the librarian said, withdrawing before Elliott could muster a response of his own.

That was for the best, he mused as Neel, too, departed. At least if this went as terribly as he feared, there wouldn’t be a recording of the disaster.

Of course, now he certainly couldn’t go out and mingle, not when everyone would already be irritated about his wasting their time, so he resumed his pacing. What felt like hours passed, though by the clock on his phone it was not quite twenty minutes before Gunther returned. “She’s here, seated front and center, and everyone else is settled in. Showtime, my friend!”

This was exactly how he had not wanted this to go, but there was no help for it now. He fixed what must surely be a sickly smile on his face and picked up the magazine as he followed the librarian out of the storage room. He almost turned right back around when he passed the first shelving unit and saw just how many people “everyone else” encompassed. He had been expecting a mere smattering of listeners besides his girlfriend and her fellow farmers—Leah, of course, and likely the musician who had encouraged him to do the reading in the first place, perhaps one or two others—but instead found a majority of his neighbors assembled, and Trisha was, indeed, in the middle of the first row of seats, slightly damp but still lovely. She smiled and flashed a “thumbs-up” at him, and then it was too late to retreat, for others had seen the motion.

He took another deep breath as a smattering of polite applause began, and walked toward the reading stand that the librarian had provided. “Good afternoon,” he said, astonished to find that his voice didn’t shake—the days of rehearsals paying off, perhaps. “I’m so pleased that all of you were able to attend this reading. A writer’s first professional sale is quite a special milestone, and I’m thrilled to be able to share this moment with the town that has been so welcoming to me.” Gunther had taped a photocopy of the cover to the front of the lectern—this one not magnified, like the one on the checkout desk, but with the same yellow highlighting—and Elliott paused to gaze in wonder at it yet again before moving to take meager shelter behind the stand. He had taken Neel’s advice and printed the story in an easy-to-read format, but the magazine he set reverently beside the loose pages was like a talisman, making the publication feel real. “The editor didn’t warn me that they would be referencing my little story on the cover,” he confided to the audience. “I nearly passed out from shock when I opened the envelope with my contributor’s copies.”

There was a low ripple of amusement through the crowd, which he hoped boded well for the reading itself. He glanced at Trisha again, and her encouraging smile both lifted his heart and made his stomach clench. If only he had not put off discussing the story with her for so long! He cleared his throat and glanced down at the page before him, though the opening lines were etched in his memory. “This is entitled ‘The Tourist Trap,’” he began.

“Lieutenant Yutkin paused in his patrol to wipe the sweat from his brow and glare across the water. Whoever had conceived the notion of building a military installation conducting top-secret research directly across the river from one of the most popular resorts on the planet ought to be fired—preferably out of a missile launcher aimed at the system’s star.

“At present, none of the tourists splashing in the shallows along the far bank or sunning themselves on the artificially created white sand beach appeared to be taking interest in the squat plasti-crete structure inadequately hidden by the jungle. Not that there would be much to see, all of the research being conducted indoors where the temperature and humidity were kept to a reasonable range. He had never understood the appeal of the tropics as a vacation spot, and the eternity he had spent on Paradisia—a whole three weeks, out of the fifty this posting was scheduled to last—had not turned him into a convert.

“It had, however, given him an appreciation for how much of the local wildlife, much of it venomous, could conceal itself in the lush vegetation, and he froze at a glimpse of something not quite the right shade of green moving a few meters away. It was not, he decided after far too many seconds, one of the pseudosnakes that had sent the private who was supposed to be doing this patrol to the infirmary yesterday; instead, it was the arm of a person, though not a human one. And while there were a small number of alien scientists who had been recruited for this project, none of them were of the reptiloid sserissan species.

“The intruder had not yet noticed his presence, and as he observed further, his confusion only grew. The sserrissan—female, judging by the feathery celadon scales covering her head—was not, as far as he could tell, trying to observe the research center. She had a pair of binoculars, purely optical ones with no hint of electronic enhancements, but she was training them on the resort across the river, not the facility he was supposed to be guarding.

“She was also not, technically, on the research center’s grounds, and relations with Sserra were shaky at the best of times, so he could not simply arrest her or command her to leave the area. He could, however, strongly imply that this was a possibility. ‘Just what do you think you’re doing?’

“The intruder jerked and nearly dropped her binoculars…”

Elliott barely dared to take his eyes off of the pages before him, but there was laughter at all the appropriate places as Jakerra tried to explain away her behavior as bird-watching, while privately her fear for the cousin from whom she had received an alarming message increased at the discovery of a human military presence in the area. He wrapped up his reading at the point where the reader—or listener, in this case—would realize that she had, in fact, badly misunderstood the terms her kinsman had used to explain why he had extended his vacation, but before Yutkin himself had this realization, and a satisfying round of snickers ran through the audience.

He turned the page to the brief closing remarks he had prepared. “I think that is a suitable place to conclude,” he said, looking up with a smile. He faltered for a moment, because Trisha, sitting in the seat directly in front of him, also had a smile fixed on her face, but it looked every bit as out of place as the bared teeth Jakerra’s cousin had been cajoled into displaying in mimicry of his human friends’ grins in the photo he had sent with his message. Her lovely hazel eyes flashed with a seething anger, and he grabbed his water and took a long gulp. “If you would care to find out the outcome of this unexpected encounter,” he continued, falling back on numerous rehearsals, “the library has this issue available for check-out. Our esteemed local shopkeeper has also purchased a number of copies for resale.” He nodded at the bespectacled gentleman, already set up behind a table with a cashbox and a stack of magazines. “Should anyone wish a signed copy, I would be honored to oblige.” His gaze fell on the last paragraph on the page, a dedication that the magazine copy did not include, and knew that reading it aloud would be a terrible, terrible mistake. Instead, he hastily gathered the printout into a pile, concealing the words he had written about the story’s inspiration. “Thank you all so much for coming to share this moment with me,” he said instead, and stepped back from the lectern.

He fully expected that Trisha would storm out of the library the moment that she might do so without making a scene, but instead she joined the end of the short line of people waiting to speak to him at the signing table Gunther had arranged for, even waving off the carpenter’s husband when he tried to let her go in front of him.

He did his best to focus each individual; some merely wished to offer congratulations, but others had purchased magazines and asked for an autograph. “That was really awesome, dude,” said the blond musician who had been witness to several stages of this journey. When Elliott thanked him, he picked up the newly signed magazine, rolled it up, and lightly smacked the arm of the dark-haired man beside him. “See, Seb, I told you it was worth leaving the house today!”

His friend’s face reddened. “I have work to do,” he muttered. But he nodded at Elliott. “I, uh, actually already ordered the digital issue, ’cause there’s a story in it from a series I follow, so I don’t have anything to get signed. Yours is good so far—I’ll read the rest once I’m done with my coding project.”

“Thank you, and I hope you find the remainder of my tale as enjoyable as the excerpt.”

Neel was the next person in line, and he gave Elliott a long look as his boyfriend was dragged away by his friend to inspect something across the room. “I think I understand why you wanted to talk to Trisha in advance.” His tone sounded friendly enough, but there was a chill in his voice that Elliott couldn’t recall hearing before. “Nice job on the reading, though.”

“I had an excellent advisor,” he ventured. “I… perhaps should have asked for some additional recommendations.”

“Perhaps,” Neel echoed. “Good luck.” He stepped away from the table.

The rest of the short autograph session passed in a blur, and finally Trisha was the one standing before him. “How could you?” The pain that mingled with the anger in her eyes stabbed at him.

He glanced around; several people were still browsing the shelves or heading toward the rooms that made up the local history and geological museum, but none were near enough to have heard her furious whisper. “I can explain!” His own reply was almost as quiet, as difficult as it was to force the words through the tightness in his throat.

“I’m sure,” she said, and turned on her heel. He nearly knocked over the table in his haste to stand up, and several heads turned to watch, but he no longer cared what anyone else might think as he followed her out of the library.

Chapter 6: 02 Winter Y1 - Trisha

Trisha managed to hold back her tears until she was safely outside, where she could claim they were caused by the stinging cold of the air. And her abrupt departure was due to… what, urgent farm work, in Winter? The breeze picked up and she shivered; she had been so upset that she’d left her hat lying beneath her chair, though she’d had the forethought to put on her coat before getting into the signing line. Well, that just gave her another reason to hurry home; she dashed a hand across her eyes and started for the bridge.

“Trisha!”

Her shoulders stiffened, but she hesitated; Elliott had asked her to come see him beforehand. she had assumed that he wanted help settling his nerves, but maybe he really hadn’t intended to sucker-punch her during the reading, but to drop it on her with only a few minutes to process instead. Her hands clenched into fists, and she turned around.

She wasn’t the only one who had left outerwear behind; though she would have been fine in something like his wool blazer, she could see that he was already shivering without the overcoat he usually wore over it. “Please, let me explain.”

“Let me guess, I was supposed to be flattered you based a character on me.” A few of her classmates had tried similar angles, “showing their support” by putting actual dryads—the mythical creatures—into creative writing assignments or, in one particularly memorable case, slipping a “love poem” into her locker that had hurt worse than all of the deliberate insults and accidental slights combined.

“Jakerra isn’t you,” he protested. “I realized how it might seem after I submitted the final piece, and that’s why I wanted to talk to you in advance.”

“That was a whole season ago! Why wait to spring this on me today?”

“Because—” He broke off, shivering in earnest as the wind picked up another notch. “C-could we go back inside to talk about this? Please?”

Through the gauntlet of people wondering about why the two of them had run out of the library so quickly? She almost refused, but he looked both thoroughly miserable and determined enough to follow her all the way back to the farm, or at least as far as he could make it before he froze. “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth.

As it turned out, she didn’t need to worry too much about witnesses, because the only person who took note of their entrance was Gunther, back at his post behind the front desk. From the other side of the shelves, she could hear Neel loudly reciting a scrap of dialogue from a play she’d seen him in. Despite everything, a ghost of a smile played over her lips; she doubted that he had just happened to decide it was time to put on a show.

The librarian sized up the pair of them and then pointed wordlessly toward the door behind him. “Thank you,” Elliott murmured as they passed him.

Trisha was less thrilled with the cramped, windowless room, but it did have the advantage of being warm and—judging by the way Neel’s voice cut off when she closed the door behind them—mostly soundproof. This must have been where Elliott had waited before his reading; his coat was draped over the single chair.

She leaned against the wall by the door and crossed her arms over her chest. “All right. I’m listening. Explain to me how anyone out there would look at the two of us together and think the green-skinned, green-haired alien woman isn’t based on me, even if they don’t know we first met on the beach.”

Elliott winced. “I… will confess that Jakerra and Yutkin’s first encounter with one another was inspired in part by ours, but the details of that are known only to us, so I hadn’t considered it as a potential issue. No one mentioned the superficial similarity of appearance after the reading, but if anyone had, I fully intended to laugh off any such comments, pointing it out as a curious coincidence. I had also intended to explain that coincidence to you in advance. Leah can attest to the fact that Jakerra’s description predates my meeting you, and in fact it predates my meeting her by over a year.”

She had told Neel and Brandy enough about that embarrassing first meeting that they might recognize the setup, but if no one else did, that was one less source of humiliation. But… “‘Superficial’ similarity? She’s green, Elliott.”

“Jakerra is a member of an alien species I based loosely on several different species of lizards,” he said. “Her scales are mottled shades of emerald and peridot, and her crest—which is not hair at all—is a light sage. She has a tail.”

“And she’s green. You couldn’t have made your alien lizard purple or something? After meeting me, if not before?”

He was silent for a long moment in response. “I tried,” he said at last. “Not purple, I don’t think, but I did muse on changing her color palette. It’s… not that simple. She needed to be able to blend into foliage, both in this scene and in my novel. I even considered finding some reason to make the leaves a different hue, declare that, galaxy-wide, the green chlorophyl with which humans would be familiar was a rarity. None of it worked. Not merely because my attempt at xenobotany was too awkward to explain in the novel, let alone a short story, but because I couldn’t change Jakerra. She looks the way she looks.”

“She’s a fictional character,” Trisha said. “You’re the author.”

“You make it sound so simple!” He dropped into the chair. “Some of my characters are that malleable. Yutkin, for example, could have looked like anything I wished. Why, in the initial draft I submitted, his eyes changed color halfway through! Fortunately, the editor caught that one.” His hand rose as if to tug at his hair, but fell back to his lap. “Others simply… show up on the page, fully formed. There may still be some aspects I can shape to suit, but if I try to alter them too much, I find I cannot write them at all. I must either revert to how they are supposed to be or create a different character entirely, and such re-castings are rarely as compelling as the originals. Jakerra is one of those; writing about her feels more like interviewing a person about what they would do in a given situation than making up a story.”

He looked up at her, his hands clasped in his lap. “I must truly, deeply apologize for not finding—for not making the time to tell you about this in advance. I… I was afraid of just such a reaction, you see, and in trying to avoid it I have made the situation infinitely worse. But aside from my cribbing a few notes from our meeting for her introductory scene, I think any further similarities between you and her are coincidental.”

“You think?”

His gaze slid away from hers. “I admit, when I first got a good look at you, I had a moment of concern. You see… not always, but a few times, I have written something that felt particularly vivid, that flowed onto the page like magic, only to show it to someone later and have them remark at how closely I captured some real event or person that I had forgotten about. But I do not believe we had encountered one another prior to your arrival in Pelican Town.”

The uncertainty in his voice jabbed at her. “Elliott, I’m green. Even if people remember nothing else about me—even if they never actually met me, just saw me in passing, they remember the weird green girl. No one is that absent-minded!”

His head jerked up at that, and for a moment she saw a flicker of anger in his eyes that matched hers. “The memory issues about which I confided in you go well beyond anything that could be classified as ‘absent-mindedness.’” The words were clipped and precise, like he was choosing each one carefully. His hand rose again, and this time he didn’t stop the gesture, sweeping his long, red-gold hair back from the right side of his head as he turned to his left.

She could see at once why he had reacted the way he had the couple of times her hands had strayed toward his hair when they kissed. A line of bare skin about the width of her thumb cut across his scalp, beginning just above his ear and disappearing back into the area still covered. He let the long strands fall back into place, a few seconds later, but she had seen enough of the raised, uneven texture to recognize it as a scar. “What happened?” Her voice was little more than a whisper.

He kept his eyes locked on something off to the side. “Shortly after I began high school, my class took a field trip to one of the national parks near Kettleton. What should have been a perfectly ordinary trip through the Cauldron Mountains… wasn’t. Our bus went off of the road, through a guard rail, and—well, I’m told that it was technically down an embankment, rather than over a cliff, but it was a steep enough one that the distinction is largely academic. By some great miracle no one was killed, but there were a great many injuries. Mine were among the most severe, and I spent over a year in the hospital.”

“Elliott…”

“Soap operas and comic books love to toss in amnesia as a storyline,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “The reality isn’t much like how it’s portrayed there. I knew who I was. I recognized some people—my family, a few others who had been part of my life for long enough that I could piece together an identification rather than merely thinking they looked familiar. But whole segments of my life were simply… gone, and there was no plot-convenient sudden restoration. Fragments have come back to me over time, though I suspect some of those ‘memories’ are mere reconstructions based on what others have told me of my past. But that wasn’t the worst of it.”

The anger had faded from his voice as he spoke, but when he fell silent, she wasn’t sure whether she should go to him or keep her distance. “What was, then?” she asked quietly.

“Retrograde amnesia might be a favorite ‘twist’ among some writers, but the anterograde form seldom comes up, aside from the odd episode of a medical drama,” he said. “That’s the inability to form new memories. For the first couple of weeks after I regained consciousness, it was as though each awakening were the first—having to be told where I was, what had happened, over and over—sometimes within the same conversation. There was a near-total disruption of the process by which short-term memory is converted into long-term. That has improved over time, thankfully, but for many years… it is, in fact, entirely plausible that I might have encountered you somewhere and retained no conscious recollection of it, only enough for it to somehow inspire a character in my story. There are clearly a great many things buried in my subconscious, for I occasionally find myself reacting to something without understanding why.”

“Like the daffodil I gave you back in Spring?” Trisha bit her lip as he looked at her blankly; perhaps she should have kept her mouth shut.

Then his eyes cleared. “Ah, yes, I do recall that. I asked my sister if she knew why… they were featured in get-well-soon bouquets at the hospital, I think?” He sighed. “You’ve never given any indication that you recognized me from before your arrival in Pelican Town, and all of my ‘too-real’ characters have been based on people I once knew well, not chance encounters with strangers. I truly don’t believe that Jakerra’s appearance was inspired by anything more than a trip through the reptile house at the zoo, but I do apologize again for not doing more to prevent the discomfort I put you through this afternoon.”

“And I shouldn’t have been so quick to jump to conclusions,” Trisha said. “I’m sorry I flew off the handle like that.” She considered a moment. “Kettleton’s in one of the few parts of the country my parents didn’t drag me through, back when we were trying to figure out what was wrong with me.”

“Whereas I rarely left the city until after college—another point in the ‘coincidence’ column.” Elliott said, getting to his feet. “Am I forgiven for my thoughtlessness, dear lady?”

It was the sort of remark that could have been corny but, like always, sounded completely natural coming from Elliott. “If you’ve forgiven me for mine,” she said, and stepped into his arms as he opened them. She ventured a smile as she gazed up at him. “So now that I know what you’ve been hiding, does this mean you’ll let me run my hands through your hair?”

His answering smile was crooked. “I would prefer you not do so where others might see. While I believe our neighbors have known me for long enough not to alter their behavior around me were they to find out… one never knows.”

“Yeah, I know that fear all too well,” Trisha said, resting her cheek against his chest, and his arms tightened around her. “But… in private…?”

“When it is just the two of us, I shan’t mind at all,” he said, and she felt his lips brush the top of her head. Then he sighed. “I ought to return to the library and see what manner of damage control is needed.”

“It sounded like Neel was already on it,” Trisha said, but she took the hint, and a step back.

“How do you mean?” Elliott draped his overcoat over his arm.

“I could hear him when we came back inside. It’s a favorite party trick of his—invite someone to grab a play from the shelf, read any line, and see if he can come up with the next one. It’s guaranteed to get everyone to focus on him, and since he was with Sebastian, who does not like being the center of attention, I doubt he decided to show off just for old time’s sake.”

“That’s quite an impressive feat,” her boyfriend said as he opened the door of the storage room. “Or is there some subterfuge involved?”

She shook her head. “He’s got… well, not a photographic memory, exactly, but anything he’s heard or read sticks. Unless it’s a show he’s never heard of, there’s a pretty good chance he can pull it off—and I wouldn’t put it past him to have read anything the library had that he didn’t already know, just in case the opportunity to grab the spotlight came up.”

They came around the edge of the shelves just as her friend was taking a bow, to a smattering of applause; he had claimed the area beside the podium as a stage, with Caroline as his current challenger. Sebastian was sitting at one of the study desks at the opposite end of the room, watching the show with enough evidence of enjoyment that Neel must have warned him to get clear in time.

As her friend straightened from his bow, she saw his eyes flick to her, then to Elliott’s arm around her waist, and one eyebrow quirked up in invitation. “So, anyone else want to try to stump me?” he asked as Caroline, laughing, set the book she had been holding on top of the stack on the podium.

Before Trisha could volunteer, however, Elliott gave her a quick squeeze and set his coat on the nearest desk. “I think I would,” he said, and strode to the front of the room. He selected a volume from the shelf and leafed through it for a moment. “‘Does anyone know where this horse came from?’”

“Oh, you’re playing dirty,” Neel said with a mock glare. “That line comes up a dozen times. At least tell me who says it on the page you’re on, so I can narrow down the guesses…”

Trisha grinned and settled in to watch. Since the Fair, she had taken to watching Welwick’s show whenever she could, and it seemed like the fortuneteller had been on to something in that morning’s broadcast; the spirits really were smiling on Pelican Town today.

Chapter 7: 02 Winter Y1 - Brandy

Under other circumstances, Brandy would have enjoyed the reading—Elliott’s writing wasn’t as overblown as the way he talked, and he had a way with puns her fathers would appreciate. Given the subject of his story, however, she hadn’t bought a copy to send to them.

“What’s that all about?” Abby murmured, turning to watch the writer bolt out of the library after Trisha.

Brandy looked at her girlfriend, who seemed genuinely puzzled, then around the room. A few other heads had turned at the pair’s sudden exit, confusion or curiosity on their faces. Then she caught Neel’s glance in her direction; always hard to tell, with him, but she thought he was as pissed on Trisha’s behalf as she was.

Maybe the two of them were the only people who had made the connection? They were, after all, the ones who had seen their friend go through this sort of shit too many times to count, though she’d thought better of Elliott. But if nobody else had noticed—yet…

She met Neel’s gaze again; he nodded, then turned to Sebastian. Brandy didn’t catch what he whispered, but his boyfriend let go of his hand and took several steps away from him, toward where Sam was poking through the bookshelves.

“Trisha probably warned him to flee before a certain someone decided he’d been out of the spotlight for too long,” she said in answer to Abby’s question—but loud enough to be heard throughout the room.

“Give me a break, Brandy—you know I’d never try to take over someone else’s event.” People who’d never met Neel might have believed he was embarrassed by the way all eyes were now on the two of them, but she knew better.

“Which is over now, and don’t think I didn’t see you eyeing that shelf,” she retorted, gambling that even a library this small must have at least a few plays, and hoping they were kept somewhere he could have been looking at them.

“What can I say—I’ve been wondering if I’ve lost my edge.”

When the Void fills up, she thought, but before she could come up with a less snarky response, Emily jumped in.

“Lost your edge in what?” Of course she would have picked up that something was off, even if she didn’t know why. “What shelf?”

Neel chuckled with fake self-consciousness. “Oh, it’s a thing I used to do at parties. I’ve spent so much time reading scripts—for auditions, classes, or just for fun—that if someone reads off a random line, I can probably come up with the next one. That was at home, though, with my own books. It might be more of a challenge here.”

“Oh, now that I’ve got to see!” Sam reached up to grab a book from the bookcase he had been browsing. He flipped through it, then cleared his throat and sang, “‘How do we move forward now?’”

Neel grinned. “You do not want to hear me try to sing a soprano part, but the lyric is ‘We’ll figure it out, some way, somehow.’ If you thought you could stump me with a musical, you shouldn’t have picked one I wrote a whole term paper on.”

Not that Sam could have known that, Brandy thought as Leah picked out a different book, but Neel’s distraction was doing the job—the crowd was watching him, and nobody so much as glanced over when the front door opened again and Trisha stalked back inside, with Elliott right on her heels. They headed straight back, and she heard another door open and close, so Trisha had at least agreed to listen to him grovel.

“Is something wrong?” Abby asked.

Brandy realized she was scowling, and tried to smile. “Want to check out the museum, or would you rather watch Mr. Show-off here?” She jerked a thumb at Neel.

“As cool as his trick is, I’d rather see the minerals, especially if that was an offer to show me around yourself.”

Neel could manage the audience now that she’d given him the stage, so she nodded and followed her girlfriend through the doorway. “There’s another room on the other side of this one, but I don’t think Gunther’s put anything in it yet,” she said, looking around. It wasn’t like the big main room was hurting for space, even with as many things as they’d brought in. “Oh, hey, remember that piece of quartz I gave you way back in Spring? This is the other piece we found the same day.”

“That’s pretty cool. I put mine on my mineral shelves. “Abigail leaned closer to the display. “I think this one’s bigger, but the one you gave me is prettier. Is everything here from you three?”

“I think so. Don’t see anything I don’t recognize, anyway. Wait, I take that back—this bowl’s not one of ours.” She read the tag and let out a low whistle. “A thousand years old? Nice find, Penny.”

“Sam’s mentioned she sometimes does little ‘archeology’ digs with the kids. Neat that she actually found something. Huh.”

Brandy turned away from the small display of artifacts to where Abby was studying another shelf of minerals. “This looks just like a paperweight Sebastian has in his room.”

“The one Neel made for him? That’s ’cause it’s the other half of this piece. It split right down the middle went Clint cracked open the geode it was in. Neel claimed the half Gunther didn’t want, and then Trisha mentioned seeing it as Sebastian’s place.” She frowned, remembering how they’d found that particular geode.

“What’s wrong?”

Brandy glanced around; she could still hear Neel hamming it up in the library, and nobody else had wandered into this part of the building, but she kept her voice low anyway. “So, there are these things in the mine called duggies—ridiculous name, I know, but they’re horrible little fuckers that swim through dirt like it’s water. I got my foot stuck in a mudhole, and it’s a damned good thing Neel was with me, ’cause he was able to fight off the one trying to rip my leg open long enough for me to get myself free. The geode was in the pile of muck I dug out in the process.”

“Oh, spirits!” Abby pressed a hand to her mouth. “I’m not sure I want to know what you went through for the amethyst you gave me.”

“Ah, that one wasn’t bad, ’cause the monsters did most of our work for us. Turns out some species don’t like each other any more than they like us, so Neel and I just had to pick off a couple of survivors. The biggest scare of that trip was Neel’s fault. See, we were testing out the app Sebastian made for us, and he fucked something up—Neel, I mean, not Sebastian—and blasted everyone with the S.O.S. signal instead of sending an all-clear.”

“Yipe. Glad it was just a false alarm.” Abby fell silent for a while, looking at the various stones and reading the descriptions. “Is that a real frozen tear? I’ve read about them but never seen one in person before.”

“Gunther confirmed it, yeah. We’ve found a couple more, but that particular one was inside a dust sprite. Trisha says those fuckers form around a core of some sort—might be just dust, like the name, but sometimes a chunk of coal, a gemstone… Marlon swears he found a bottle cap in one, ages ago, but he could be yanking my chain.” Before Brandy could tell Abigail about the other improbable things the old adventurer claimed to have pulled out of monster guts, however, a new voice joining the challenge-Neel crowd caught her ear.

“‘…this horse came from?’” She reached the doorway in time to see Elliott lower the book he held and Neel begin protesting the choice of lines. Trisha was hanging back a bit, but she was smiling, and not the I’m-going-to-kill-him-but-have-to-play-nice-for-now kind she’d had on after the reading.

Brandy raised her eyebrows as Trisha glanced her way, and her friend mouthed a quick “tell you later” before giving her full attention to Neel trying to dredge up all the possible responses to her boyfriend’s challenge.

She’d have to pry the full story out of her later, but since, against all odds, he’d managed to talk his way back onto her good side, Brandy leaned back against the card catalog to watch the show. There weren’t many people who could keep Neel on his toes, so she was glad he’d be sticking around.

Chapter 8: 03 Winter Y1 - Abigail

Abigail hadn’t heard a word from her girlfriend about the broken promise since they’d left Linus’s campfire. She could hardly call it the silent treatment—they’d talked about plenty of other things in the meantime—but she hadn’t missed the way Brandy had kept turning the “museum tour” toward how dangerous everything in the mine was. So when her father had admitted that he couldn’t find anything for her to do in the shop today, since the stockpile of Winter Star decorations he’d ordered weren’t in yet, she’d decided that this was a sign from the spirits.

Hey brandy

Are you busy?

nope

critters are milked and Trisha doesnt need help with the greenhouse

want to do some sparring?

Abigail hesitated over the reply; surely the invitation meant she’d already been forgiven, with no need to dredge any bad feelings back up? That… did not fit Brandy’s definition of courage. Her girlfriend had assured her she wasn’t “break-up mad,” but she’d also made it clear she wasn’t happy about what Abigail had done. Which was totally reasonable, especially given what she’d learned about the mine—and herself—since then. She owed Brandy an apology. However scared she was of messing things up between them even more than she already had, she would just have to suck it up and face the music, and the longer she put it off, the harder it would be.

Could we talk?

About what happened I mean

She grimaced at how weird that had come out, but her phone showed Brandy was already typing something back. It took an agonizingly long time for the text to appear, and she realized this might be just as difficult for her girlfriend as for her.

sure cmon over

Abigail took a deep breath. “Spirits, help me not screw this up,” she murmured as she stepped outside the shop.

The last time she had been at Lockwood, she had been too wrapped up in her own concerns to notice how eerily still the farm was beneath its blanket of winter snow. No crops swaying in the fields, no chickens scratching at the ground outside the coop, no cute-but-feisty goat trying to kick her way through the barnyard fence. The only motion she could see came from inside the greenhouse, and she did a double-take as she knocked on Brandy’s front door, because she was close enough now to see that Trisha was wearing nothing but a sports bra and shorts. “You must really have the heat cranked up in there,” she said, as the door opened.

Brandy followed her gaze and chuckled. “I’d want at least a jacket and some real pants, but it’s surprisingly comfortable.” She stepped back from the doorway. “It won’t be in here if I keep the door open for long.”

“Right! Sorry!” Abigail quickly wiped her boots on the mat and entered the cabin. The temperature inside was about where her dad kept the thermostat—just high enough not to draw complaints from her mother—but the cheerful flames rising from the gas “logs” in the fireplace made the room feel cozier.

“One of these days, I’m going to have to spring for a couch or something,” Brandy said, pulling one of the straight-backed chairs away from the table and dropping into it. “Not sure where I’d be able to wedge it in, though.”

Abigail took the seat opposite her. “Sebastian’s mom could help with the space issue,” she said.

“True, and having a real kitchen would be nice, but the price is still a little steep for me. Trisha’s looking into it for her share of the Fall profits, but I’m probably putting most of mine toward some better armor and weapons.”

Abigail’s curiosity about why the farm’s owner would be so eager to have a kitchen installed was squashed by the reminder of why she had come out here. “I owe you an apology.” She ran a finger along a scratch in the tabletop.

“You said ‘I’m sorry’ a lot the other night,” Brandy said. “I’d rather get an explanation.”

She looked up from her study of the wood grain at that, but was at a loss to read her girlfriend’s expression. “That’s… a lot harder.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured, but that just makes it more important. I thought maybe we could try to work it out together?” She reached across the table to lay a hand over one of Abigail’s.

A huge weight lifted from her shoulders at the touch. “I thought you were still pissed at me,” she confessed, blinking back sudden tears.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Abby. I was, but—look, it would have been really fucking bad if you’d gotten far enough into the mine that the demon could get at you, but all this secrecy shit means there’s no way you could have guessed that part. So what I want to know is, why was it so important to try that you’d break your promise to me?”

“Brandy, I’m so sorry about that—”

Her girlfriend’s hand tightened on hers. “That wasn’t a dig. How much has Rasmodius told you about what shields actually do?”

Abigail looked at her in confusion. “You… were there? Just the bit about how y—a shield should be there to protect me while I’m doing magic.” She thought a moment. “And… something about being an anchor? I haven’t been back to see him yet, since he said to take some time to process everything that had already happened.”

Brandy shrugged. “He keeps making letters appear out of thin air in Trisha’s mailbox, so I thought maybe he’d sent you reading homework or something.”

“Oh! No, nothing like that.” She was torn between wishing he had—the Sunday afternoon meet-up the wizard had suggested seemed ages away—and anxiety over the idea of learning magic, not to mention what might happen if either of her parents found out she was going to be making regular trips to the tower. “Is there more you can tell me? I don’t want you to get in trouble with the guild.”

A wide grin crossed Brandy’s face. “Now that you’re officially a sage? Everything. Or at least as much as I know. When I first joined, Marlon wouldn’t let Trisha hear what he had to tell me, but he also said he didn’t expect me to keep it a secret from her. You cannot imagine how much of a relief it is not to have to tiptoe around this with you anymore. Did you even realize I was trying to get you to talk to Rasmodius?”

“Really? No, I… sort of thought maybe you were telling me Trisha could say more, but I hadn’t figured out how to approach her. Wow, I’m even worse at subtle than I thought.” 

There was no good response to that, so Abigail opted for a different line of questioning. “Why would Marlon be okay with her knowing whatever it was he told you, but not with telling her directly?”

“He basically said shields and their sages don’t keep secrets from each other, but he and Gil were going to be pretty blunt and they didn’t want to risk offending her.”

“She doesn’t seem like the touchy sort to me.”

“I doubt she would’ve been bothered, but he didn’t really know her—still doesn’t.” Brandy shrugged. “I can’t do that thing Neel does where he quotes someone’s exact words, tone and all, but I can see some people getting pissed at the bit about protecting sages from themselves.”

Abigail felt her eyebrows rise. “Yeah, that could be an issue,” she said. “What do you mean?”

“Apparently people who get really into magic tend to lose track of the rest of the world. Not just while they’re doing spells, though that’s definitely a thing—Trisha has this awful habit of closing her eyes whenever she’s focusing on her ‘inner senses’ or whatever, though she’s getting better about it. More like… you’ve met Rasmodius, and those letters I mentioned? I think that’s the only way he knows how to send a message. The dude doesn’t have a phone, not even a landline, and definitely no computer for email. It wouldn’t shock me if everything he knows about the modern world comes from the newspaper, and I didn’t even know he got that that until the morning we brought you there.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, then,” Abigail said. “I’m pretty much always online.”

“It’s not just that, though. What’s the saying, about having a hammer and thinking every problem looks like a nail? Magic isn’t always the best choice for something, and part of a shield’s job is to point that out. And to recognize when it is the right answer, which is why I’m asking what happened with the mine—not ’cause I’m upset about the promise. From what Linus said, you really are getting messages from the mountain. We know something’s wrong down there—more monsters than there used to be, your mom’s predictions, other magic shit from Rasmodius, all of it says the demon’s not going to stay locked in there forever. You’re obviously not ready to do anything about it—Trisha’s been at this for most of a year and she’s not ready, and—and the other sage is almost as new as you.”

It sounded like Brandy had nearly spilled the beans on who that other sage was. Her curiosity was piqued, but from what the wizard had said there were Rules about introducing them to each other, so she decided not to pry. Hopefully she’d find out on Sunday. “Go on?”

Her girlfriend gave her hand a squeeze. “If you’re thinking you want me to be your shield, I need to understand what kind of info you’re picking up, because at some point either the lot of you are going to be done with lessons and go in there with a solid plan, or we’re going to run out of time and something’ll have to be done whether or not you’re ready. So… what is it you heard?”

Seeing Brandy so somber was weird, and drove home just how serious this was in a way that nothing else had, as wrapped up in Holy shit, I’m a wizard?! as she had been since Monday. “I’m not sure I understand it all, either, but I’ll try to explain. You remember how I said I fit my flute playing into the sounds around me? As long as I can remember, I’ve heard hints of music up there, music that didn’t sound like anything I’d heard anywhere else. Sometimes it’s more like random notes than a tune, but I’ve always gotten a sense of… mood, I guess? Like, ‘oh, nature’s happy today’ or ‘feels kind of tense’ or that sort of thing. I’d mostly convinced myself it was my imagination, me projecting what I was feeling into musical inspiration, since that’s how Sam talks about the way he comes up with songs.”

Her eyes widened as a new thought occurred to her. “Hey, does that mean he’s got magic, too?” Was Sam the mysterious sage of the hearth Rasmodius had mentioned? Rules about secrecy or not, if he’d been holding out on her about something this big, she was going to strangle him with his own guitar strings.

“No clue. He hasn’t tried going into the mine since I joined the guild, and Marlon and Gil are still pretty cagey about anything that happened before Neel and I signed on.”

Not the “hearth,” then; he got to live. And that probably ruled out Sebastian, too. “Are all of us drawn to the mine, then? Sages, I mean.”

“Not that I know of. Trisha sure wasn’t, and I don’t think, uh, the other sage has ever been in there, or it wouldn’t have taken so long to find h—fuck, I hate secrets. Do you think Rasmodius would turn me into a toad if I spoil his surprise?”

She laughed. “If you do slip up, I’ll pretend to be shocked when he tells me. What’s the big deal about the mine, then? Aside from the whole demon thing, obviously.”

“There’s a spell on it.” Her girlfriend tugged at the cord Abigail had occasionally noticed peeking out from under the neckline of her shirt; hanging from it was a disk about an inch across with a big “A G” painted in bright red over a pair of crossed swords. “And on these. If there’s someone in the upper cave who doesn’t have one, those of us who do get a jolt from ours—just a vibration if they don’t have magic and a blast of heat if they do. Trisha said whatever Rasmodius did to make it work is really tricky and not portable, so he can’t just test everybody in town, but it lets the guild know whether to chase an intruder out or offer them a rusty old sword and a chance to get covered in slime.”

“That’s the alarm you were talking about? No wonder I could never find any sign of, like, laser sensors or cameras to explain how Marlon knew when to show up.”

“Nah, we’ll drag him kicking and screaming into the modern world yet—he and Gil finally broke down and got a smartphone for Sebastian’s app—but I don’t think you can buy a security system that screens out potential magicians.”

“I guess not. Is that how Trisha found out? You said she’d been in the upper cave but not the rest of the mine.”

Brandy shook her head. “She was already the sage of the forest by that point, but since she was just there to keep tabs on me and Neel and didn’t want to go into the mine proper, she didn’t hit the other half of the ward.”

“The… other half?”

Her girlfriend pressed her lips together, then shrugged. “I guess that’s another secret there’s no reason to keep. The spell, um, discourages anyone with magic from going deeper into the mine than the entrance cave. Tangles them up in second thoughts or something like that. Marlon says it’s not foolproof—someone really determined could push through it, so that’s why a hot badge is a ‘drop everything and run for the mine’ emergency. But… well, it probably wasn’t just the bats that stopped you that night.”

Abigail stared at her. The whole time she’d been edging toward the shaft leading down, she’d been thinking about how upset her girlfriend was going to be… how she’d been told there was a reason she wasn’t supposed to go in… if not for the desperation-bordering-on-pain she had been hearing from what she now knew was the mountain itself, she would have turned back. “The idea that there was a spell messing with my mind is really creepy,” she managed at last.

“No shit. I get why the wizard put it there, but I’m also glad it couldn’t do anything to me even before I got my badge. I’m hoping that part goes along with the ‘took years to create and can’t be moved’ bit.” She shuddered. “But you were telling me about the mountain music?”

“Right. Um. Over the past few years what I’ve heard has been getting… worse? No, that’s not quite the right word. It’s still really variable, but it feels like there have been fewer ‘happy’ days and more ‘tense’ ones. It got really frantic right before the earthquake, then better for a little while, but after I ate that little chip of amethyst… By Sunday night it was like a movie soundtrack when the hero’s best friend is in desperate danger and they’re racing to save them. And I could hear it even though I was here in town—that’s never happened before. I mean, I still thought I was just imagining music for my own feelings, but… I felt like I had to go. When I learned Marlon and Gil were stranded in Grampleton, all I could think was that this was my chance. Do you think that means we’ve hit the ‘ready or not’ point?”

“I sure as shit hope not, but that’s a Rasmodius question. I think he or Trisha or… well, someone else would have noticed, even if they’re not directly tied to the mountain like you are. Maybe you were hearing the same warnings, but more clearly?”

Abigail mulled that over, trying to dredge up the details of what she had been hearing before that disastrous trip to the mine. “That could be. Even now, it’s more like ‘damn it, why isn’t anyone listening to me?’ than anything else.”

Brandy’s shoulders sagged with relief. “That’s a good sign. I mean, I had to stop you either way, but I’m really glad it wasn’t ‘act now or the demon’s on the loose.’ Be sure to bring it up with Rasmodius, though.”

“I will,” Abigail said. “Yeesh, can we just jump ahead to Sunday already? Wait, scratch that, I’ve got homework due on Friday that I haven’t even started yet.”

Her girlfriend chuckled and gave her hand a squeeze before letting go, leaving Abigail’s fingers feeling suddenly chilled. “Maybe you’d better go work on it?”

“Nah, it shouldn’t take me long once I finally sit down to do it, but I’m still sorting through all the stuff from Tuesday’s lecture in the back of my mind.” It hit her that that Brandy’s comment might have been meant as a hint. “Did you have other stuff you needed to get to now? I know I kind of invited myself over…”

“Sorry if it sounded like I was trying to kick you out. I just meant that I know this class is a big deal for you. It’s still going well?”

“Oh, yeah! We’re looking at document layout right now, which is… well, not all that interesting, honestly, but it’s still less boring than most of the other classes I’ve taken. And at least I understand why all this stuff is going to be important to know.”

“That’s awesome. Say… how awkward would it be to watch one of those lectures on a phone screen?”

“I… could probably do that if I was stuck somewhere when it was time to log in, but it’d be pretty hard to see much detail. Why?”

“Marlon’s suggested I look into getting certified as an electrician, since I’m getting the hang of dealing with the shitty old wiring in the mine and it’d also be really useful around the farm. I could do the initial classes online, but it sounds like I’d need at least a tablet. I can’t fit one into the budget for a while, and I wouldn’t want to be borrowing from Trish or Neel on that regular a basis. It’s not like I don’t have enough on my plate right now, anyway.”

“I get that. I’m not looking forward to juggling yet another set of lessons on top of college, but I’m going to have to make it work. It does sound like a good long-term plan, though. Marlon pitches in when there’s a real emergency, but for anything else folks in town have to hire a contractor from Grampleton, and they charge a premium to come all the way out here.”

“Yeah, I’ll toss it on the ‘worry about later’ pile. So… now that we’ve got all the tough stuff out of the way, want to do some training? Since I don’t have to keep you in the dark anymore, we could go over some monster-fighting stuff. I mean, maybe you’ll discover it’s easier for you to deal with them using magic, but I’ll still feel better if you know how not to fight a slime.”

Abigail grinned. “That would be awesome! I’ve got plenty of time, ’cause Solarion’s off for this week.” Sam would normally be ragging Sebastian for cancelling on them in favor of a job, but given what had happened the last time they’d planned to play, she doubted he was feeling up to it, either.

“Great, let’s get geared up,” Brandy said. She grabbed her coat, but when she opened the front door, the farm’s cat strolled inside. “You again? If this keeps up, I’m going to have to buy a litter box for my place, too.”

“Is Dagger abandoning Neel?” Abigail reached down to scratch behind the kitten’s ears.

“He keeps his place warmer than I do. I think now that her fur’s gotten thick for the winter, it’s a bit too toasty for her, but she also doesn’t want to hang around outside for long. I don’t mind the company, but—” she picked up the cat— “I also don’t trust her in my cabin when I’m not around to let her back out when she needs to do her business.”

“Ooh, yeah, a second box sounds like a good plan, then. Seems kind of mean to kick her out now, though,” Abigail added as they left the cabin.

“I’ll take her to the greenhouse to check for mice and pester Trisha. So, I think I already told you the first rule of fighting slimes a while back: slash, don’t stab, ’cause they pop and you do not want their guts all over you. Not only is it gross, but it burns like fuck…”

Despite the serious and sometimes gruesome nature of the information Brandy dished out over the next hour, Abigail couldn’t help the grin that kept stealing across her face. When the time finally did come for her to venture into the mine, she would be ready for that adventure—and she wouldn’t be alone.

Chapter 9: 03 Winter Y1 - Elliott

Whether due to having put his first “professional appearance” behind him or the fact that contemplating his cast of characters no longer prompted a sense of dread over what those closest to him might think upon “meeting” Jakerra, Elliott had found it difficult to lay his pen aside since returning home the day before. He had done so, albeit reluctantly, sometime after midnight, only to awaken unusually early, already eager to continue work on his novel. Now, as he reached for the inkwell to refill his favorite fountain pen, he realized he had already filled more of his notebook in the past twenty-four hours than over the prior week.

A sudden cramp at the base of his thumb created a constellation of ebony “stars” across the open page spread and the table around it, and as he hastily blotted away as much of the mess as he could, he determined that, inspiration or no, he must take a break. A stroll, perhaps accompanied by Trisha… he frowned and checked his pocket jotter. Ah, pity—she had already informed him she would be unavailable that afternoon.

He gazed at his ink-splashed scribblings for a moment, then stood and began preparing for a sojourn to the library. The brisk walk would do him good, and it would be best to transfer the stained pages’ contents to his word processor while he still had some hope of recalling what lay beneath the blots rather than needing to reconstruct the words from context.

His arrival at that venerable building coincided with the departure of the town’s youngest citizens, and he stood aside as the pair rushed to the nearest expanse of snow, already hotly debating whether their efforts would be better spent constructing an icy fortress or an army of snow people. “Oh, hello, Elliott!”

He turned to find the children’s tutor emerging from the library at a more sedate pace. “Good afternoon,” he said. “Thank you again for attending my reading yesterday.”

“Thank you for writing such a wonderful story,” she said. “I finished reading it last night.”

“I am so glad you enjoyed it!” Before he could inquire about any further thoughts she might have, her gaze snapped past him.

“Vincent! Stay on this side of the fence, please! Sorry,” she murmured to him as she hastened toward her charges. “No, not even ‘just to scoop up some extra snow’!” You’ll get tangled up in the blackberry canes again, and what would your mother say if you got your nice new coat all torn up?”

Elliott smiled to himself as he entered the building at last. Gunther looked up at the sound of the door closing, and the lines etched between the librarian’s brows eased as he rolled his chair back from the desk. The stack of books on the desk—works of fiction several decades old, judging by the style of the spines—explained the man’s relief at his presence. “Elliott! Here to use the computer?”

“If now would not be inconvenient,” he said. “Though, if you wouldn’t object, I’d like to take my time before ‘earning’ it today—I had a slight mishap with a bottle of ink and need to type up the affected pages before I forget what they’re meant to say.”

“By all means,” said the librarian. He rose from the desk and shifted the piles of books, the shorter one to the returns cart and the larger to the shelves where he kept the volumes in the current cataloging queue. “I’ll be in the back room working on a few things for the museum, so just poke your head in and holler for me if Abigail—or anyone else who might stop in—wants to check something out.”

Elliott glanced in the direction of his nod; he hadn’t noticed the violet-haired woman upon entering, but she was indeed settled in at a table in the far corner. She raised her head at the sound of her name and offered him a brief wave before returning her attention to the book in front of her.

Gunther had vanished into the storeroom by the time that brief exchange was finished, and Elliott chuckled quietly as he took his place behind the desk. It was not that the other man disliked his work as keeper of the town’s library, but Elliott knew from their conversation that he found many of the administrative chores thereof tedious, and equally obvious was his delight that the “museum curation” portion of his role was growing into more than a token appointment.

Jakerra, on the other hand, was not pleased to find herself once more making use of the special-ops skills she thought she had relegated to the past. However, when he opened his word processor, he found he had last left off typing several scenes earlier than the one he was thinking of. His concern that the document had somehow reverted to an earlier version abated as he opened his notebook and flipped back through it; the last page bearing the checkmark signifying its contents had been safely copied to the cloud did, in fact, match the location of the blinking cursor. He had simply written much more since his last computer session than was typical—most of it in the span between returning home from his reading and the inky disaster this afternoon. He adjusted the bookstand to his preferred angle and stretched his hands for a few seconds, then began typing.

He was peering at the last of his ink-obscured pages, trying to recall what pithy retort he had conceived for Ambassador Vo’anth, when he heard the front door open. He looked up from his work to see a certain blond musician wiping snow from his boots. “Good afternoon,” Elliott said as the new arrival caught his glance and raised a hand in greeting. “Come to do a bit of songwriting?”

The musician responded with a crooked smile and a shrug. “More like song reading. I’m not getting anywhere with what I’m trying to write, so I’m gonna go through some of those folksong books and musicals to see if I can either get myself unstuck or find a new idea. Oh, hey, Abbs—didn’t expect to see you here. Homework?” He drifted toward the main area of the library.

“I was, but now I’m just reading for fun,” Elliott heard the other woman respond as he turned back to the computer. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m hanging in there, but also getting kinda tired of people asking me that.”

Elliott felt his eyebrows rise at the exchange—and then recalled Trisha telling him of the tragedy that had befallen the other man’s household. With a family member taken prisoner by their nation’s enemy, it was small wonder the musician’s demeanor was a pale shadow of his usual exuberance.

“Ah. Sorry, Sam.”

“Nah, you’re fine. Wish Seb hadn’t cancelled on us, though. It would’ve been nice to spend some time dealing with problems that’re guaranteed by the game to have a solution.”

“No kidding. Well, we won’t let him weasel out on his birthday. Does this mean we’re on for Friday night, then?”

“Absolutely! And Seb promised to be there, if only so he can kick my ass at pool instead of letting Trish and Brandy have all the fun.” Out of the corner of his eye, Elliott saw Sam poke his head back around the end of the bookshelves. “Yo, Elliott, Trisha mentioned she’d invited you—are you in?”

Indeed, his girlfriend had been encouraging him to join the usual end-of-week social event at the saloon. “Tentatively, yes,” he said. “If you’re certain I wouldn’t be intruding.”

“The more the merrier as far as I’m concerned,” came the reply.

“Yeah, don’t let Seb put you off,” Abigail added. “I know he’s kind of prickly, but since he started dating Neel he’s gone from half-feral to, like, a quarter. Maybe less.”

“I shall keep that in mind, but should the muse call, I may opt to spend the hours with my pen instead.” He finally recalled the quip he had inadvertently blotted out and typed it in.

“It’s cool either way—you’re welcome whenever, even if it’s not this week,” Abigail said. Her friend nodded in confirmation of the reassurance and then headed for the back wall in search of his own muse.

Elliott glanced at the pile of books awaiting data entry—only novels like those he had noted earlier, nothing that would be a likely object of the musician’s quest—and closed the browser in favor of the catalog software. As he created the first new entry, he found himself in the unaccustomed position of hoping that his inspiration would not strike that day, or at least would have the courtesy to do so early enough for him to write it out before Friday evening.

Chapter 10: 04 Winter Y1 - Neel

This time, all the texts on Neel’s phone were answered, and he slipped the device into his shirt pocket before beginning the process of pulling on his outerwear. The matching burgundy wool stocking cap and scarf accented his grey peacoat much better than any of the mismatched accessories he had been using. He hadn’t been able to find gloves that were a perfect match; however, the oxblood leather ones he pulled on were close enough that the difference would pass unnoticed by most, and unlike the thinner pair he had bought for the mine, these were lined with fleece. He might regret leaving his well-broken-in hiking boots behind in favor of the new, more stylish ones he’d bought for city wear, given how much walking he planned on doing today, but they were the same shade of red-brown as the gloves despite being a different brand.

He shrugged on his backpack just as a knock sounded at the door, and he opened it to find Sebastian on the other side, as expected. “Good morning,” he said as his boyfriend leaned down for a kiss. Sebastian’s lips were cool—he had, as he’d mentioned, added a black down jacket over his usual attire, but had merely pulled up his sweatshirt’s hood rather than don a hat. No gloves, either, Neel thought with a shiver as chilly fingers brushed his cheek. “Here, you can warm up with this while we wait for the bus,” he said, handing over a second travel mug of coffee—black, unlike his own.

Sebastian smiled at him, but instead of backing out of the doorway, looked around the cabin. “I expected to see the cat draped across the hearth,” he said.

“She’s been hanging out at Brandy’s the last few days,” Neel said. His friend kept ribbing him about turning the heat up too high for a creature that couldn’t take off her fur coat, but the report from his watch showed that even when he thought he’d slept solidly through the night, he had been tossing and turning more than usual, and Dagger was probably annoyed with him for booting her off the bed in the process. That report was on the list for the day’s session, so there was no reason to worry his boyfriend. “Might have something to do with the fish stew recipe Willy sent us last week. I’m not complaining—it’s too cold to lock her outside, and if I lock her in, I might come home to the contents of one of my dresser drawers spread across the room because she got bored.”

“Abigail must be thrilled by that when she drops by Brandy’s place. She’d love to have a cat of her own.” Sebastian glanced at the clock on the coffee maker. “We’ve got a little while before the bus will be here. Do you want to wait inside?”

“I’d prefer that, but we’d better head to the bus stop. I nearly missed it once because it showed up a few minutes early, and I’d rather not take the chance today.”

“In better weather I’d say we could take my bike if that happened, but I don’t ride on icy roads unless there’s no other choice,” his boyfriend said, stepping back from the doorway.

As Neel was locking up, he heard familiar footsteps behind him. “Hey, Brandy, what’s up? Dagger’s not making a pest of herself, is she?”

“She’s a cat, that’s her job. No more than usual, though, and she sure keeps my feet toasty at night. You’re heading into the city again already?”

There was no mistaking the worry in her voice. He shrugged and put on a casual tone. “Yeah, now that we’ve got the payment from G.D., there are a few more things I wanted to be able to look at in person rather than risk ordering online. Plus, this way I can avoid the holiday traffic I’d hit doing my in-person later in the season.”

“Are you sure, hon? ‘Cause lately you—”

“It’s because of me,” Sebastian blurted, his face reddening as they both looked at him in surprise. “My, um, my therapist’s at the same office and I’m not doing video appointments. Yet, anyway. And I don’t know my way around the city, and…” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared at the toes of his boots.

It was Brandy’s turn to flush. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to pry.”

“Of course you were, you just missed the target,” Neel said. “And we don’t want to miss our bus, so we’ll be going now.”

“Right. See you later. And sorry again.”

“It’s okay,” Sebastian said. “But, um, could you not mention it to anyone?”

“No prob. See you around.” Brandy departed for her own cabin with more haste than dignity.

“Are you all right?” Neel asked quietly, placing a hand at the small of Sebastian’s back as they walked toward the gate. “I wasn’t expecting you to say anything; I’m used to Brandy’s well-meaning nosiness.”

His boyfriend gave a shaky laugh. “I wasn’t expecting me to say anything either, it just came out. But you didn’t need to lie to cover for me. Going to therapy’s not something to be ashamed of.”

The words themselves weren’t a question, but his voice held a note of uncertainty. “Of course not, but you don’t have to be ashamed of something to want to keep it private. And I wasn’t lying—I am going to step out to do some shopping after my appointment. I should be back before you’re done with the second part of yours, but if I’m not, just wait for me in the lobby.”

“Oh. Sure, that works.”

The bus pulled up precisely on time, and they claimed the same rear seats they had the week before. Given the nature of the glances Sebastian had been sneaking, he wasn’t surprised when his boyfriend cleared his throat a couple of miles down the road. “So… are you okay? Brandy seemed worried about more than just the trip to the city.”

Neel had half a dozen airy responses prepared to fend off his friends’ hovering, but his boyfriend was another matter. He leaned into Sebastian’s shoulder with a quiet sigh. “There’s not a lot to do around the farm right now and it’s too chilly to spend much time fishing, which means there’s less to distract me from getting too deep in my own thoughts. And… if I’m being honest with myself, I’ve never cared much for Winter. It’s cold and dark and by the time the Feast rolls around Trisha looks like she’ll fall over if you sneeze in her direction…” He closed his eyes and took a slow breath, trying to rein in the spurt of anger at the universe; he hadn’t meant to get quite that honest. Sebastian’s arm tightened around him, and Neel put on a reassuring smile as he looked up. “At least that’s one less worry, with the greenhouse. The rest is on the list for today’s session. I’m done trying to stuff this all in a box in the back of my mind and pretend it doesn’t exist.”

Sebastian didn’t look reassured. “Are you sure going shopping’s a good idea? Last week you said it dredged up some negative stuff.”

“Ah, but this is the fun sort of shopping,” Neel said. “I got everything I needed for the farm and the mine back in Fall. Today, I’m hunting for presents and bargains.” The “Winter Star” legend was among the sillier elements in Yoban mythology, but the holiday was mostly secularized these days and the challenge of finding just the right thing for everyone was worth putting up with the lingering remnants of religious trappings.

His boyfriend finally smiled at that. “Did anyone tell you about the town gift exchange?”

“No? I don’t think my budget’s going to stretch to that many people, unless they’d all like a fresh egg or two.”

Sebastian chuckled and shook his head. “It’s a random-draw thing—Lewis sends out a letter about a week before the Feast with the name of the person you’re supposed to get a present for, and everyone gives their gift during the town celebration.”

“Only a week’s notice? Well, I do like a challenge,” Neel murmured. He could think of a few things that would go over well with most of the people he knew in town… “Wait, is this a serious exchange or the gag-gift kind?”

“It’s supposed to be the serious kind, one of Lewis’s ‘bring the whole community together’ things. Just, um, if Sam hands you a present, open it carefully. He’s glitter-bombed half the town over the years. And last year Vincent gave me a rock, so if he or Jas draw your name…”

“I’ll be sure to admire whatever trinket they pick out for me,” Neel said. “Was it at least a nice rock?”

“It’d make a perfect skipping stone, but I don’t have the heart to throw it into the lake,” Sebastian said. “It’s somewhere on my bookshelves.”

“What other sorts of gifts do people give? And is this supposed to be kept secret from everyone, or is it okay to ask people who know your giftee what they might like?”

“There aren’t any official rules beyond ‘no gift cards’ and a price limit, so I guess you could ask around. Some people are easier to buy for than others…” Neel took mental notes as Sebastian listed off a few of the gifts he’d given and received in past years, as well as ones he could remember his friends and family being given. Tea sets seemed to be a popular stand-in for “I have no idea what to get you”; there were a couple that had been regifted around town for decades.

Something surprisingly close to good cheer welled up within him as the bus rolled down the highway, and he shelved the idea of looking for a one-size-fits-many gift. He’d kept his word and logged back into the least annoying of his long-abandoned social media accounts, and the ticket date Noriko had offered him was the weekend before the Feast. If Sebastian was still interested in going, he could make time for targeted shopping then. Besides, his list for today was already long enough. He’d emptied out his backpack to maximize what he could carry, but there were a few items that were cumbersome enough that he was going to have to prioritize based on what kind of deals he could find.

Chapter 11: 04 Winter Y1 - Brandy

A friend of Brandy’s who’d been as much into spelunking as skydiving had told her that caves were all the same temperature, a little cooler than most people liked without a jacket. That friend had obviously never been in the Pelican Town mine, where it was currently so cold that the Winter winds howling through the mountains seemed… well, not Summer-like, but early Spring-ish, at least. She finished changing the floor setting on her phone, then stuffed her hand back into her glove and tucked it into her armpit to warm her fingers. Neel’s new gloves had something in the fingertips that let him use a touchscreen without having to take them off, and she needed to look for something similar.

She heard something skittering across the frosty ground in a nearby alcove and drew her sword. Fighting dust sprites without Neel to split their attention was a challenge; by the time she was finished with the half-dozen that had mobbed her, she had several new notches in the edge of her saber that were going to be a pain in the ass to sharpen out, but no injuries beyond sore shoulders from the impacts when she hit them. The obnoxious little puffballs had even done her a favor and smashed the boulder that had covered the next ladder.

Before she descended, she sifted through the rubble left behind. No gemstones this time—which was too bad, they could use the extra cash—but she did pick up a couple lumps of coal and something that looked like a coffee bean, except pale green instead of brown. Trisha had asked her to keep an eye out for any plant life in the mine, in case it could tell her something about the demon’s status, though she hadn’t expected to find anything in the frozen areas. A few barrels yielded another of those sparkly geodes Clint was so fond of cracking open and more coal.

She paused beside the ladder to pull off her glove yet again—smartphone-friendly ones were moving to the top of the wishlist—and change the floor to “50” before climbing down it.

As expected, at the bottom she found a small chamber, empty aside from yet another chest. “Who the fuck is putting these here?” she muttered. And how? Aside from the elevator shaft and the ladders, the only other potential entrances and exits in the mine were rubble-filled side shafts that nothing bigger than a mouse could squeeze through.

Speaking of exits… the elevator door was firmly sealed, like the others, until she pried loose the rust that the previous sage—Linus—had grown over the seam way back when. She could understand why he’d done it, but it sure was a hassle now. Once she had the doors open, she checked her climbing lines, then the time. She might be able to make it to the next elevator opening if her luck held, but that was never something to count on. Still, she could take a look, get the lay of the land for the next floor or two.

First, though, it was time to find out what this floor’s “present” was. She nudged the lid open with the toe of her boot and found… more boots. Very different from the ones she was wearing right now; these were a bright blue-green and had a cuff and lining of what looked like real fur but up close turned out to be a really good fake. And pom-poms hanging off the outer sides. “Seriously?” She picked one up for a closer look.

These weren’t meant for her; they were a few sizes smaller than the pair she’d found back in Summer. They might fit Neel, and Brandy grinned as she imagined the look on his face when she offered them to him. They did look like they’d be warm, though, and that might be enough to override his fashion sense. She unslung her backpack long enough to stow the gift, then updated the app and went down the next ladder.

A narrow corridor led away from it, and she paused to listen. All the ice on the walls made for a fuck-ton of echoes, so it was hard to estimate numbers or distance, but there were, at a minimum, at least one slime and a dust sprite somewhere in here. She drew her saber and began making her way slowly toward the corner she could see ahead of her.

Then she whirled at a flicker of motion reflected in the glassy surface. Her first thought was that some of the ice had come loose from the stone, but the see-through form wasn’t falling down, and something that might be a face gaped at her as it drew closer. Her blade slashed uselessly through what felt like air, and she discovered a whole new definition of really fucking cold as the thing reached her.

The searing chill lasted only a few seconds, and when she could breathe again there was no sign of the new monster. That had to be one of the “ghosts” Marlon and Gil had warned them about, but where had it gone? She stared at her distorted reflection in the wall. “F-fuck, it’s n-not inside me, is it?” She clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering.

As if in answer, the ice in front of her rippled again and the ghastly face reappeared. Brandy decided on the spot that she didn’t care whether it was the same one or a second; it was time to split. She bolted for the ladder.

Never in her life had she been more tempted to skimp on her safety checks, though she did them all them anyway as she connected her climbing lines, darting glances over her shoulder the whole time. Nothing came out of the hole or up through the floor, so the ward must be holding, but it was a relief to get into the elevator shaft and shove the door closed.

Normally she would have stopped at one of the warmer “safe” floors to rest, but adrenaline carried her all the way to the top cavern. It took her longer than usual to unhook her lines because her hands were so shaky, and when her phone beeped at her she nearly dropped it. “Fuck,” she muttered as she sent the all-clear. The app still thought she was on 51, because she hadn’t taken the time to update it as she retreated. She marked herself as out of the mine, fumbled the device back into her pocket, and headed for the Adventurer’s Guild.

Marlon looked up from a stack of paperwork as she shoved the door open. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“More than seen, I’d say,” Gil put in. He grabbed the cane leaning against the wall and levered himself up from his rocking chair, waving for her to take his place. “You need the fire more than I do, lass,” he added when she tried to protest.

At least their reaction meant this probably wasn’t some weird panic reaction. “P-pretty sure that’s what it was,” she said as she dropped her backpack and sank into the chair, holding her hands out to the flames. “Looked like fucking plastic wrap, felt like I’d fallen through a frozen lake. Those things can’t possess people, right? Or, I dunno, hitch a ride out? It slammed into me and then vanished.”

Marlon shook his head as he pulled the first aid kit out from under the counter. “They’re not like the spirits in movies. They seem to be attracted to body heat, but they’re also repulsed by it. They swoop in, zap your core temp down a degree or two, and then get flung away from you. They’ll keep coming back for more, though. How many times did it touch you? Get your gloves off. Boots, too.” He aimed a no-touch thermometer at her forehead.

“Just once.” She took a steadying breath as she tugged off her gloves; she was already feeling warmer. “I’d barely moved away from the ladder when it came through the wall. There was another one—or maybe the same one?—coming at me right after, so I beat feet.”

He grabbed her wrist and inspected her fingers. “Good call. Biggest risk is frostbite, then; hypothermia takes three or four hits to set in. Any numb spots anywhere else?” Marlon asked after checking over her feet, and she shook her head. “You’ll be fine once you warm up a bit.”

As she tied her laces, she recalled what else she’d found in the mine. “There was another pair of boots on fifty, but they’re definitely not for me.”

Marlon scowled. “I would really like to know who’s leaving these things in the mine.”

“And why,” Gill said. He handed Brandy a mug filled with something that steamed gently; she hadn’t even noticed him leaving the room. A sniff revealed it to be hot apple cider, and she took a grateful sip. “Do you think this pair was intended for Neel?”

Brandy snorted. “Only if it was meant as a joke. Drag’s not his thing.” Her amusement faded as another thought occurred to her. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“I don’t know Abby’s shoe size, but they’re a style I could see her wearing. Or maybe Emily. Too big for Trisha, though.”

Marlon’s scowl deepened. “Whoever is responsible for these gifts knows far more than I’d like. If my brother senses nothing dangerous about them, however, I suppose there’s no harm in offering them to our newer sages. But are you sure Abigail won’t try another stunt like the other night?”

“Positive, now that she knows why it’s dangerous. But I’ve started training her on how to fight monsters,” she said. “Trisha checked with Rasmodius, and all four of us are going into the woods for a slime-hunting trip tomorrow.”

He looked like he was going to object, but Gil cleared his throat, and Marlon just shook his head. “That’s not a bad place to start. I’m really not looking forward to the next time I have to face Caroline, though.”

“Tell me about it,” Brandy muttered. Abby was also firm on not wanting either of her parents to find out about her new lessons, but surely her mother’s tea leaves would spill the beans sooner or later. Hopefully, later. “So. Ghosts. You said something about needing to wait until Trisha could enchant weapons, but why can’t Rasmodius do it?”

“He could, they just wouldn’t work very well,” Marlon said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“It isn’t a matter of power,” Gil put in “If there’s an urgent need to push deeper into the mine, he could at least give your sword the ability to swat ghosts away from you, but to do real damage, the spell needs to be cast by someone who has a deep connection to you.”

“Ideally, your sage would do it, but your friendship with Trisha is close enough. My brother might be able to enchant a weapon for her, since he cares about his students, but he has no real relationship with you or Neel. Any update on the status of her training?”

“I don’t know about the magic weapons part—I brought it up when we took Abby to see him, but all he said was that Trisha’s ready to test her defenses against the demon by going briefly into the mine,” Brandy said, reluctantly. “He’s not thrilled about the fact that she doesn’t officially have a shield, but now that Abby’s a sage, it’s got to be Neel. That’s part of what we’re trying out in the forest tomorrow.” It would be weird, turning over the responsibility of watching Trisha’s back to him—not that they wouldn’t both help either sage in a pinch. And it wasn’t like she and Abby had settled things for sure between them, but the idea of her girlfriend’s safety being in anyone else’s hands set her teeth on edge.

“Hmm. Is she up to the climbing, do you think?” Gil asked. He was leaning heavily on his new cane, and since she was no longer feeling chilled to the bone, Brandy got out of the rocking chair. He reclaimed it with a look of relief.

“She’s light enough that Neel and I can haul her up and down if we have to, but she’s gotten in pretty good shape with all the farm work,” Brandy said. “Not like we’ve got a lot of options.”

But her visit to Clint’s smithy later that afternoon changed all that. “Haven’t seen one of these in a while,” the blacksmith said, holding the red-orange crystal he had extracted from her geode up to the light. “I hear fire quartz used to be pretty common around these parts, but that was before the mine closed down. Looks like the museum’s getting another new exhibit?” He handed it to her.

“Hmm, maybe if we find another. I know someone who’s been looking for this.” Brandy slipped the fire quartz into one of the small outer pockets of her backpack. Neel was going to be thrilled to have the elevator fixed, she thought as she returned to the farm.

Chapter 12: 04 Winter Y1 - Sebastian

“Can I get this here?” Sebastian stared down at the slip of paper in his hand.

“We don’t have a pharmacy on the premises,” Dr. Koval said, leaning back in her chair. “Most of my out-of-town patients prefer to have prescriptions filled locally. Are you concerned about availability? It’s a fairly common medication.”

“We don’t have an actual pharmacy in town, just the clinic… my stepsister’s the office assistant.” He felt his face getting warm again. “I know I’m being ridiculous. They’ve got a system to make sure she doesn’t see family records, but…” She managed all the clinic supplies, so whether this was something Harvey already had or would have to order in, she’d know someone was being prescribed it. She was bright enough to put the pieces together that if the prescription wasn’t in the regular files it had to be for someone in her household, and who else would be taking pills for anxiety?

“I wouldn’t call that an unreasonable concern,” the psychiatrist said gently. “You should, however, inform your physician of the prescription, even if you decide to have it filled in the city or by mail order.”

Mail order… If he started receiving packages from a pharmacy and anyone else in the house saw them, his mother might just have a panic attack of her own. Would Neel mind if he had them sent to the farm? He didn’t want to impose like that, but it might not be necessary, anyway. “I’ll drop by the clinic on a day my sister’s not working and let him know. You said I should be able to get this filled today in the city?”

“It would depend on how busy a given pharmacy is, but they’ll be able to tell you whether they can complete it in time for you to catch your bus. Do you need information on nearby locations?”

He shook his head. “My boyfriend’s from Zuzu, and if he’s not sure, I can look it up on my phone.” He folded the paper neatly into quarters and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans as he stood up.

Dr. Koval also rose to escort him to the door. “Very well. If you have any concerns, don’t hesitate to bring them up with Dr. Jarvis or to schedule an appointment with me.”

Neel wasn’t in the waiting room when Sebastian reached it, but when he retrieved his bag from the locker he found a short string of texts on his phone; his boyfriend was downstairs in the building lobby. His eyebrows rose when the elevator doors opened, because he could see at once why Neel hadn’t wanted to wait in the more comfortable clinic seating. “You’ve been busy,” he said surveying the evidence of a serious shopping spree. Neel’s backpack, on the bench beside him, was straining at the seams, and at his feet were a large paper bag from a department store and… “Is that a television?”

“Just a small one,” Neel protested. “I had to choose between it and the slow-cooker, and it was the better deal.”

“Why… No, never mind why, how did you get all of that here?”

“Same way I’m going to get it home,” Neel said with another grin as he stood up and shrugged into his backpack. “All that farm work has paid off in unexpected ways; I’d have struggled a year ago, but now I can carry it all myself. Though I wouldn’t object if you were willing to grab the loose bag. The T.V. box has a handle on top but it was awkward to manage one-handed on the way here.”

Sebastian reached for the bag, which had a couple of packages of curtains sticking out of the top, then glanced around to make sure no one else was in earshot. “I need to make a stop of my own, at a pharmacy. I could get the prescription filled by mail, but…”

Before he could bring up the possibility of borrowing Neel’s address, his boyfriend said, “There’s one just a couple of blocks from here. I can wait for you by the door so we’re not hauling everything through the aisles, and it’s early enough that we won’t hit the after-work errand rush. They should be able to fill anything that’s not a special order within a few minutes.” He looked a question at Sebastian.

“She said it was pretty common. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Of course not. We have plenty of time this afternoon, and mail order can take a while to arrive. Better to get what you need today.” He picked up the television box and headed for the door.

The sidewalk outside the clinic wasn’t crowded, but it was still far from deserted, and he reminded himself that the strangers around him had no reason to care what they were talking about. “I’m… kind of hoping I won’t need them at all. It’s not a daily med.” He’d discussed those options at both appointments, as well, but had decided to see how well therapy alone worked, first. “It’s just for if I have a bad panic attack.” Dr. Jarvis had also gone over some non-medical coping strategies, but Sebastian wasn’t sure they would be enough. The town celebration of the Feast of the Winter Star usually wasn’t as bad as the Flower Dance or the Fair, but the gift exchange could change that fast. Two years ago he’d gotten Haley as a giftee, and he’d never been more tempted to go to a festival high. Fortunately, the bright pink “travel jewelry organizer” bag his mother suggested had only gotten him an eyeroll instead of a big public display of disdain like the year in high school someone had given her some sort of makeup set that was “obviously not her colors.”

Neel shifted the television to the opposite hand so he could rest the one that he had been using against Sebastian’s back. Even through the puffy layers of his coat, the touch was reassuring. “Still better to have it and not need it than the other way around.”

“Yeah.”

When they reached the pharmacy, Neel took back his shopping bag and waited in the enclosed entryway while Sebastian found his way to the prescription counter in the back. The tech didn’t comment on the nature of the medication, just assured him they could have it ready in fifteen minutes and asked if he had any questions for the pharmacist. He shook his head and browsed through the nearby aisles while he waited. It felt like an eternity before they finally called his name, but according to his phone it had barely been ten minutes. He stuffed the paper bag into his satchel as he returned to the front of the store.

Sebastian paused as he approached the inner door, a grin stealing over his face despite the fact that his nerves were still on edge. Neel was leaning against the wall of the alcove, phone in hand—no doubt playing that matching game he was so fond of—and with his winter gear on and his shopping arrayed around him, he could have been an extra in some holiday film: tired shopper taking a break.

He shook his head at the thought; Neel wouldn’t settle for a role that small. “Hey,” he said as he joined his boyfriend.

Neel grinned as he tucked his phone into an inner pocket of his coat. “That was fast.”

“You were right that they wouldn’t be busy.” He picked up the bag he’d been carrying earlier, and Neel pulled his gloves back on before slipping a hand through the television box’s handle. “Um… would you mind if we just grabbed dinner at the bus station? I know I’d mentioned maybe treating you to sushi this time, but we might be running a little late for that.”

“I was going to suggest the same,” Neel said. “Not that anyone at Blue Line would blink at us dragging in this much stuff—shopping without a car is the norm around here—but I don’t really want to haul it through all those subway changes.”

Was he was getting better at reading his boyfriend, or was he imagining that there was just a hint of forced cheer in the way he’d said that? Not like he was upset about not going out to dinner, but more like the shopping wasn’t the only—or even the main—reason he wanted to keep their dinner plans simple. “Is everything okay?”

Neel’s smile slipped a little. “No, but that’s why I’m in therapy, right? It’s nothing serious, I’m just tired. Today was one of those sessions that felt like it ran about three times as long as the clock says it did, and then I did my best to make ‘shop till you drop’ literal.”

That last bit was spoken with unmistakable pride, and a little of the tension eased from Sebastian’s shoulders as they descended into the subway. “Why did you suddenly decide to pick up a T.V., anyway?” A slow-cooker he could have understood, given the lack of a kitchen.

“Well, dinner and a film is a traditional date format, but there’s no theater in Pelican Town and my laptop screen’s too small for a good movie night.” He hip-checked the card reader at the turnstile, and the machine beeped and let him through without him needing to set down the box. “Since I was successful in tracking down a screen big enough to see and compact enough to bring home on the bus, I was thinking maybe we could watch something this weekend?”

“Sure, that sounds great.” Sebastian fumbled with the shopping bag handles as he got his phone out to pay his own fare, then followed Neel out to the platform. “What movie did you have in mind?”

His boyfriend set the box down and rolled his shoulders against the straps of his backpack. “I haven’t kept up with recent releases. Why don’t I handle dinner and you pick the show? It doesn’t have to be something new, either, if you’ve got a favorite you’d like to share.”

“What sort of movies do you like?” Sebastian temporized; he had kept himself so busy with work the last few years that he had no idea what had come out lately, either. As for favorites… video games had always left more of an impression than movies, but he didn’t think pulling up some streamer’s epic speed run would be good date material.

“I have yet to encounter a film where I couldn’t find something to enjoy. Even the objectively awful ones are fun to snark at or look for the one actor that manages to shine despite the terrible writing. And don’t worry about whether it’s something I’ve seen; there are always new details to notice in a visual medium. Just pick a movie you want to watch.”

Maybe this therapy business was working already; Sebastian recognized that he was heading down a mental path of “but what does he want me to pick?” when there was no reason to suspect a trap, and he took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll poke around to see what sounds good. Um. Do you have a D.V.D. player?” As much as his stepfather pissed him off, he had to admit Demetrius had great taste in sci-fi, and his preference for physical copies over digital purchases or streaming services made borrowing a lot easier.

Neel gazed into the distance over the train tracks for a moment. Finally, he said, “I don’t remember getting rid of the plug-in drive that came with my previous laptop, but I haven’t needed it for years, so I’ll have to dig it out of the attic and check whether it still works. I did make sure the T.V. could be connected to my computer before I bought it.”

“You, uh—” He broke off, but gathered his courage back up as Neel looked at him in question. “Sorry. It’s just that you folks don’t seem to have a lot of the tech I would’ve assumed, living in the city and all.”

His boyfriend grinned. “We had a fifty-inch screen in our apartment, but we’d bought it jointly and figured rather than try to share ‘custody,’ we’d be better off selling it and splitting the cash. It would have been way too big for any of our cabins here, anyway. Brandy had a game console that could handle streaming and discs, but she sold it, too. Hard to use without a screen, and even if she’d bought a small one of her own, she figured she wouldn’t have time for gaming. Trisha has a T.V. at her place, but it’s the one her grandfather left behind. I’m not sure you could connect a V.C.R. to it, let alone anything modern.”

“Wow.”

“I keep telling her she should offer it to Gunther as an exhibit, but she likes being able to check the weather forecast. Not that she couldn’t do that on her phone or tablet, but…” He shrugged. “She’s probably going to be paying your mom a visit soon about expanding her cottage. Maybe at that point she’ll get a real entertainment center.”

That raised his eyebrows, because he had a pretty good idea what sort of prices his mother charged. “You must have done really well with those cranberries,” he ventured.

“The distributor was very impressed with the quality,” Neel said. “Plus we found a handful of gem berry seed packets. We didn’t get a huge yield, but Trisha’s got some feelers out and the minimum we’ll get for them is still impressive.”

The arrival of the train saved Sebastian the awkwardness of asking what the big deal about some berries was; the name sounded vaguely familiar, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen them at Pierre’s. By the time they had found seats and gotten everything arranged so no one would trip over it, he had thought of a better question. “Are you thinking of doing the same?”

“I can’t, at least not yet. This upgrade is partially a farm expense—if we’re going to produce artisan goods like jelly or cheese for sale, we need proper kitchen facilities, and Trisha’s house is ‘neutral ground,’ since it’s not something she needs for herself. There are a few other improvements we want to make on the farm before Spring, too, and what’s left will allow for reasonable spending money, but not major home improvement projects.”

“That kind of sucks for you and Brandy, though. Trisha’s house isn’t Mom’s work, obviously, but I remember her saying it’s similar enough that she can use her stock blueprints for any expansions, and that’s a lot of extra space beyond the kitchen.”

Neel shrugged. “Believe me, that came up at our business meeting. It’ll be like when we were roommates—the kitchen and living room at Trisha’s place are going to be common space, but with some reasonable restrictions not like using it in the middle of the night or when she’s got Elliott over for a date.”

“Is that how you’re going to be cooking dinner? I don’t remember Mom mentioning a job.”

“Trisha wants to get the gem berries sold before she makes final plans, so I’ll either get takeout from the saloon or see what I can whip up with the knife set I picked up today and the hot plate your mother loaned us.”

“Knives? Is that what I’ve been carrying?” He looked down into the bag tucked between his feet.

“No, I’ve got that box in my backpack. The bag has curtains and some hardware to put them up. I figure I can buy the actual rods from your mother, but I found these really nice brass hooks…”

Sebastian settled back against the subway seat, listened to his boyfriend ramble about his redecorating plans, and tried not to think about the way his stomach kept doing nervous flutters at the thought of their upcoming date.

Chapter 13: 05 Winter Y1 - Trisha

“All right, here we are,” Trisha said, pausing beside the big log.

“That’s a heck of a climb.” Abigail stared up at the top. “The bark doesn’t look like it’d hold up to someone’s weight, either.”

“Fortunately, we’ll be going through, not over,” she said. “I know you haven’t had a real lesson with Rasmodius yet, but I’m curious whether you can figure out which part is the illusion.”

She took a step back and watched as the newest sage peered closely at the bark in front of her. Brandy and Neel, meanwhile, were keeping an eye on the traveling merchant, who had set up in her usual place despite the slushy snow her pig had had to trudge through to get to it. Fez didn’t seem to mind; he was currently ignoring the pile of blankets she had put out in favor of rooting at the frozen ground. They had stopped by the wagon on their way, but if the merchant—Trisha still had no idea what her name was—thought it odd that they had kept going west after declining to purchase anything she had on offer, she didn’t care enough to watch them. Neither had she commented on the long roll of canvas Brandy was carrying along with her backpack.

Abigail tapped cautiously at the bark in a few places. “This end sounds kind of funny, but I’m not sure if that means anything.” She rapped again on the portion of the log that, to Trisha’s inner eye, had a collection of formulas inscribed on the bark. She still couldn’t read all of them, but she recognized more of the functions than she had the last time the three of them had come out this way.

Four of them, now. Or should she be thinking in terms of two and two? She glanced at Neel, who had swapped his fashionable peacoat and new winter accessories for his brother’s leather bomber jacket and an older hat and scarf. If it bothered him that they’d defaulted to him as her shield and Brandy as Abigail’s, he didn’t let it show—but that didn’t mean much, with him.

A soft humming pulled her attention back to her fellow magician. “This is it, isn’t it? I swear I can hear the wind whistling through here, but the air’s still.” She laid a hand on a root that didn’t actually exist. “It feels real, though.”

“Rasmodius calls this a solid illusion,” Trisha said. “He’ll teach you how to get around them, but for now I’ll guide you through. How do we want to do this?”

“I’m thinking a four-person train would be a bit much,” Neel said. “Why don’t you take me through, then come back for Brandy and Abigail? Before that, though, is there anything to be wary of around the entrance?”

Don’t close your eyes, she reminded herself as she concentrated on the space beyond the illusion. Now that her brain had started interpreting magic as visible formulas, that was getting easier, but only if she was “looking” at something right in front of her. When stretching her senses into the distance, it still felt more natural to shut out nearby distractions. She couldn’t find any trace near the log of the “error code” that indicated a slime, though there were several of them further in. “Nothing close, but we know how fast that can change.”

“Right,” he said, and took out his slingshot and a couple of ammo stones. “Ready?”

“You sure you want to go first, hon?” Brandy asked. “She could take me and Abby through first and come back for you.

He raised an eyebrow. “And that would mean you’d need to watch out for two wizards, even if only for a minute. This seems like the most logical choice to me.”

“Good point,” she said. “See you on the other side, then.”

Trisha waited until he had a firm grip on her shoulder and then stepped forward into the illusion, grinning as she heard Abigail’s quiet “Woah!” behind them. “No new obstacles on the ground that I can see,” she said. “Just the usual big root.”

“Found it.” A few seconds later, they were through, and he opened his eyes even as she turned to make sure he was clear. His gaze darted around the clearing. “I’ll keep watch on things here while you get the others.” She nodded and returned through the transparent roots.

“That was so cool!” Abigail said as she emerged. “I’d swear that thing’s as hard as any other tree here, but you just walked right into it.”

“Well, the whole point’s to keep people who don’t know what they’re getting into from wandering this way,” Trisha said. “Are you ready to meet your first slime?”

“More like ready to splat it!” She had already buckled on the belt and sheathed sword from Brandy’s bundle; her girlfriend was currently putting on her own. “So, how does this work?”

“One of you holds onto my shoulder, and the other holds onto the first person’s. You both close your eyes until I let you know it’s safe to open them; if you can’t see the illusion, I can bring you through it.”

“What happens if I open them partway through?”

“Best case? You get smacked in the face or gut by a root,” Brandy said. “Worst case…”

“Rasmodius set it up with plenty of safeguards,” Trisha said. “I’m sure it would be uncomfortable to see part of the trunk sticking out of your body, but it wouldn’t do any damage.”

“Still, please don’t risk it, Abby. It’s a lot easier to fight if you haven’t just had the wind knocked out of you by a make-believe chunk of wood. Ask me how I know.”

Abigail grinned. “I’ll be good, promise. Let’s go!”

“I should be in front of you,” Brandy objected when her girlfriend started to reach for Trisha. “Same as Neel going first—even if it’s just briefly, he’d be trying to guard both of you.”

That earned her a mulish look, but Abigail finally shrugged and took a step back. “Sure, that makes sense. Ugh. I don’t like this ‘being guarded’ thing. I get why it’s needed!” she added as Brandy opened her mouth. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Fair enough,” Brandy said. “Sweep your foot out in front of you with each step as we go through—the real root you heard Trisha point out to Neel is easy to trip over.”

“Gotcha,” Abigail said. “Let’s do this.”

The second trip into the woods was as uneventful as the first, and when Trisha emerged from the illusion, she found Neel right where she had left him. “No trouble here?” she him asked once Brandy and Abigail were both clear.

“We’ve got company, but they’re keeping their distance so far.” He jerked his chin toward the narrow gap between bushes that offered a glimpse of the bulk of the clearing. There were hints of squishy movement there, and she glared at the twisted knots of functions. The closest analogy she had been able to come up with was that it felt like someone had tried to divide by zero and succeeded.

There was a rasping sound beside her, and she turned to see that Abigail had drawn her sword. “Okay, what’s the plan?” she asked.

“When it’s just been the three of us, usually Neel draws one’s attention with his slingshot and tries to keep it distracted while I put a few slashes through it,” Brandy said. “We’ve also been grabbing some of the gunk that’s left behind, but we’ve finally got enough of that.”

“Well…” Trisha shrugged as her friends both looked at her. “Rasmodius said it has some potentially useful magical properties. But that lesson’s for some time in the future, so we can skip that part.”

“I didn’t bring the vials to hold it, anyway,” Neel pointed out. “If you want more, you’re going to need to mention it in advance.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“What in the world did you collect it for, if you didn’t already know you could use it for spells?” Abigail asked.

Right; the community center hadn’t come up during the discussion on Monday. “It’s another long story. Let’s table the question until we’re not surrounded by monsters?”

“We’re not actually surrounded, are we?” Neel pulled the strap of his slingshot back a little.

“Figure of speech. They’re all in front of us. Well, and there’s one in that side clearing through the brambles.”

“Good to know. Back to the original question then—how are we dealing with the slimes today?” He looked at Brandy and Abigail.

“How about you draw one into the open so Abigail can have a go at it, with me standing by in case she needs backup? I’ll look out for Trisha while you stalk, and then you two can keep an eye out for any others that might try to sneak up on us while we kill the first.”

“Woo-hoo! Sounds like a plan to me,” Abigail said. She took a couple of steps toward the other side of the clearing before Brandy caught her shoulder.

“Like I just said, Neel goes first. If you go charging in, more than one will notice, and you don’t want to get surrounded.”

“Right, right. Okay, ranger, go aggro a single target for us.”

Neel huffed a near silent laugh and began creeping toward the gap in the bushes, placing his feet with obvious care.

“‘Ranger’?” Trisha said quietly, not taking her attention off the error code concealed behind the bramble wall. Slimes were never completely still, but none of the ones she was aware of had shifted much from their original positions.

“That’s what his Solarion character is. Archers, mostly, with a bunch of wilderness survival skills, living in harmony with nature, that sort of thing. I thought it was a weird choice—I’d’ve expected him to pick something showier—but I guess it fits with how he actually fights. Oh, and ‘aggro’ means getting into a monster’s detection range so it comes after you.”

“I got that part from context,” Trisha said with a smile.

Across the clearing, Neel fired a stone at something she could sense but not see, and immediately scooted back. “Got one heading our way,” he said, taking up position beside her again. “Any movement from the brambles, Trish?”

“Nothing significant.” The slime lurched into view, and she saw Abigail draw back. They really were hideous things.

Then the purple head woman shifted her grip on her sword and stepped forward, face determined. “Remember what we went over,” Brandy said, drawing her own blade.

“Slash, don’t stab, and if they start bouncing rapidly, be prepared to dodge—woah!” Abigail did just that as the slime lurched several feet forward with a speed that was even more unnatural than the fact that these things existed at all. Then she brought her sword sweeping down and jumped back again as its surface split open. “That is nasty. And you were scooping this stuff up in a bucket?”

“More like test tubes,” Neel clarified. “Which is why a good pair of leather gloves is an essential accessory in the well-dressed adventurer’s wardrobe.” He flexed the fingers of the hand not holding his slingshot, and then dropped it to the ammo pouch on his belt. “We’ve got more company coming.”

As usual on their trips into the woods, Trisha was relegated to the role of observer while her friends took care of the monsters, and she found herself frowning as she watched Abigail throw herself into the fray beside Brandy. She ought to be taking a more active role—if not fighting directly, then at least doing more than occasionally pointing at slimes the others hadn’t spotted yet. The problem was that her magic wasn’t really suited for the task; wood, according to Rasmodius, was a “slow” elemental, best suited for spells worked over long, contemplative stretches. He had gone over the basics of creating defensive barriers at her last lesson, but the wall of data she had assembled had taken several minutes. On the other hand, she had been able to hold it for half an hour while he deliberately distracted her with more information on combat magic.

As for picking up a weapon herself… she would rather her shield focus on the monsters instead of on whether—more like when—she was going to injure herself. She wasn’t quite as much of a klutz as she used to be, maybe due to spending so much time doing physical work, but she couldn’t see herself swinging a sword around without disaster striking. This time of the year, she’d probably end up in another snowbank.

“How are we doing in terms of clearing the area?” Neel asked, breaking into her pessimistic musings.

“Um… nothing obvious nearby, but I’m going to close my eyes for a minute,” she said, and he nodded. She concentrated on the data her inner senses revealed, and found no #DIV/0! codes, only the peculiar knot of benign formulas wrapped around the statue at the far end of the clearing. “No more slimes here,” she said, opening her eyes.

Brandy and Abigail had joined the two of them while she had been focusing, forming a loose circle around her. “That’s it?” the purple-haired woman asked. “I’ve just gotten warmed up, and we haven’t even gone all the way through this bit of the forest.”

“We come through and clear out the snot-bags every three or four days,” Brandy explained. “This was about average, in terms of numbers.”

“They spawn somewhere in the deep woods, but this is the area Rasmodius asked us to keep an eye on,” Trisha said. “They’re attracted to this spot, and he says that even though it’s right on the edge of how far they can normally get from their source, too many in once place could let them spread farther east toward the ranch and the town.”

“Yipe, that would be bad.” Abigail unslung the mini-backpack she wore instead of her usual purse and pulled out a rag, which she used to wipe her sword’s blade before sheathing it. “What’s drawing them here?”

“There are ruins of what I think might have been a small temple or something.” Trisha pointed. “Since the slimes are dealt with for now, want to take a look?”

“Sure!” She started in that direction, but checked her steps even as Brandy opened her mouth, waiting for her girlfriend to catch up.

Trisha smiled as she and Neel followed after; the arrangement might not be formalized, whatever that involved, but the two did seem to work well together. Hopefully she and Neel would, too.

Abigail’s eyes widened as she took in the fallen columns and the peculiar statue. “Woah, it’s Master Cannoli!”

“Cannoli? Is this like Ricky?” Brandy asked. “You said you’d never been here…”

Before Trisha could ask who Ricky was, Abigail shook her head. “I haven’t, but the statue looks just like a character in this book I was obsessed with as a kid. He was this goofy old man who was really wise, but every time he was about to get to the important part of whatever he was rambling about, someone would walk by with a cake or candy or something and he’d get distracted.”

“Hmm, aside from the “old” part that sounds familiar,” Trisha said. Neel didn’t respond to her teasing, and when she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, he was staring absently at the statue.

“Hon?” Brandy prodded him, and he blinked.

“The Happy Junimo? Is that the book?”

Abigail’s jaw dropped. “No way, you’ve read it, too?”

He shook his head. “It was the only thing the card catalog had listed under ‘Folklore, Local, Junimo’ when we went searching back in Spring. It was obviously a kid’s story rather than non-fiction, so we didn’t read the book itself, but I remember seeing ‘Master Cannoli’ on the back-cover summary.”

“Why were you looking up the Junimos? Hardly anyone outside of the valley’s even heard of them. Was this because of the busted arcade game?”

Neel glanced at Trisha, and Abigail followed his gaze. “No, it ties back to that long story I mentioned earlier,” she said. She checked the area; still no slimes. “When Rasmodius told me what the weird creatures I’d been seeing were called, the three of us went to the library to see if we could find out more—we’d just met him, so we wanted some outside confirmation. Like Neel said, there wasn’t much, just the picture book.”

“You’ve seen them? I’ve been trying to contact them my whole life, and they just show up for you?” Abigail was almost glaring at her.

“They’re forest spirits—wood magic,” she explained. “Rasmodius knew they were around but they refused to speak to him. Apparently my grandfather was on pretty good terms with them, so it might be a forest sage thing? They were tied in with the spell he used to split the demon in half, and now there are a bunch of them in the community center. They have all these lists of things they want me to bring them.…” She explained the scrolls and the rewards they had received so far. “And Brandy found a fire quartz yesterday, so once we’ve figured out how to secure the upper cavern, we can give that to them and get the elevator working again.”

“Thank fuck,” Neel muttered. “Are we done standing around here? These gloves keep out slime but they’re only so-so against the cold.”

“I think so, unless you wanted to look for more holly, Trisha?” If Brandy was worried about Abigail and the mine, she didn’t let it show.

“No, it’s not as popular a decoration here as in the city, so Pierre doesn’t offer much for it. But I did want to try one more experiment before we go, if Abigail’s willing?”

“That depends…?”

She grinned at the purple-haired woman’s sudden caution. “It’s the same as with the log outside. I can sense some magic in this statue—a vague impression of a message, almost like there used to be words carved in the stone but they’re too faded to read. The traces lean more toward metal than wood, and you’ve been ‘listening’ to the mountain for years, so I wonder if you might be able to pick up more. I totally understand if you’d rather wait until you’ve had some actual lessons, though.”

“Hmm…” Abigail took a step closer to the statue, and Trisha saw Brandy tense. “There is something there. Like an echo of an echo. It sounds… wistful, I think? Is it safe to touch it?”

“I have, and nothing happened aside from those faint traces being maybe a little clearer,” Trisha said. “I’ve never felt anything remotely hostile from it.”

“Okay, then I’ll give it a try.” She glanced at Brandy. “Unless there’s something I’m missing?”

Her girlfriend pressed her lips together, then shook her head. “The fact that I can’t feel any of this makes me nervous, but I trust Trisha. And the wizard’s tower is right around the corner, if anything goes seriously haywire.”

“That would be an embarrassing start to my magic training,” Abigail said with a grin. “But here goes.” She tugged off a glove and laid her bare hand on one of the statue’s carved ones.

“He even sounds like I always imagined old Master Cannoli would,” she murmured. “He’s… searching for something. Something… bright? No, that’s not quite it.” She fell silent, staring up into the statue’s cowl. “‘Still searching for the sweetest taste,’” she said at last, stepping back. “I have no idea what that means, but that’s what I got from it. Wow, that’s weird—it’s like I was hearing the words in my head. And there was another sound—like something round and wooden rolling, but I don’t know what.”

“Hmm.” They all turned to look at Neel. “Hey, Trisha, does that sound familiar to you? Something we have on the farm at the moment?”

It took her a moment to figure out what he meant. “Oh, you cannot be serious. Do you know how much those are worth? I’ve already gotten three quotes.”

“Would one berry really make that much of a difference? It’s certainly the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“What are you talking about?” Abigail asked.

“Gem berries,” Trisha said.

“Oh, yeah, I think Brandy mentioned them. What’s the big deal?”

“Well, the seeds are produced by a Gotoron gene-corp, for starters,” Trisha said. “They’ve always been expensive, and now… We bought a few seed packets from the traveling merchant—ones that were shipped out before the embargo was put in place—and selling the berries is going to net us a tidy profit.”

“Hey, Neel, I thought you said they weren’t edible without a ton of processing,” Brandy said. “Where did you taste one?”

“There was a sliver of one as a garnish on my dessert plate at this really high-end restaurant,” Neel said, with a sheepish grin. “It was only supposed to be decorative, but my date dared me to eat it.”

“And of course you did,” Trisha said.

That drew a quiet huff of laughter from him. “You should’ve seen the look on the waiter’s face,” he said. “It would have been embarrassing if I’d ever planned to go back, but it was the sort of place that charged top-tier prices for the gimmicks while the actual food itself was mediocre, so I figured it would fold once the novelty wore off. When else was I going to have the chance?”

“And?”

“Did you know it’s possible for something to be so sweet that it hurts? I had regrets. Mostly about the fact that I couldn’t finish my cheesecake—after the berry, it tasted like they’d forgotten to put any sugar in it at all. It was a couple of days before everything tasted normal again.”

“If they’re that awful, why would they be so valuable?” Abigail asked.

“Because after they’ve gone through all the processing to turn them into jam or wine or other products, they’re incredible,” Neel said. “What do you think, Trisha? Is it worth the experiment?”

She worried her lower lip between her teeth as she stared up at the statue. There was an impression of a small opening just below the mustache… “I’ll hold one back from what we’re selling,” she said at last. “I’m not bringing it here until I’ve had a chance to talk to Rasmodius about it, though.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Neel said. “Anything else you wanted to do while we’re here, or can we leave so I can thaw my hands out before trying to hold a pool cue?”

“Like that’ll help,” Brandy snarked. Neel just rolled his eyes at her as they returned to the misty illusion covering the exit. Abigail split off as they reached the ranch, saying she had homework to turn in, and Brandy promised to take care of her sword until the next time she needed it.

All in all, Trisha thought as the rest of them passed through the winter-bare fields, the experiment seemed to have gone pretty well, even if she was going to have to update her spreadsheets with the new weight of the berries they were selling. Neel was right, though; a few grams wouldn’t make that much of a difference, and she could explain the discrepancy from her original queries to the buyers as incidental damage.

Chapter 14: 05 Winter Y1 - Abigail

Abigail thought that talking to a statue was going to be the weirdness highlight of the day—until she stepped into the Stardrop Saloon a few hours later. She’d made this exact visit on so many Fridays she couldn’t begin to count them, and everything was as it should be. The usual suspects were all sitting at their tables or perched on their barstools. She could see Sam’s hair bobbing around beyond the doors to the arcade. Nothing had changed.

Except that Emily, standing behind the bar with her back to the door, was shimmering.

Not literally, of course, but that was the only way Abigail could think of to describe the way the bartender drew her gaze. She always wore bright colors, and Abigail was sure she had seen that exact blouse before, but now the red fabric had an inner light, rivaling the cheerful blaze in the fireplace—

Oh.

Mindful of the fact that her father was one of the Friday-night regulars, Abigail made her way to a stretch of the counter as far from him as she could get. If she was wrong, then tonight was just a cocktail night, she decided, Sam or no Sam. If she was right…

She was right; when Emily turned around, her eyes widened at the sight of her latest customer. She recovered quickly enough that Abigail doubted anyone else would have noticed even if they were watching. “Welcome in, Abigail!” she said, just as cheerfully as ever. “What can I get for you today?”

“Brandy and I spent a lot of time outdoors today,” she said, trying to figure out how to bring up the question she actually wanted to ask. “And then I had to fight the school website to make it take my homework. I want something stronger than a beer—what sort of hot drink would you suggest?”

“Ooh, a challenge! Let’s see… I could add a shot of something to a mug of coffee—whiskey’s a popular choice. Or there’s the traditional hot buttered rum…” By the time they settled on mulled cider in a mostly Sam-proof stein, the few people who had looked up at Abigail’s entrance had lost interest. Emily grinned at her. “I think I know why a certain someone asked me to stop by on Sunday,” she murmured.

“Think he’ll be upset we spoiled the surprise?” Abigail asked, also keeping her voice low.

She shook her head, still smiling. “A little disappointed he didn’t get to see our reactions, maybe. He made a whole show of ‘introducing’ me and—um, the forest.”

“Trisha,” Abigail supplied. “She and Brandy were the ones that took me to see him.”

Emily opened her mouth, questions in her eyes, but at that moment, Pam raised her glass and asked for another beer. “You’ll have to fill me in later,” she said instead. “I’ll bring your drink out when it’s ready.”

“Sure,” Abigail said, and headed for the arcade. As she approached the swinging door, she could hear Sam laughing, which was a relief; no one had felt like hanging out the week before, with the news about his father still so raw, and his amusement at people’s reactions to his Spirit’s Eve costume had felt forced.

She pushed open the door and found that something in the saloon had changed, after all; Elliott was sitting in her usual spot on the couch, and Sam’s laughter was evidently at something he had said. She looked across the room; Sebastian was scowling, but that might have more to do with the game than their unexpected company, since he was playing against both Trisha and Brandy while his boyfriend hung out with the others on the far side of the room. She hoped that was the cause, anyway. “Hey, everyone!” she said. “What are we doing for dinner? I’m starving.” Between fighting monsters and wrestling with the horrible classwork interface, she had definitely worked up an appetite.

Notes:

Quick heads-up that the next few updates might go up at odd times, because I’ll be on vacation and might not have access to the site at my usual posting time.

Notes:

I am not great at replying to comments; I tend to overthink things and then feel like it's been too long to respond. I read and appreciate every single one of them, however! And I will always try to answer direct questions, though depending on the question, the answer might be "that would be a spoiler."

While I'll avoid spoilers in my own replies to comments, readers are welcome to discuss what they think is going on/going to happen! All I ask is that you don't include info from chapters after the one you're commenting on.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of Gifts of the Valley