“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Anhelina watched cautiously as I walked, squinting into the morning sun. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, four hours at most, but it was worth the sleeplessness to get the painting done. Leaning it against his desk, I left the letter with it and made my way to bed again. “We can cut the walk short if you’re too tired.”
“I’ll live,” I said. “You’ll just have to be patient with me while I adjust. Tell me about my day.”
“Of course. After our walk, you’ll have breakfast at eight. Fedir is making pancakes since you mentioned you liked them at the inn you stayed at.”
“Nice, nice. Can’t go wrong with more bread.”
She chuckled, “We thought that would be the case. At eight-thirty, you’ll have your history lesson with Jurek which today will only be the basics of Datura today. The founding, its people, our exports—things that you’ll need to know for daily work. Hopefully that won’t last more than two hours. Then we have a few requisition requests that Lord Muin set aside for you to look at until lunch at twelve-thirty. From one o’clock to two o’clock you’ll have your free time until six o’clock when we serve dinner.”
I pulled my cloak tight and shook my head. “Can I have an early dinner today? I’m not feeling super great right now and I don’t think it’ll change by tonight. Is five o’clock doable?”
“Yes, I can ask Fedir to push up dinner.” She fished a notepad out of her apron and wrote it down. “When we come back for breakfast, I’ll tell him.”
I covered my yawn and wrinkled my nose against the wind. It wasn’t just that I didn’t get a lot of sleep, though the early night would be good for that. This was going to be my first full moon in Nin-Datura. While I was sure it would go off without a hitch, it still made me nervous.
Part of Putra’s skulking was to see what kind of animals frequented the forest. It was the usual rabbits, deer, raccoons, and birds we were used to with the addition of bears, foxes, and boars that lived in the more densely forested areas like Datura. I was hoping to spy one of the foxes at sunset and keep it in mind since I’d never seen one before.
Inside, I kept my cloak on as I made my way through the day, the cold persisting through breakfast and only subsiding as Jurek came in with an armful of books.
“You can save your walks for warmer weather, my lady,” Jurek said as she sat the books in front of me. “It would probably be better for you.”
“I have to get used to the cold weather,” I said. “And it’s not even as cold as it gets, is it?”
“No, but I would recommend saving the outdoor expeditions until after the snow has come and gone. No use in you getting sick.”
I pulled my cloak off and laid it in my lap as she stood on the other side of the table, looking like the governess I’d had growing up: straight backed and ready to talk for hours about whatever subject was at hand. In this case, Jurek told me about the founding the Datura.
“Datura was founded roughly sixty years after Capsi, the capital, was founded. In the middle of the forest, hunters needed a home base to come back to that wasn’t weeks or days away. As I’m sure you saw, everything in town is efficient and practically built. There was no need for gaudiness or expressive architecture. These days, while still a hunting town, Datura has kept the architecture as a point of pride rather than a necessity. Do you know what our hunters had to hunt?”
“Aside from dragon scales, not really. Wisteria had hunters, but they were more like scouts.” Most of what they did was make paths for us to trade by talking to Woodland Creatures and delivering messages.
“Since Capsi and the subsequent cities were built on the great plains, even if you were to import meats and poultry, it would cost a lot to do so since you have to buy from other regions, then the shipping cost, and then hoping that what you get is what you paid for. If it comes from within, even the fringes, it’d be much cheaper. I’m sure there are farms in every city to help sustain them, but here is where the rarer delicacies come from. Boars, rabbits, deer, even foxes. Datura was founded in the hopes of getting a wider variety of food to the rest of Solance.”
It sounded more like the richest of aristocracy wanted fun and exotic food and paid people to hunt further than was granted to them by the Nature Creatures. Though Jurek didn’t say it, the truth underneath was obvious: Datura was built out of necessity. A way to make sure that the hunters who were putting their lives at stake could find a way to stay on safe land while being close enough to where they worked. Woodland Creatures were fiercely protective and hated when humans pushed past what they were allowed. The fact that the Manor stood at all was a testament to how hard the hunters worked to make sure they could cut and build there.
“After Datura was established as a necessity for the hunters, carpenters were shuttled in to build the town and it expanded to include not only lodgings, but storefront for other things hunters would need. New clothing, skilled cooks, butchers, launderettes. Most of what you see are the original buildings from over a hundred years ago. A lot of those carpenters and hunters brought their families with them so they wouldn’t have to make the weeks, sometimes months, long journey back home to see them. From there, it flourished. People came and went, new businesses that had nothing to do with hunting popped up, and it became just a town like any other.”
That made sense. Most cities and towns came from necessity and even though Wisteria was the epicenter of the Fabacci region, it started out as a refuge. Whether it be as common as a hunting town or uncommon as a refuge, most were necessary.
Jurek went on like that for an hour and a half, all the way until ten-thirty when Anhelina came to my rescue. It was all important and I tried to absorb as much of it as possible, but I knew some of it would slip through the cracks.
Anhelina took me away to an office space I hadn’t seen before. It was next to Muin’s and set up almost the exact same, except mine had my finished paintings I hadn’t had time to hang up on the walls.
“Is this what you were doing the last two hours?” I asked. The left wall was painted light blue with flower drying upside down between the paintings of the tree outside my old room, the lake in the center of Wisteria, and the garden my father tended to midsummer when all the vegetables were ready for harvest. The window on the right was open, yellow curtains with blue flowers fluttering in the breeze. There was a faint smell of fresh paint, but not so fresh it was done today. It was practical, but still very me. “It’s perfect.”
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
Anhelina grinned. “Over the last week, we’ve been getting your office together in the time we’re not together. Kristina has a good eye for color and Pili picked which of your paintings would look best with the color arrangement we had and which you would most enjoy.”
“I couldn’t have done it better myself, Anhelina.” I rushed over and pulled her into a hug. At every step she was doing everything she could to make sure I felt at home here. Helping me set up my art studio, making sure I had a steady routine, and now this. If we didn’t have so many other things to do, I might have started crying. “Thank you so much.”
She squeezed me back and said, “Of course, my lady. Anything I can do to help you along.”
I pulled back and took a deep breath, looking at the paintings again. The light blue of the wall looked like a sky and out of the corner of my eye, it looked like the paintings were on wall instead of canvas. It truly was perfect.
Anhelina closed the window while I took a seat and looked at the desk, sinking into the soft chair and picked up the first request. It was a couple from town asking for their marriage to be approved.
“Is there anything I need to know about people before approving a marriage?”
Anhelina, who had taken a seat on the right edge of my desk and busied herself with sewing, looked up. “Mostly you need to be sure they’re not related and it’s for fraud. Wait a moment, I’ll retrieve the census.” She set down her sewing and left, coming back a few minutes later with a big, heavy-looking book. “Everyone is in here alphabetically by last name and if they’re married already, they’ll have their spouse written next to them.”
I flipped through the book, finding Olimpia Segreti first. The book had her name, her birthday, her parents’ name, her occupation, and her address written. She was a 24-year-old teacher who lived on the outskirts of town. No name was written next to hers. Then I flipped to Sandrine Dubois. She was a 27-year-old hunter who lived even further away from the center of town. There was a name written next to hers, but it was crossed out. Flipping to Ayman Saleem’s page, her name was next to his and crossed out as well.
“Does that mean they’re divorced?”
Anhelina peaked over my shoulder, nodding. “I believe when they requested a divorce, we had run out of eraser ink to put over their names. We put some in your drawer there. The left one.” The drawer was full of supplies. Pens, pencils, scissors, paper, and several bottles of an off-white liquid. “There should also be a little brush in there too. I can get the divorce papers for you.”
“If they’re in Lord Muin’s office, don’t worry about it.”
Opening the bottle, I brushed a little over the crossed out names and like magic, it dried within seconds. If I hadn’t been the one to use it, I might not have noticed the change. I rummaged through the other drawers, looking for what I knew had to be there. The right drawer had more pens and a surplus of blank paper, but I found what I was looking for. Two stamps. One was my personal seal of a wisteria vine curled around an N that I brought with me, and the other was the House of Nin seal, a cluster of peppers in front of their curled and ornate name. I looked at both, then looked to Anhelina.
She looked at the stamps and shrugged. “Lord Muin said you can pick whichever one you want. Either way, they’ll know where it came from.”
I nodded, looking over the document again before stamping my seal on the bottom. If a teacher and a hunter were somehow committing fraud by getting married, it was beyond me. I set it aside and looked to the next one.
It was a lot of meandering to ask about drafting a proposal to negotiate with the local Woodland Creatures. Muin had given them permission to make a community garden, but the best place for it was just outside of town, just inside Creature territory.
There was no point in making the Creatures irritated by encroaching and there was likely no way they would agree. A garden is a good thing, but the humans that came with it weren’t. Anhelina fetched a map of town and where the borders lay, and I spent a good fifteen minutes looking over it before realizing there was an obvious answer. There was a respectable amount of distance between the shops and the homes and for good reason. It could get pretty loud at the shops and people need their sleep. If the land was good, or at least usable, we could shift the garden further within the community and make it to where everyone could easily access it, not just those that happened to be closer to the forest.
I sent back a letter that I would be in town soon to survey the land if the changes were agreeable. Hopefully I would see a response soon.
And that was how the next few hours went. I pored over requests and reports, figured out answers and compromises while Anhelina got me any material or information I needed. A lot of them were small things that just needed approval or adjustments, but a few of them I spent a good deal of time figuring out what to do.
At noon Fedir delivered my lunch which I didn’t feel like touching but managed to get down after some coaxing from Anhelina. By the time two o’clock rolled around, my head hurt from staring at the papers, and I wondered how Muin did it every day.
“You did great, my lady,” Anhelina said, giving me some water. “On so little sleep, I’m surprised you managed to get through it all.”
I chugged the glass before leaning back in my chair, sighing. “How much does Lord Muin do? I’m sure he does more than this.”
She shrugged. “I’d have to ask Jurek, but I think this is about a third of what he deals with every day. Some of them he’s able to put off since they’re not as urgent as others.”
And he somehow managed to get everything done without having to make up the work later. I’d have to compliment him soon about his work ethic. I couldn’t imagine that since he was out a lot.
“From now until five, you’re free to do as you please. I can get your bed ready for a nap, if you’d like.”
“A nap does sound wonderful, but I don’t want to stay awake all night.” I sat up, rubbing my eyes. All I had to do was kill three hours then I would eat, bathe, and sleep. The transformation to come would wake me up I was sure, but I wanted to sleep as much as I could.
I sat in the greenhouse which hadn’t been used in years. Everything was both dead and overgrown, but it was beautiful in its own way. A few things managed to stay alive and thrive simply on the humidity and pity of anyone who remembered to water them.
On a stool with my sketchpad, I drew the plants, walls, and random detritus. By the time Anhelina came to get me, I’d filled a few pages with everything I’d seen. I was glad that I’d spent the time there. It gave me ideas of how I would revamp it later.
Dinner went by in a blur, and I only remembered the bath for how warm and sleepy it made me.
By the time I crawled into bed, I could have slept through the night and well past dawn, but after only a few minutes in bed, the sun had set, and I could feel the change begin.
I still remembered the first time it happened. I was five and running through the manor after Verdi and Liza. They’d taken my doll from me. It was the first thing I remember being mine and I hated when anyone else touched it. So, of course, they took it all the time just to tease me.
It was so quick. One moment I was running though the garden, tears streaming down my face as my parents looked on in exasperation. The next, I saw a squirrel on one of the trees and changed. My bones broke and reformed; my skin stretched and shrank and hair grew long and thick; my vision shifted, blurring and I felt panic consume me. The moon wasn’t full.
I ran. Into the woods and burrowed in a tree. Mom told me it took three days for me to come back, and I was naked, covered in scratches, blood, and mud. I barely remembered what happened, but I knew enough to know this was bad. This wasn’t something I was supposed to be able to do and it was wrong. I knew that from the way they talked about me.
Even now as I kept the image of a rabbit in my mind, the guilt and panic and shame still tried to claim me. Bones breaking and grinding and shifting filled my head for less than a second and then I was a small, white rabbit on a giant bed of soft cotton.
I didn’t need to check to know that Putra was nearby, making sure no one bothered me. Tonight, he would be on guard and alert me to anyone trying to pry.
Until then, I slept.
