Page 26 of The Gargoyle's Glade
“Your pay, of course. I’ll see you soon, Merry.” He smiled, and walked away, not waiting for me to inspect it.
“Ready?” Seir asked.
I nodded, and as usual, he linked his arm with mine as we prepared to walk through the portal. Right before we stepped through, I peeked inside the envelope, panic fueled joy flooding my veins with electricity.
“That’s too much,” I breathed. Seir glanced at me with a concern that quickly morphed into amusement.
“What, that? Impossible. You’ve done a month’s worth of work in only a few days. If anything, he should have tossed a few more notes in there as a bonus, especially given what a toll it’s taken on you.” He took the envelope from my hand and tucked it safely into my pocket, winked and pulled me through the doorway.
After barely gettingmy tea steeped on my first rest day morning, there was a knock on my door. I’d been calculating how much I could spare to send back home and marveling at how it might feel to walk through the market without worrying about every single coin when I was interrupted.
“Merry? I know it’s early, but I’m betting you’ll like what I have to show you!” an excited Hailon called from the porch.
“Coming.” I crossed the small distance quickly, trying not to spill my full cup as I walked.
I opened the door to find my friend looking over her shoulder at the large menagerie gathered around my yard.
“That’s… disturbing. I’m pretty sure some of them don’t even live in this climate,” she muttered, but her smile brightened as she turned back to face me. She lifted the basket cradled in her arms before pushing around the contents with a finger. “I left some at mine, but everything’s here! Do you want to plant today?” Her gaze turned to the collection of wood carvings that had amassed over the week on my railing, a little twitch pulling at the corner of her mouth. There was now a raccoon, a fox, a doe, a fish, and a duck, along with the hawk and falcon. “Those are nice. Housewarming gift?”
“Something like that.” I leaned over and started poking around in the basket, impressed with the variety of things they’d been able to find. I’d thought I was making a wish list, but Grace had turned it into a proper order.
“You know Coltor fixed up my little horse for me, the one I’ve had forever? He’s quite good at woodworking it seems.”
“Mmm.” I grunted a vague agreement. The carvingswerequite good, but I didn’t even have confirmation that they were from him, only an assumption. “And yes, we should get seeds for the squash and greens in the ground as soon as possible, otherwise it may frost too early for them to ripen.”
“I thought so too. Seir is getting us some pots for the seedlings. I like the idea of being able to bring them inside if it’s going to be cold. They need some time to grow before they go in the ground anyway.”
I agreed wholeheartedly, and I went to change into my shabbiest clothes so we could get to work.
We started in the back of the cabin, Hailon following along and either copying my motions or awaiting instructions as shefilled me in on what I’d missed while down in the library at the crossroads.
A headache started creeping in by the time we’d finished planting the first bed full of squash and assorted greens, and only got worse as we moved to the front beds where most of the animals still lingered.
“Hello,” I greeted them all. Cautiously, I raised my eyes to glance around and got a strange muted barrage of greetings in return.Hello. Help? Hear? Bond. Must pledge. Welcome. Friend!No paralysis, though, which was nice. And the tone had changed a bit, like perhaps they were also offering help instead of simply asking for it.
I sectioned out the beds, roughly marking with a stick where I wanted which plants and left the little packets of seeds where they were meant to go. Between us, Hailon and I carved little trenches with our fingers and dropped in seeds before covering them up again. We had a good rhythm going when she finally spoke again.
“There are so many now,” Hailon said reverently, her eyes trained on the family of quail nested up in some grass. Occasionally one of the chicks popped up and ran a few laps around the rest before cuddling back in. “Any new clues about what you’re supposed to do for them?”
I explained to her what Tap had told me about the contracts, what little I was picking up when we spoke. “Hopefully there won’t be so many soon.” I needed to make a trip to see Ophelia to discuss the book she’d given me. I’d flipped through the whole thing, but it was like it was written in some kind of secret code. I couldn’t make sense of hardly anything it said.
“Come on,” Hailon said a bit later, clapping her hands together to free her fingers of some heavy soil. “Let’s go to mine. Least I can do is fix you lunch before I make you help me with my beds too.”
The animals cleared a gap for us to walk through, then followed us across the glade, my headache bad enough Hailon noticed I wasn’t quite myself halfway through our sandwiches and brought me some medicine.
“Perhaps we should finish another day?”
“No,” I refused. “I just need some more water, probably. I’ll take a nap after we’re done, it’ll be fine.” I was also fantasizing about a long soak in one of the hot springs. It seemed logical that doing that might relax me as well. I didn’t know if it was the animals, the dust from the paperwork, or having been working so much, but I hadn’t hurt like I was now, perhaps ever before.
“You’re sure?” Hailon’s eyebrows were pinched together with worry.
I put on my brightest smile, finished my last bite and got to my feet. “Absolutely. Let’s get these seeds in the ground.” The ache in my temples and down my neck raged as I nodded.
I’d never hoped for a medicine to work faster in my life.
Chapter 12
Coltor
