In dark-glint village, the atmosphere had darkened once more.The day following the loss of Chase and Vesa, they were buried in the woods and trees were planted on them as per the tradition. This time, Emp wasn"t the one to dig the graves.
While Celtine and Harriett were trying to make him sleep, the other him was watching two of his friends getting covered in dirt. The family of the two and a most of their friends were with him in this place.
Cuthbert was missing because he was forbidden from getting out of his bed and Calla couldn"t bear to watch so she didn"t come either. In fact, she did not step a foot out of her room after the events.
Willow had a similar reaction, she came for the burial but did not leave her home anymore afterward, partly because of her sadness and partly because her mother wouldn"t allow her to leave.
The day was brightly lit by the sun but it still felt dark. The woods had taken two more from them yet again.
Emp sat outside and lost himself in his thoughts for the whole day. He was thinking deeply about what Marcy had told him the previous day. How could he make sure this would not happen again? What went wrong, who made which mistake?
The first one they committed that day was the most obvious, it was Willow"s mistake, she should not have ran in the woods. Aside from that, the more he thought about it, the more he found flaws in every actions they took.
First of all, he should have plainly stopped her from going instead of following her for protection. With his strength, it would have been easy for him. Why had it not crossed his mind back then? Was it because she was a friend that going against her will didn"t seem reasonable until it became the only possible answer left?
After that, everyone made the mistake of following them. Eda truly was the most responsible of them all, she even stopped Winter as well.
Then, in the woods, they kept calling Chase, Bor said it himself, it wasn"t a smart idea, who knew what else would hear the call. If they had not exhausted their lungs calling his name, would the wolves still have found them?
The next thing was that they were awfully under equipped. If he had taken the time to wear his armor at least, he could have been much more aggressive towards the wolves. If he had brought some light blades, the others could have defended themselves more easily. He understood that it was their fault for going in the woods without any sort of means to defend themselves but he was the only one in the group to have possessed both the right to carry weapons and the money to get a bunch of them.
Then there was his own disappearance. He should have obviously thought about it, it was something that happened everyday. The problem had been that it was such a normal thing to him at that point that it had been a really long time since he last gave more than a single thought about calling himself back and away again. The entire process took a mere instant, all taken care of by a set of simple thoughts alone. He had been delayed a split second longer than usual because of the frightening situation but there would have been no consequences in any other situation. In a battle however, a single instant could change everything and it had indeed changed the fate of Vesa. From now on, he would be very careful about merging the two instances of himself.
The last thing he learned out of this was about the ring. He had trusted the information the ring gave him because he felt Willow was a friend but in the end, her willful temperament led the whole rescue team astray. He had blindly believed the ring despite Love telling him to not do it.
He needed to remember that the treasures given to him by the G.o.ds were extraordinary but not miraculous. The book didn"t answer his question, the anchor pulled him away at the worse moment and the ring was corrupted by Willow"s desperate wish.
In the end, if the ancestors had not protected Willow under its roots, she would have died as well. If the ring had led them just a bit further, if it had distracted them just a minute longer, they would have been too late to rescue her. The treasures had flaws, flaws he could account for if only he kept them in mind and truly understood their limits and abilities. Willow had not been a treacherous liar or anything of the likes but the information still ended up wrong, the ring was not as simple as it had first seemed to him.
He needed to know it and the other treasures better. He also needed to keep his mind sharp, he should have thought about it before or at least, understood what was wrong with the information sooner than he had done. The distraction could have killed Willow.
Clouds slowly drifted before his eyes as he kept thinking about all those things. He only rose from his seat when his hunger became unbearable, far later into the day.
He went back inside and met Marcy in the kitchen. She too had a strong appet.i.te and it was more than time to eat. It was then that a realization hit them both at once. Calla didn"t come out of her room since yesterday, they had given all their food to her, they had no food.
This was far from a bad situation compared to what had happened the previous day but to the current Emp, it felt as if the skies themselves had collapsed over his head. It was the smallest straw to ever break a camel"s back.
Both of them collapsed lifelessly on the chairs and table.
"What are we going to eat?"
"Let me think about it for a bit my boy"
A few minutes pa.s.sed without any of them making any movements when Marcy suddenly hit the table with her fist.
"Vale! She still owe us some food, let"s go there!"
Emp nodded and the two wore their boots and walked up to Vale"s house. Traces of burnt memories still lingered on the path in front of her door. Marcellia knocked on the door and after a short time, Vale opened with a puzzled look on her face. Even in the village, receiving visitors this late wasn"t common at all.
"Hi Vale." Marcy said with a raised hand. "It may sound a bit rude but could ya let us in for supper? The la.s.s was too shocked to make food."
The moment she finished her sentence, Vale burst out laughing.
"I swear by the ancestors, you look so defeated from that! Sure, come in, I owe you."
They both thanked her and stepped inside.
Vale had two kids, a six years old boy and a five years old daughter.
They were both crouched besides the fireplace, complaining about how slowly the meal was cooking. The two of them barely spared a glance and a pair of disinterested "Hi" to the visitors before going back to pestering their mother.
The food Vale served everyone wasn"t an art piece like the meals Calla would make but it was filling and not bad at all. Everyone ate with appet.i.te and the duo of visitors stayed for a while afterwards to chat.
They had as good of a conversation as they could muster considering the recent events and bid her farewell with a filled stomach and a slightly better mood.
The next day, Emp felt a lot better already, but not Willow or Calla.
According to her brother Gilbert, Calla refused to set a foot out of her room. Her mother had to bring her all her food inside and she was the only one allowed to come in. With how frail Calla"s heart was, it wasn"t surprising at all but after almost a week of this Emp started to worry for her.
Marcy felt similarly, except she was much more focused on the food aspect of the situation. After getting her meals made by Calla everyday for a long time, she couldn"t simply accept their miserable attempt at cooking as a true meal.
"Emp, my boy, I can"t deal with this anymore. Ya have to go there and try to get her out of her room again."
Emp was surprised to hear her ask this.
"But, how am I to get her out of there if even her own mother can"t do it?"
"I don"t know, how should I know? Ya"re her friend not me."
"But/"
"No more buts. Ya go there and you get her to make us some food. I won"t teach ya anything until she gets back out."
That was a harsh punishment from her. Emp knew she did not spare any effort into teaching him her work and art. For her to put it on hold just for Calla"s meals showed how great they were.
Emp had no choice but to comply, how hard could it be to get a single girl out of her room anyway? There was no way she would be able to stay in there forever. She would have to come out at some point.
The next day, he walked up to the Champom house and knocked at their door. The house was similar to all the other houses in the village, it seemed solid and counted only a few rooms inside. Behind it, a large amount of apple trees grew and stretched into a forest of their own.
For Ogden Champom, all the time he didn"t spend collecting apples, he would spend cutting down ordinary trees to plant more apples in their stead. His father had done the same and his own father before too. After generations of doing so, the orchard had become incredibly vast and encroached deep into the original forest.
Now, there were much more than only a single family working on the maintenance and growth of the orchard. The whole village relied on it throughout the year.
It was Fiona Champom that answered his knocks. She opened the door and greeted him with a smile.
"Hi Emp, what are you here for?"
She had asked what he came to do but she already knew that there could be only two possible reasons for him to be here. Either it was about Calla either it was about Gilbert and considering the state Calla was in, it was probably for her.
"I"m here to see Calla." Emp confirmed her suspicions.
"It"s a good thing for you to come here. I"ll show you to her room but don"t be saddened if she doesn"t want to talk or doesn"t let you in. Calla is a fragile flower."
"I know, I will not bother her too much I promise."
It wasn"t the first time that Emp came here but he had never walked in further than the main familial room. He had no idea of what any of the other rooms looked like.
On the way, they pa.s.sed Gilbert and they both greeted each other. He was a bit grumpy because with his dominant arm wrapped in bandages, there wasn"t much he could do to pa.s.s the time. Unable to work, practice his skills or even play with the others.
"I don"t think you"ll get her out of there." He commented.
Maybe he was right but Emp still had to try.
They finally reached Calla"s door. She had a whole room to herself which was unusual in the village. In the past, when her siblings were younger, they shared a few rooms between them all but many of them had grown and gone away by now.
She was the oldest girl remaining so she kept a room to herself while her two younger sisters shared one. All three of her remaining brothers shared a single room as well. The oldest, Karp, had left two years ago and had built himself a new house nearby.
When the boys gained a wife, the family would make some s.p.a.ce for them alone while they prepared to move on their own.
With that all said, Calla had a room for herself. Emp had no idea if it was big or small and couldn"t guess what it looked like. All that he knew was that her door was closed and no sound came from inside.
Fiona came close to the door and spoke to her daughter through it.
"Calla, Emp is here to see you. Will you come out?"
They waited for a moment but no answer came.
Fiona let out a small sigh.
"I"ll go back to my work, I"ll leave this to you."
Emp nodded and Calla"s mother walked away.
He closed in on the door while thinking about what he should say. Obviously, Emp wasn"t the best for this kind of thing but he had to try to get her out anyway.
"Calla, It"s me."
"..."
"You are still sad about what happened. I understand. I learned recently that sharing that sadness is easier than keeping it for yourself."
It was his two slaves and Marcy that showed him this. If not for them, he would still be dazed by the shock.
"..."
Still, no word came from her side.
"Are you willing to share it with me?"
"..."
"..."
"I will stay here in case you change your mind."
Marcy would no teach him anything anyway until she came out of her room so he had nothing better to do. He sat down just beside her door and rested his back against her wall.
While he was there, he studied the basics of magic in his school book but always kept his attention towards the door.
He stayed the whole day but no words came from inside. In the end, he left defeated.
The next day, he came back and a similar situation repeated itself.
"It"s me again. Master said she would not teach me until you came out of that room so I will stay here all day again. She misses your food a lot, to be honest, I miss it dearly too."
"..."
"I"ll wait for you here."
The third day.
"Calla, I cannot understand your sadness if you do not say anything. You know I am not that good with feelings and words in the first place."
"..."
"The others are all worried for you, we all want to help. Let us."
"..."
The fifth day.
"We haven"t seen willow either since then."
"..."
"If it was you that talked to her, I am sure she would feel much better but... None of us are as kind and compa.s.sionate as you."
"..."
"She really loved Chase a lot didn"t she?"
"..."
"I can hardly understand how this would feel. Only based on what I felt myself, it must be an excruciating pain."
"..."
"Do you feel the same way too? Can I do anything at all to help?"
"..."
"I"ll be just by the door."
When he came for the eight consecutive day, he had still not managed to get a word out of her. It was as if her souls had left her.
The more time he spent waiting for her, the more worried for her he was. How was he supposed to make her react to anything? He really wished he could help in any way.
In the end, he could only try to talk about what was most likely the source of her pain.
"You know, Vesa told me about how you gave him an apple when you were both small. He told me you wanted to make him better with it."
"..."
"When he told me the story, I felt it was very like you to do this. Who else would do such a thing? Give an apple to heal a wound with all the hope in the world. I would not be surprised if I was told you are the kindest and meekest thing in this world."
"..."
"That is why I had to help you when your arrow didn"t go far. Out of everyone"s wish, yours must have been the most deserving to become real, even though I didn"t know what it was."
"..."
Emp hesitated a long time before he told the next bit of the story. He didn"t know if it would do good or hurt her further if he said it aloud. In the end, he chose to talk. Nothing else had gained any reaction from her until now so how could it be worse?
"He felt the same thing. He admired you greatly and wanted to do all in his power to return the kindness you always show to others back on to you."
"..."
"No... Those aren"t the right words. He loved you."
"..."
"This is what he told me, he loved you since you gave him this apple. He wanted your happiness, maybe more than anything."
"..."
"He wondered how you felt but he did not ask because he did not want to do the same as Chase did."
"..."
"Was that right or wrong? I don"t know. I don"t know if knowing this will make you feel any better either. I just suddenly felt that since it was one of the things he thought about the most, at least you deserved to know."
"..."
"How did you feel about him? Are you still in there for the same reasons as Willow?"
"..."
"I"ll sit here for a while."
The twelfth day.
Emp was walking up to her door when he was questioned by Calla"s two small sisters, Zora and Fleur Champom. They were the youngest kids of the family so for once, Emp towered over someone like a giant.
"Are you really going to wait at sis"s door all day again?"
"Yes."
"Even though she won"t come out?"
"Yes, I won"t go away just because she is too sad to open her door for me."
The two small girls seemed very impressed but Fleur immediately added something with a pout.
"I wanted her to come too but she did not listen. I"m mad at her now."
"Why are you mad?" Asked Emp, a bit puzzled.
"She said she would show me how to cook something delish but she hasn"t come out of her room since the other day. Even though I banged and called her mean, she didn"t listen."
Emp already had a hard time understanding the logic of normal people sometimes so understanding why the small girl was mad was even harder for him. He couldn"t see how someone that was too sad to do anything could somehow make someone else mad. The small girl must have really looked forward to cooking with her sister.
"Don"t be mad at her, she"ll definitely cook with you again when she come out."
"Really? Do you promise?"
The eyes of the small girl sparkled like a million stars.
"Calla really loves cooking. I don"t need to promise you, I"m very certain she will do it."
"But when? How many sleeps before she comes out?"
"I don"t know, I"m trying my best. Go play with your sister and be kind in the meantime. When she comes out, she will be happy to hear you didn"t cause any trouble."
"How could we cause any trouble? Zora and me are the bestest girls in the house!"
The two girls proudly showed their best behavior and rushed outside to play soon after.
This short conversation gave him a smile before a thought appeared in his head. That thought had been prompted by the innocently cute anger of the small girl.
He walked up to the door again, sat just beside it and spoke to the flower inside.
"Calla, are you mad at me?"
His voice did not sound the same as how he spoke the previous two weeks.
"..."
"I, I couldn"t save Vesa. I failed. I needed to protect everyone but, instead..."
"..."
"I"m sorry. I wasn"t there. Vesa saved you. I couldn"t help either of you."
"..."
"He stood in the way for you, and I didn"t make it back in time for him. Because of me, he wasn"t there to tell you how much he loved you himself and I had to do it for him."
"..."
"Vesa was my friend too. It is my fault, I know. I will be sorry forever. "
The following silence covered them for a long long time.
The words he used where true but still very painful to utter for himself. Even if he wanted to change that moment more than almost anything else, he could not. Being sorry for it was the only thing he could do with his power.
Each day he had come up with some new words and waited for a reaction but now, he really didn"t know what else to say. If she truly was angry with him, nothing he would say would ever sway her. He could only wait for her to calm down. He took a deep and long breath to calm his mind before he spoke again.
"I... Will go back home now."
He had started to get back up when he heard sounds from the other side of the wall. A rustle, a few quick thump, the door was pushed wide open and Calla burst out of the room to instantly collapse on top of him.
Emp was taken by surprise and fell back against the wall as he barely managed to keep her from b.u.mping her head on the floor. He couldn"t be sure if she had know he was there and lunged on top of him or if she thought he had already left and tripped over him while he was getting back up.
Either way, the result was that Calla was now crying in his arms. He sat back down slowly and held her in his arms as best he could to not let her fall. Was it him who had prompted that reaction? She tightly gripped the front of his s.h.i.+rt.
"Don"t go." She said feebly.
He spent almost two weeks sat at her door and she never opened but now that he told her he was leaving she rushed out. Like always, Emp didn"t understand why she reacted that way but if she wanted him to stay there, he could only do as she wished. After all, he had spent all this time just to know how she felt and how he could help.
"If you don"t want me to leave then I won"t go anywhere."
That was the truth, he could even easily sleep in this corridor, sat right there if she really didn"t want him to leave. He had slept in many worse places than that on the road. As long as she emptied her heart, he didn"t mind the long wait.
For a while, she clung on to him with her eyes tightly shut as if trying to stop herself from cry anymore than she already did. He wasn"t sure what he was supposed to do, was she expecting him to do anything at all? He had received a hug from Marcy, Celtine and Harriett before but this wasn"t exactly the same. He was the one supposed to do the comforting now wasn"t he?
With his arms holding her as closely to him as he dared, he apologized again.
"I"m sorry Calla, it was all my fault, I"ll try to be better."
She tried to say something to deny his words but she started crying after the second word and he understood nothing of what she said. It all sounded like a formless whining.
"There is no way I can understand what you are saying if you cry at the same time. Calm down a bit, take your time, I"m not moving."
She took some deep breaths but kept being shaken by powerful sobs. His s.h.i.+rt got all wet from her tears but he held her close to him anyway. He didn"t know what else to do. If Madam Blackbull learned about this, she would probably scold him for holding a girl like this but she was the one that hugged him so it was fine, wasn"t it?
After a good while, she said something he didn"t expect at all, with a voice he could barely hear.
"Your heartbeat is so calm. I can feel it."
"Of course it"s calm, since everything is fine now. There is nothing scary here."
There was another pause before she said what she was really thinking about.
"It wasn"t your fault at all, it was all because of me."
"Because of you? How could it be because of you?"
Emp didn"t understand at all what she meant. She opened the eyes that she had until now kept closed and looked at him. She had to twist her neck backwards to look up towards him. She could have just sat properly but she apparently didn"t want to. her eyes were usually green, clear and gentle but today, they were reddened and blurred by the tears, pained.
"My new year wish." She said.
"Your wish?" What did it have anything to do with this?
"Every year since the first time I ever made a wish," She explained guiltily. "I wish for the safety of my friends and family. Not this time. This time I was selfish instead. I wished to be a bit bolder, braver, enough to..."
Her voice trailed off but she quickly found her words back. She said the rest with conviction, declaring herself guilty.
"I wished to be bold instead of wis.h.i.+ng for their safety and Vesa and Chase died right away! This is clearly my fault. If I had made the same wish as usual, everyone would be fine."
The first thing that came to his mind hearing her story was that it was absurd.
"Aren"t the ancestors already supposed to protect everyone? One of them even saved Willow by letting her hide under its roots. Whether you wished for the safety of everyone or not, they should have done their best to help anyway. This has nothing to do with your wish at all."
"If I had wished the same thing I always do, everyone would be fine. If I had stayed in the village, Vesa would have been fine."
"If you had stayed, maybe Vesa would have been fine but Willow would not have been and we would never have found Chase. None of this is your fault."
"But/"
"How could anyone ever think this has anything to do with you? Wis.h.i.+ng something for yourself can"t be that bad. Not asking directly for the ancestors to protect everyone isn"t the same as wis.h.i.+ng bad things on them. Aren"t you the only one wis.h.i.+ng for everyone else safety every year? Why would you not have the right to ask for yourself once in a while? Everyone made mistakes that day, me more than most. There is no way I can agree that you are at fault here."
"I told you to go! If I had not, none of this would have happened."
Emp tried to reason further with her.
"That"s not true at all, Chase would still have been lost and Willow would have left alone. That day, when we all made a wish, you must have thought about it for a long time. At that moment, you felt that being bolder was much more important than your usual wish, it must have been a strong desire. Now you regret because you feel that you exchanged the safety of everyone for yourself but that is not what happened at all."
Calla looked into his eyes, searching why he was so convinced of that.
"The only thing that was exchanged for your wish that day was my own wish."
Her eyes went wide, as if she had not thought of that at all. It was exactly what had happened that day, he had sacrificed his wish for hers, not the safety of their friends.
"I was about to wish to understand what it meant to have a family, what it really meant to feel love."
Her eyes became even wider and her mouth opened in shock. She was far from expecting such a wis.h.!.+
"But I told you already," Emp followed. "That day when I saw your arrow hit the first tree, I felt that you deserved your wish much more than mine. I still think so and the others too. I remember clearly, everyone smiled when I did that, they all agreed that your wish was deserved, I had done the right thing. How could you say then that this wish caused the death of two of our friends?"
"You... about... love..."
"Mhn, I have a hard time understanding that kind of thing and before Marcy decided that I would be her son, I never really had a family."
He did but in name only.
"I wanted to understand all of that, that was my wish. But then, I felt that it could wait. Just being with Marcy, having all our friends close to me and being able to eat the food you made us, that was enough for me. I didn"t really need anything more, I think I said it that day. I feel like I will understand one day, whether I wished for it or not. Even now that I know what kind of wish you made, I still think I did the right thing."
"..."
Anyway, he was still not convinced that those wishes really held any sort of power.
Calla"s grip on his s.h.i.+rt tightened and she closed her eyes again.
"Don"t Blame yourself for this anymore. Even if Chase and Vesa knew all that you told me now, I am sure that neither would feel any bit of resentment towards you. They would both agree with me, this isn"t your fault at all. We all just want to see you smile and come out with us again."
"It wasn"t your fault either Emp. I"m sure they think the same too."
She pressed her face into his s.h.i.+rt again and didn"t move for a long time. After more than an hour, his b.u.t.t started to feel numb but she was so much more peaceful than in the beginning that he didn"t want to disturb her too much.
Later, her mother showed up silently at the end of the corridor and made a charming smile looking at the scene. She must have been really happy to see her out of her room again, even though she was sprawled on the floor.
"Calla, your mom is there."
That simple sentence from him jolted her like a bolt of lightning and she instantly sat up properly, jumping away from him in a panic.
Fiona almost laughed but managed to refrain herself from embarra.s.sing her further. Calla"s face took a deep red tint as she sat on her knees and dodged the eyes of her mother.
"I"m glad you"re out of there. Do you feel better now?" Her mom said tenderly.
"Mhn." She nodded as she wiped the remaining tears from her eyes.
"Will you help me with supper then?"
Calla nodded again and after giving him an almost whispered "thank you" she ran off to the kitchen.
Since she was finally out of the room and he wasn"t really needed anymore, and got back up and walker towards Calla"s mother. The corner of her mouth rose a bit when she saw the two large circle of tears on his s.h.i.+rt and she thanked him properly as well.
"Thank you for helping her. She felt so much guilt for no reason, nothing I said would cheer her up."
"You knew?"
If she had known why Calla was sad, why didn"t she tell him from the beginning?
"Of course I knew, I"m her mother. Mother"s always know these kinds of things, just like how fathers know when their sons make trouble."
Was this a special power awarded to mothers? Was this part of the things that made a family what it was? Did Marcy have the same power too?
After that, he left the Champom family and went back to Marcy. When she saw him and his wet s.h.i.+rt, she knew immediately that he had finally succeeded.
She praised his efforts and then he told her why Calla was sad, about how she blamed herself for what had happened and how he told her that this wasn"t her fault.
"Isn"t that exactly the same thing I told ya the other day? We all clearly know it had nothing to do with her just like we all know it had nothing to do with ya. Yet, neither of you believed us."
Her words followed him all the way into his bed as he reflected on them further. What she said was definitely true, she had told him it wasn"t his fault yet he still felt guilty. Calla"s mom told her the same yet she still felt guilty until he came to tell her himself. He felt much better now though. he felt as if he had been covered in mud for a long time and it was finally washed away.
Marcy definitely had the "mother"s powers" Fiona told him about. Did she send him to Calla just to make him feel better? Was the food just a pretext?
In any case, from the next day onward, they were once again able to taste the food of Calla Champom.
The only thing Emp still didn"t know about this whole thing was how she had felt about Vesa. Now that she seemed better though, he didn"t want to bring it up again.