The rain didn’t quite want to stop, so, even though Hyraj had “Sunday” off, we didn’t go anywhere. I had hoped to buy some more yarn with my first bit of pay, but at least I could pay back Hyraj. A quiet day, watching the rain, calm.

Then Monday rolled around and our working week began again. At least now, we stayed home for breakfast, no need to go in as early or stay as late, time in the evening to help with dinner. And in-between, I kept Sisi entertained. The novelty of trying something new wore off and maybe she wasn’t so wary of me, more willing to fidget, less willing to focus, so I had to switch between knitting and braiding, and I asked Hyraj about scrap paper for drawing, using charcoal sticks for that—wrapped in a bit of fabric to not get so messy. I wasn’t great with them, but good enough to impress a five-year-old who didn’t know better.

Challenging. Fun. Sisi had seemed so familiar at first, like so many of the young girls who ended up at the orphanage, only to bloom into herself a little more every day. I would have liked to take her out so she could exhaust herself, running around a field or something like that. But I didn’t want to ask yet, feeling too soon for Mr Arl to trust me, and I didn’t really know the area well, getting lost the last thing I’d want to do.

So it was a quiet week, full of knitting and braiding and charcoal scribbles. The rain fell and lightened and poured, changing its mind all the time, for a couple more days before finally stopping, the week ending with some sunshine.

Saturday morning, after finishing up breakfast and washing the plates, I came back to the room to see Hyraj reading. It was awkward. No, I was awkward. All I wanted to do was tell her I was going for a walk, but my brain thought up all these things she might say, stupid things that weren’t anything like her.

Old scars. I hadn’t asked for much in my life, but, the little I had, the answer was always no. There wasn’t money for new toys, new clothes. Mrs Jacob didn’t know how to make a unicorn cake. It was safe to tell me no, wouldn’t lead to a meltdown like some of the other kids. I was older, I understood, I didn’t know what they were going through.

Why would Hyraj say anything like that about me going for a walk? Still, the whole point of scars were that they stayed behind long after the wound closed up, not quite the same as before.

“I’m… going out,” I said, forcing out the first word and letting my courage catch up afterwards.

“Mm,” she said. My heart relaxed. “A moment, please, and I shall join you.”

My heart pounded. “N-no need, I am just… walking around?”

Looking over to the window, she said, “It would be nice for some fresh air and gentle exercise.”

For a moment, I kept scrambling for some excuse that would keep her from joining me… then I realised I didn’t need one. If anything, I was happy she wanted to come along. “Okay.”

A moment became a minute, her lighter “bedroom clothes” covered up with another layer, comfortable shoes swapped for her boots. I had already done her hair out of habit, so that just needed her hat.

“Ready?” she asked.

I tapped my thumb.

Outside, the air had lost the freshness it had from rain, instead… horribly humid. Well, I already knew that from yesterday. Humid air and a not-too-nice smell from the swampy mud. There was a breeze, though, clearing away some of the stuffiness when it blew.

Although I was the one who brought up the walk, she led the way. I didn’t know where to. We didn’t go towards the shops in the centre of the village, instead farther along the road that the tax office and dormitory were on.

It was, well, a nicer part of town? The houses here bigger with gardens at the front that weren’t just for herbs, fences made of brick or metal, some even hid behind tall hedges. Not too many, though. Twenty? I wasn’t keeping count as we went.

Beyond them was a stable to mark the edge of town, then there were fields. Flooded fields that were mostly underwater; however, shoots and young plants poked out, teal-coloured, almost blending in with the murky water if it wasn’t so muddy. A couple of the larger plants started to look bushy, the long stems drooping over, leaves hanging down.

“I believe those are ousickle,” Hyraj said. Rice. “The gaps are perhaps lal? I seem to remember that it takes a year to ferment, so that would explain why it is cheap at the moment.”

Smiling to myself, I thought, if it weren’t for her lessons, she might not have said more than a sentence to me all these months. “Really?”

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“Well, it is that some of the paperwork has been for sales of lal, which reminded me.”

“Thank you for your hard work.”

She let out a breath of laughter, then muttered, “Hard work? If only the problem with it was the difficulty of calculation rather than in reading the handwriting.”

My turn to giggle.

Our wandering didn’t go farther than those fields, soon turning around. On the way back, we saw a couple families of those big houses—people who looked like me. I was used to seeing them around by now. something I hadn’t really thought about, I couldn’t remember seeing people like Hyraj. If her ancestors came from the north, we were maybe to the south of this island. She hadn’t really told me how big it was and where we were on it. Or maybe this was normal, only a few people like her here at all, never mind where we were. She had said that people from Kroustoa didn’t like the climate here.

Not helpful thoughts, I tried to push them away.

Walking through the village centre, we followed another road out of town where the houses soon gave way to barns and workshops? I wasn’t too sure. Wandering back, we took a different road, a lot of children out playing in the street for this rare bit of sunshine.

Coming back to the high street, Hyraj asked, “Have they walked enough?”

It still took me a moment when people used “they” instead of “you”. “Mm, yes,” I said. We had pretty much seen everything the village had to offer. It was kinda funny, how she had said this was a big village, or at least big enough for the council thing. How many people lived here? Maybe a hundred houses, so like six hundred people? A thousand?

I wasn’t good at guessing.

Back at the dormitory, we had a quiet rest-of-the-day. Hyraj read and I, with nothing to do and nothing to distract me, made circles with my hands, idly “practising” magic again. I hadn’t really tried properly since we stopped travelling, though. Just used it to fill up boring moments like these. Of course, I hadn’t made any progress. Probably had gone backwards.

Well, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like I could go back to that simple life out in the woods.

One relaxing day, another, then back to work. Refreshed and ready to go—as long as another storm didn’t roll in. Walking over to the office, I looked up at the grey sky, wondering, hoping not.

We were some of the earliest in the office, beating Mr Arl and Sisi for once. While the other workers were, well, they weren’t unfriendly with Hyraj, but they entirely ignored me. Same way they treated the people who brought food and drinks through. Hyraj, a couple of them made small talk with her. She didn’t exactly respond enthusiastically, but it didn’t look like… they were racist.

There I went, having dark thoughts when left alone for too long. Fortunately, before I could work myself into another mental mess, Mr Arl arrived, Sisi shuffling in behind him.

He saw me and gave a small smile, but stopped at Hyraj’s desk before his own. I wasn’t too curious, the two often talking about work, instead focused on Sisi, giving her a smile and a small gesture. It wasn’t quite a wave, sort of like the “yes” gesture in reverse, pressing my thumb to my forefinger, then sliding all my fingers away, keeping my thumb where it was. No wonder I’d confused it with the other gesture and otherwise not noticed.

The adults didn’t talk for long, but, coming over to his desk, he had an awkward look on his face? I wasn’t sure. Confusing me more, he stopped by me—and not to hand over Sisi.

“Good day,” he said.

“Good day, Mr Arl, Sisi,” I said.

He stayed standing there in front of me. For a second, I wondered if I’d done something wrong—was I supposed to stand up or bow? But then he softly cleared his throat and spoke.

“That is it… Sisi seems to be settled, so I thought it best if they would stay at home now. If they are in agreement, I thought at lunch tomorrow I could show them to the house and introduce them to the maid.”

I sort of forgot he was talking to me by the end, so I was slow to respond and rushed when I finally did. “Oh, well, it is… best for Sisi, yes.”

“Is there anything I should ask to not be cooked?”

“No, I don’t think so…” I said, only for it dawn on me that this seemed the sort of job that paid quite well. “Just not… helvith.”

He gave a snort of laughter, almost making me flinch, a sharp and sudden sound that made me keenly aware of how close he was. I kept my smile, but turned to the side and picked up my knitting to distract myself.

“I will pass that on, then,” he said.

Caught up in that whirl of anxiety, I caught a glance of Hyraj and the words came out without thinking. “Will H—Miss Hyraj be there too?”

He made a gesture with his hands. “It would be no infringement of my hospitality,” he said—a phrase that came up in Hyraj’s book. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to sound as posh, but that was sort of how it came out literally? Hard to grasp some meanings when Hyraj was pretty posh to start with….

Out of things to say, I just smiled. After a few seconds, he carried on to his desk, Sisi staying behind with me. Pushing away all my other thoughts, I focused on my job.

“What should we do today?” I asked her, almost a whisper. Tried not to disturb everyone working.

She stared at my knitting. “We can knit?” she asked.

“Of course.”

While my mind tried to wander off every opportunity it had, I was thankfully good at looking after kids even when I couldn’t stay focused. We knitted for a while, we practised braiding, we scratched out some drawings. Her fine motor skills were actually quite good for her age. How she held the charcoal stick… I glanced at her dad, wondering if she had copied him, maybe holding a twig and drawing in the dirt.

I didn’t really know anything about what her life was like before her mum passed away. Didn’t know much about her life now either. That was fine. Knowing helped, but my job was to help her grow.

Looking at her, she pouted, intently focused on what she was drawing, still transitioning from scribbles to actually recognisable shapes. Her fluffy hair fell loose around her, often brushing it aside to see better. On the thinner side, like she hadn’t been eating well, and shorter, like she also hadn’t been sleeping well.

It wasn’t an incredible “purpose”. It wasn’t saving the world, or starting a technology revolution, or discovering something amazing. But I was never an incredible person, just someone with little to give who wanted to give it.

This was something I could do to change the world and I was happy to do it.