I woke up to birdsong and I moved. Rocked forwards, fumbled open the door, pushed myself up, stretching, rolling my shoulders. Moving, always moving.

When I ate my breakfast, I thought about washing again. Should have after collecting all that wheat and working up such a sweat. So I did, but only my trousers, vest, and underwear, not using a fire to dry them this time. Would have taken too long and I had some ash already for washing myself.

Along the way, I thought about how I hadn’t been brushing my teeth. Slipped my mind. If I was just eating vegetables, maybe it wouldn’t be a problem. I wasn’t, though, fruit nice and sweet.

No toothbrush, no toothpaste, but, thinking about this while scrubbing myself, I had fingers and ash.

I tried to talk myself out it the entire time I bathed. Tried, and failed. There weren’t exactly any dentists around. So, after I was finished, clothes dry, I squatted by the spring again, ash paste on my finger, and I rubbed my teeth.

It tasted exactly as pleasant as it sounded.

Trying not to gag, I rubbed the front and back of my teeth and along my molars, then rushed to rinse out the taste. Even after a spitting out a few mouthfuls of water, the weird bitterness stuck to my tongue.

Well, running my tongue along my teeth, at least they didn’t feel, like, covered in plaque.

That ordeal over, I didn’t stop. Kept moving. I wanted, needed, a routine, so I made one. Checked on the growing pea plant, on the flowering onions I’d replanted yesterday, on the drying straw, on the curing wheat kernels. After that, gathered firewood, a few more carrots, some pea pods, more of the mustardy leaves.

Lunchtime, I had some fruit and sprouts, then kept going.

Still didn’t know what I would do about my new room, so I fixed up my door with fresh leaves. Being woken up by raindrops really wasn’t nice. Once the dried up leaves were replaced, I went back to weaving sticks, a windbreak still helpful.

A simple, repetitive task. No need to think. Do, just do, no thinking.

At the end of the day, when I picked up some firewood from under the big tree, I decided to mark the tree. Hard to remember the days, I guessed I’d been here for about two weeks. While I was carving that, I thought the usual four I’s then a slash across them didn’t make much sense, so ended up with six I’s then a slash. Day fourteen. If I was wrong, never mind, at least I could keep track from now on. See how long things take to grow.

Made a fire, roasted carrots with the mustard leaves, gazed at the moons, then bed.

Ready to do the same over and over again, yet different each time.

The next day, I didn’t wash, but still brushed my teeth. The onion flowers had made seeds, so I found a clearing and sowed them there. Wheat cured, I roasted some for dinner, then bed.

No need to think about other things, just what was right in front of me.

The next day, the pea plant had buds that looked like they’d become flowers; I guessed it had been about ten days since I’d planted the sprouts. Anyway, more important to know how long from bud to bean.

That reminded me to check on the fruit trees. I’d cleared the ones near the camp, but, now, fresh fruits grew there, ready to be picked. Seemed like I wouldn’t have to worry about running out of food.

Thinking of food, I wondered about the wheat. Right now, it was far to go if I wanted some, but maybe I could grow it nearby? Was there something special about the plateau? Well, it was pretty flat and high enough there weren’t any trees. For flat, I had to go far downstream, but maybe no trees was good enough?

Only problem was that I had collected wheat with small kernels. If I was going to grow them, I wanted the biggest ones. Wincing, I slowly turned to stare up the mountain.

Wasn’t going to magically appear up there, now, was I?

I had lunch first, though. A bit early, but it wasn’t a short trip and better to have eaten before rather than after, so I ate my fruit and sprouts and had a big drink and went to the toilet.

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Ready, I set off.

Making the trip quite a few times already made it feel easier, maybe all the walking made my legs stronger; it didn’t feel too bad today. Step by step, from tree to tree.

Something I hadn’t done before, I paused now and then to admire the view, gazing out across the forest as it kept shrinking the higher I went, colours blending together. No sign of any buildings, no smoke rising into the sky, just a patchwork blanket of deep teals and mossy greens and muddy purples.

Pretty.

Coming to the ridge, I climbed over and sat down on it. Breaths slowing. The field of wheat didn’t look any different than when I’d last come. Three days ago, four? If only I had a diary to keep track of the days.

Breath settled, I swung my arms forward, momentum carrying me to my feet. While I technically only needed one head of kernels to try growing my own, it was kind of far to come for just one wheat stalk. So I started gathering some with small kernels, on the lookout for one that was particularly big, wandering deeper into the field where I hadn’t cut any down yet.

On that slow, meandering search, I pushing aside some wheat and looked down to make sure I wasn’t going to stand on a random stone, only to see something strange. It sort of didn’t make sense to me at first, like I had a tear in my eye, the ground a bit distorted. Not quite right.

Squatting down, the closer look made me think of a glass bead—a huge one, the size of both my fists together—and it was kind of squished, not like a pancake, but far from perfectly round.

No clue what glass would be doing here of all places, I wondered if it was maybe from an animal. A drop of drool from a dragon. Coming up with other ideas, I took a stalk and reached out to poke it and it wobbled.

What?

I expected it to be hard or to be like water, stalk going into it, but wobbling? Was it like glue, the outside drying exposed to the air while the inside stayed liquid?

Then it sort of jumped back—and I fell over, jerking back out of fright and losing my balance. Landing on my bum, the shock went right up my spine with a wince. Once I opened my eyes, I lost sight of whatever that thing was, but a quick look around was enough to find it, not going far.

I stayed where I was, staring at it. It still just looked like a glass bead, completely see-through—except for two small black dots. I didn’t know if I’d missed them before or what, but they now very much were like eyes staring back at me.

Maybe I was going crazy, No, if I was hallucinating all this, then it had definitely begun with the goddess. Everything had felt so real….

The thing jumped again and this time I watched, not flinching back. It flattened down one moment, then stretched up, like a spring how the bottom came up a moment later, momentum carrying through, sending it backwards in a tumble. And it was a tumble, the “eyes” landing face down before moving up to look at me.

I giggled, smiling. Such a clumsy thing. Curious, I kept watching, staying still. It eventually looked away from me and, rather than jumping, sort of stuck itself onto a few stems and shimmied up them, little body swinging back and forth. So light, the stems didn’t bend that much even when it reached the top. Once there, it sort of wrapped around the head with all the kernels and just stayed there.

Completely enthralled, I kept watching. It took a while, minutes, even, the process so subtle, but the kernels were gone when it moved on to the next group of wheat. Some of the stem had apparently been dissolved too; at least, that was how it looked.

Incredible. This really was a world of magic and adventure.

For maybe an hour, I followed the thing on its binge, eating head after head of wheat, so slow it hardly made a dent in the field. Like watching a snail go on a grand journey across the garden.

But I couldn’t do that forever. Anxiety flaring up, I waved goodbye to it and carried on with my task.

Not hard to gather wheat, I filled up my arms, then started the journey back. I had lost my sense of direction following that creature, but I made my way to the ridge and went along until I found the marks I’d made on my first trip—how clever old me was.

Although the trip up had felt easier, the trip down was still difficult with my arms full. Careful steps.

Back at camp, I didn’t waste time. Cut off the heads to cure in the larder and piled the stems by the firewood to dry into straw. Of course, I kept the head with the larger kernels separate, the whole point for the trip.

No reason to dry them out if I was going to plant them, I looked for a good place to plant them. Going back to my thoughts on where, well, the camp was clear of trees. Part of why I’d chosen it—didn’t want to make fires close to trees.

So I scouted around for a good patch that’d get lots of sunshine. As I did, I found an unusual plant growing. There wasn’t even grass around it. Just a tiny bit of green, poking out the ground.

Then I realised I’d buried some apple cores here.

Smiling to myself, I left it alone and looked for somewhere else to plant the wheat. My search didn’t take long, deciding on higher up and away from the spring, thinking the plateau was pretty dry. Dug a row, scattered the kernels, covered them up, poured on some water.

Still no diary to write things down in, I scratched the “date” into the big tree where I marked the days. Made a note for the other plants while I was at it: onions, peas.

Over the evening, fire burning and food cooking, I kept thinking of that blob creature thing, smiling. It was just so goofy, wobbling and swaying like a sack of gel or jelly. I wondered if there were more of them around that I hadn’t noticed. If that was a normal size for them, it could easily hide in grass.

My thoughts drifted to what other kind of magical creatures might exist in this world. Dragons, faeries, ogres….

The fire crackled, stars twinkled, bigger moon a larger sliver, clouds racing across the sky as a wind scattered sparks from the fire pit, flickers of light that faded on the dirt. Alone, but not lonely. This peace was something I’d never known before and it was something I loved so very much.

Eighteen years, but I’d finally found my peace.