Allard

Vibrant green leaves rustle in the branches surrounding the Eastern Watch Tower. It is the only one of its kind surrounding Spring Village, and it is not so much a tower as a platform in a tree, but the name has stuck amongst the villagers no matter what Momo has done to change it. Allard stretches his arms over his head, fingertips brushing the leaves that have provided decent protection from the rain since the platform was built. He doesn’t think Momo minds the inaccuracy of the name as much as she doesn’t like what it entails. That they need to be watching for anything coming their way, not just biters. It’s already been three weeks since the survivors of Spring Village returned, and nobody has come from Yanniston or any of the other surrounding towns a bit farther away.

‘That doesn’t mean they won’t,’ she has shared multiple times as they sit together in the evening sipping some of her Peppermint Tea. As he has always done, he tries to be upbeat and tells her not to worry, but he was there in that town of the starving and nearly dead for almost two months. He’s seen what the people in charge are capable of. Still, being the cheerful one has become his job so he sticks to it. And really, he isn’t as worried as he should be and he knows it. It’s hard to believe that they could be in danger of much of anything with Momo around.

A light tapping comes from the trunk, the rope ladder knocking gently against the wood. Allard rests his hand against the leather sheath at his hip and looks down the hole to see who is coming up. It would take a minute to cut through the sturdy ropes if it isn’t someone friendly, but even someone with high agility would need more time than that to reach the top, and the higher they get the farther they will fall. He spots Diggory, one of his neighbors, and his body relaxes.

“Welcome to the top of the world,” he calls out, grasping the human’s hand to help him up onto the platform. “I thought Con and Ida were coming up to try a shift this afternoon?”

Diggory rolls his eyes and flops over onto his back. “He decided he wanted to help plant some of the fall seeds in the new plots instead. I told him it’s okay to be scared of heights, but then Ida gave me the look and apparently, I’m an idiot for suggesting it.”

“I doubt she thinks you’re an idiot. Con is just in that awkward not really a kid, not quite an adult age and his mom doesn’t him dwelling on the negative stuff.” Allard leans against the trunk and looks out over the wasteland as much as he can without walking around to the other side. “It’s alright if he isn’t up for it. Everyone else is taking turns and we are doing fine. Norag doing all the night shifts has helped, although I don’t know if I believe that Orcs secretly have better night vision and have just been hiding it from everyone.”

Quiet laughter fills the air, and with the faint rustling of leaves, it’s easy to pretend that everything is as it once was. “Night vision my foot!” Diggory grins from ear to ear and sits up. “He’s just scared of Ms. Momo and figures she can’t yell at him if he’s sleeping most of the hours she’s awake.”

His grin fades and he rubs the auburn stubble covering his chin. “I saw her taking a break before I started my climb. You think she’ll finish that plant wall of hers today?”

“I think she can, but I hope she doesn’t push herself trying to get it done. One more day won’t make that much of a difference now.” Instead of walking around to the other side to check on her, he casually lowers himself through the hole to the ladder below.

Diggory chuckles and ties the tower water bucket to the pulley system hanging over the side. “Well, when you go to check on her, can you ask if she could purify some water for me for this afternoon?”

“I wasn’t going to check on her,” Allard calls back defiantly, the sound of Diggory’s laughter following him down to the ground.

The climb down is always the worst in Allard’s opinion. There is no way to see where he is going, and every time he lowers a foot toward the next rung, all his mind can think is ‘What if the next rung is gone?’ He tried to explain the feeling to Momo shortly after lookout shifts were set, but her ‘Well then, you fall’ was neither surprising nor helpful.

The murmur of voices spills out from opened windows, stopping as he approaches the well but starting again as soon as the tenants can see who it is. The opened windows part is new. He counts three openings accepting the early autumn breeze. No doubt each of those has something broad like a table in front of it. If something tries to crawl in it will give the tenant a moment to respond. Allard fills his bucket, raising his hand in greeting for anyone looking out through the window or cracks around closed shutters and doors.

He sits his bucket down next to the well once it is full and walks west toward the new gardening plots being planted. A solid green wall of bamboo and interconnecting vines arcs out and around the village some distance past the houses. He’s seen it many times and has stood next to the new sections as Momo raises them each day. Time and exposure haven’t stopped the living wall from being impressive, though. It has continued to grow after she raised it to its initial ten-foot height. The oldest areas that started at the south of the tree are already past twenty feet, with the vines growing only a little slower than their bamboo stabilizers.

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Ida and Conway look up as he rounds the back of House Two, as Momo calls it. It used to belong to Mikel and his grown daughter Avalina, but now it is just Avalina’s. She looks up as well, flashing Allard a confident smile from where she is pushing chunks of potato into a freshly turned section of soil. “Hello, Allard. How were things up the Watchtower?”

“Good, nothing happening. I was just filling the water bucket so Momo could purify it and thought I would check in here before heading back that way.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Ida begins, sitting back on her heels and running her fingers idly through the dirt. “If someone else learned the cleaning skills that she has, could we help her with the water situation?”

“I don’t know.” Allard runs his fingers through his hair, grimacing as they come away sweaty. The weather has begun to cool, but the sun is still brutal at midday. “I don’t know if her magic is like ours.”

“Is it true that she is from another world?” The three adults look at the fifteen-year-old with startled eyes. “What? It’s not like it’s such a secret. Norag mentions it every time he talks about her. I think she scares him.”

“She wouldn’t have smacked him if he hadn’t trampled on her tomato plants when he was helping harvest,” his mom answers.

Allard laughs and chimes in, “She apologized for hitting him, but I can’t remember the last time anyone dared to come at him head-on. He’s used to being big enough to scare people away without a fight.”

Conway nods and starts tilling the soil with his fingers again. “She is a little scary though, I would get it if he was scared of her. She fights really well for a farmer.”

“She isn’t a farmer or a fighter. She’s-,” Allard pauses, then finishes lamely, “She’s Momo.”

They all nod, and Allard leaves so they can continue their work.

The world darkens as the thick clouds pass over the sun. He sighs, enjoying the break from the incessant glare. They are already over halfway toward the winter solstice, but there won’t be any kind of relief from the heat of the sun until suddenly there is, and snow will follow shortly after. They sometimes talk about it over dinner, he and Momo. Allard knows she’s worried with the abrupt change of the landscape, that it might affect the seasons. She has tried to explain to him about climate change, and the role that plants and animals play in weather systems, but Allard isn’t shy about admitting he has no idea what she’s talking about. It sounds scary, though. He hopes it hasn’t been long enough without trees to cause any of the changes. He hopes it never will be.

Seeing the person he thinks about most minutes of the day, he breaks into a true smile. Momo sees him and waves, never taking her attention fully away from the girl sitting next to her. The young goblin closes her mouth as soon as she sees him, though, so she turns around to greet him.

“Ah, is that the water bucket for the treehouse?”

“For the watchtower, yes. It’s no rush, though. Diggory just took over and he can wait a bit.”

Momo stands up and stretches her arms toward the sky, making her back pop audibly. “It’s a treehouse. And I might as well do it now, I’m getting this thing done today and I’ll need to rest for a few when I’m done. No need to leave him thirsty.”

Water purified and sent up, Allard settles into his normal position beside her. “You don’t have to rush this, Momo. Nobody will think a single negative thought about it taking another day. We are all already the safest we’ve been in months.”

“I know, but I’ll feel better getting it done. And I was thinking maybe I should raise up some more sequoias once this is done. But there aren’t enough people to cover them if I do. They would just be a liability if there were unattended stations like that.”

Allard watches in awe as Momo eyes the final twelve feet of open space and, with a wave of her hand, small green sprouts push out of the ground across the entire length. They grow quickly, thickening and elongating until they are the same height as the other new ones next to them. Momo settles both hands against her lower back and applies pressure with a groan.

“It just doesn’t make sense. Why does my back hurt from growing some bamboo? It’s not like I was standing over the shoots and yanking them up by hand. Am I supposed to bend my knees while I do it? Cast with my knees instead of lift with my knees?” She shakes her head, rubbing the muscles with a grimace.

Pushing her hands away, Allard presses his palms into the muscle and begins to rub circles into them. “I don’t know how magic works. I never had a bit of it. Maybe you should sit down next time? You could be tensing yourself as you do it.”

Momo nods, or bobs her head unconsciously as he works out the tenseness. He can’t tell which.

“It just feels more grounded, to have my feet flat on earth while I do it. It’s probably just me leaning into the urge to be dramatic. I’m old, I’ve been told that old people are allowed to do that.”

He scoffs and steps back. If it weren’t for her constant reminders and the gray hairs liberally sprinkled in her hair he wouldn’t remember she was the same age as his father. He is exhausted just watching her sometimes. A pleasant, earthy smell lingers in the air, different than the comforting smells of the garden. Allard moves forward and rests his hands on the new growth. “It looks like it’s sparkling in the sun. Has it always done this and I haven’t noticed it?”

Momo shrugs, eyeing the dancing motes that seem to dart around each stalk under the cloudy sky. “I’ve never noticed it, but I think it’s new. Maybe that’s just how bamboo acts here. Tal was telling me that it’s not native to this area.”

The little specks of light swirl and move farther down the fence, but Allard knows they aren’t gone. Maybe it’s nothing, he thinks as they drift out of sight. I just hope they aren’t anything bad.