The old wood chair groans beneath me as I settle back to watch Jack chase Danny, his dog, across the manor yard. It was an old thing, the chair, not the yard, from my parent's inn before they shut it down, before the city fell apart. It had been my mother's chair and her mother’s before her, and now it was mine, likely it was the only thing I could lay such a claim upon.
Most of what I had was built from the money Mairenn’s father left behind. It had turned out that he’s left behind a rather large sum in his association bank accounts that Neither Mai nor I had known about until she’d given me his card, and I’d, in turn, taken it to the association. Of course, not all my wealth came from what they left behind. My books had turned a tidy profit as well. The adventures of crow, they were called, inspired by the events in Jack’s journal but written wholly by me. After everything, I’d ended up with a fortune too large to manage. Even purchasing the manor and hiring the people to care for it had barely put a dent in my funds.
“Mama,” my boy Jack calls, racing up to me with something cupped between his hands. “It’s for you!” He’s five now, with everything that entails. I’m just glad we have someone else to do the laundry now.
“What is it?” I say, giving him a warm smile while inwardly bracing for him to reveal a toad, lizard, or maybe even a dead bird. I can never be sure what it will be, so I always prepare for them all. But he opens his hands, and to my surprise, it's none of those things, not even close. It’s a small blue gem.
“Where did you find this?” I ask, to which he gives me the usual shrug of a child who’s uncertain if what they’ve done is good or bad, so I plaster back on a well-practiced maternal smile and hold out my hand. “I love it, dear. It’s beautiful. Thank you so much.” He drops it in my waiting palm with a smile that makes all life pains seem insignificant, gives me a tight hug, then dashes off without another word, giggling as Danny barks, and the two start to play again.
I chuckle, watching as the two run off to do whatever young boys and their dogs might do, and peer down at the gem in my hand. With little more than a thought, I glance at its contents. A few hundred gold coins and a leather-bound journal. It's been nearly a year since the last one, and my heart does what it always does when I’m reminded that she’s still out there. This is to say, it soars with a myriad of emotions too thick to convey. I don't know what she, or whoever they are, is doing out there, but every year something like this will appear, and I’m once again reminded of everything.
Almost without thinking, I pull the journal from the gem, smiling slightly at the words written in too perfect script on the first page. ‘The adventures of crow,’ it reads, as they all have since my first book was published. I would be lying if I said none of what was in the journals made its way into my stories, but it was only a few small things. The rest I keep for myself in a safe behind my bed.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
I push up with a sigh to put it away with the others, the chair once again groaning with the motion. As I turn to go back inside the house, a flicker of black, almost a figure, catches my attention for the manor wall, but when I look to see what it is, it’s gone. I stare for a while but find nothing, so, with a shrug, I walk back inside, giving it not another thought.
Our home is as modest as a manor could be, which means it is not so to even the slightest degree. The broad entry hall welcomes me with a warm illumination from the electric lights hanging off the ceiling in elegant fixtures fit for a palace. New inventions from some kingdom or empire that I can’t entirely remember the name of, but they certainly have proven themselves remarkably expensive. The perfect thing to spend my wasted mass of wealth on.
People bow as I pass despite the many times I’ve told them not to. Most were once better off than I before the fall of Gaulbren, but the end of the dungeon brought a great deal of change, and when push came to shove, I just happened to be able to take them all in. It happened slowly at first after the association pulled out of the city. First, the adventurers left, then the goods they bought became worthless, people found themselves unable to make a living, and slowly but surely, the entire economy collapsed. By that point, I was already living out here in our manor, near the southern coast of Penil, and so as the refugees came pouring in, I found myself with an opportunity to do some good. They all worship me now as if I were some kind of noblewoman, even though everyone knows I’ve always been little more than a barmaid.
“Good morning, Lady Crowe,” a well-rounded man says as I pass the kitchens, the groundskeeper, a mister Halls, I remind myself. Or was it Holds? I can never remember these days with so many people around.
“And to you, mister Holds. How is your wife?” I say, guessing on the name and remembering at the last moment the short, dark-skinned woman he was married to. If I recall correctly, I believe they’d just had a child a few days ago. I frown and ask, “shouldn’t you be with her?”
“She’s doing great, thank you for asking. Better than great, in fact. Told me off for lazing about the place and being a bother.” He must notice my concerned expression because a moment later, he gives a dismissive wave with his hand and explains, “not our first, though I do hope it will be our last.”
Ah, I tell myself, that explains it. I’ve always suspected something like that, but I hold myself back from inquiring further. We all have our secrets. Gods know I certainly do. We chat for another few moments before I remember what I was doing and politely excuse myself, earning more embarrassing bows from the staff as I leave.
My room is still in the basement. I tried the upper floor when I first moved here, but it fell all wrong, so I had everything moved down here. It was, by far, the grandest bedroom in the whole house, renovated at the request of my head of staff, my mother, after an embarrassing incident where a pair of mutually enamored personnel stumbled upon it, no doubt looking for some privacy. I move to the oversized bed, resting a hand on the old quilted blanket for barely a moment before sliding my hand behind the headboard and opening the hidden safe. Journal in hand, I pause, then close the safe and change my mind, settling atop the bed as I open the first page and begin to read.