I spent the next hour thinking about which plants to pick, but in the end it made far more sense to ask someone who knew still better than I did.

I walked across the garden towards a secluded wing to the right.

“Mom?” I knocked on her study room. “I need help with something. It’s about Madama Kishirra’s latest order.” I opened the door and stuck my head inside.

My mother – my second mother – sat at her desk as she scribbled notes on her reed paper, surrounded by bowls of growing plants. Cataloguing the right cultivars was just as much part of our craft as was spending time huffing and puffing with the bellows at the forge. Maybe that was one of the reasons why I always felt so at home with my other-world parents – they had activities that bound them together, in a balancing act.

Back from where I came from... it was different. No doubt my parents on Earth loved me as well, but... it was just a whole another matter this time.

“Ah, Lugana, you are here. You can help me with this summary.”

“Sure, but we have to deal with her repairs within three days, and this time her plaques are in a sorry condition.”

“Not a surprise. Wonder what kind of fights she gets into...” Mom muttered, rapping her fingers on the wooden desk. I joined her there and picked up her notes, starting to put them in order.

“Seasonal growth index?”

“I wanted to see if I could find a pattern in the reed’s cover on the shores,” she nodded. “Very observant. Good job, Lu. That is going to help the entire town, we could deal with drought spells and floods much better – and still manage our stores.”

I chuckled.

“You knew I am not that good with numbers.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” she replied patting my shoulder.

In my old world, Mom would have become a scientist, or a CEO. Dad was the one with the skills when it came to actually forging the tetrarmide and everything else that came out of the forge, but without her he wouldn’t get nearly as steady a supply of materiel, together with all the other management stuff she took care of. I flipped through the pages to put them all together, following Mom’s line of thinking from her observations on the reed to the average annual production.

“So, why is it that when it is about Madama Kishirra you are always the first to greet her?” Mom asked with a sly smile on her face.

“I was just... Dad asked me to! He was busy at the forge and he couldn’t take it! That was all.”

“Of course dear. Just like the last thirty times,” she chuckled. “So… we would have to check on the state of the garden as well after this. At the rate she is burning through our stash, it’s a shock we have enough reed ash for her plates. We will have to increase our rates a little.”

“Uh... I kind of told her that we wouldn’t ask for a steeper price.”

Mom bit the side of her mouth.

“That might not have been the wisest choice. Ah, but we needed to replenish our stocks anyway. Lugana...” she made me stop writing as she put on her ‘motherly’ tone, and I already knew what she was going to say next. “How about you go buy some calcifera this time? You know, as a chance to step out of the garden, and maybe out of the house as well.”

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“I-I didn’t think... I am not good with that,” I replied, turning my gaze away from her as I hastily put the notes together, trying to focus only on the task at hand.

Yes, not many things changed about your personality when you stepped from one world into the next – and among those, my tendency to seize up whenever someone looked at me funny.

Why would I need to get out of here anyway? I had everything I could hope for, and Madama Kishirra even visited. Why would I need to get out of here alone and... talk to people?

I was not good at that!

They were probably going to think I was strange, especially when I didn’t get the right words or I didn’t know when to laugh and when to stop.

I hadn’t learned how to deal with people in my former life – how could I think that was going to change in my new one?

“I could deal with the garden while you go,” I proposed, giving her the notes in the right order. “You are better than me at this and you were probably going to get a lower price!”

“Dear... you have to learn how to deal with people, and that means getting out of there and talk with someone. A merchant is not going to care about you, only the silver you traded him for his wares. I could come with you if you wanted, to ease you into it.” She set her hand over my shoulder, as she always did when she was trying to push me towards something.

“I am fine like this. Really. Can we move on? I need to start working on this for Madama Kishirra. I promised her we would manage to do this in three days.”

“Three days, and without any increase in price,” Mom bit the side of her mouth and shook her head. “You do take after your father.”

+++

There was a spot on the shores of the Mar da Candèa where you could still see the tall chimneys of the workshop that belonged to the Delebasse family. They shot against the blue sky like streaks of ink, puffing just a few thin ribbons of white smoke, but they stood out from the myriad of red terracotta roofs and white walls of Bùrian.

It was a large town, or more kindly a small city, sleepy on the shores of the vast lake, the line of houses and ancient walls interrupted by the wide wind-mills, their rust-colored sails made out of knitted reeds, and the very same reeds growing all about the marshy beaches that gently carried to the inner freshwater sea.

One of those places that you might have seen in a painting.

But on the dark hills just a few hours away from there, where grass grew white and withered and rocks stuck out of the murky land like bones, large holes opened on the slopes. As afternoon crept into evening and the wide planetary ring glowed brighter, pale fingers and pale arms would sneak out of those holes. Beady eyes, smooth like blind marbles would look at the disappearing sun, waiting for the time to come out and strike.

Then the rest of the body would follow: a gangly creature, taller than a human and gaunt, filled only with the unceasing hunger that prompted it to sneak between the mangy willows towards the heat and the clamour of the unsuspecting town.

It had been a long time since they had come this close to the outskirts of Bùrian, long enough for the threat they posed to disappear into legend and to become little more than myth, or a frightening story to send kids off to bed.

Now those same stories slithered through the rocks and over gravel, and their heavy breaths echoed between the quiet hills. The one in front, a large and heavy creature, raised its face to sniff the night. It did not perceive any threat, and the hunger and the Will that lead it pushed it forward.

Fast-faster, down the hills and towards the water, swim-floating through the dark waters and then up on the walls with their hands like hooks, and then in, where people lived, with their warm blood and their soft flesh and crunchy bones. An emptiness ached inside the thing’s stomach, and it pulled back its lips, showing a row of thin and protruding teeth, used to hunting for fish in deep dark ponds where the light of the Sun did not reach, but made to grind and tear another kind of flesh.

Now, that one and the other behind it would soon reach the shore and then they could commence their feast. An old hunger would be abated and the days of plenty would begin. A night to celebrate all nights!

With that thought rattling behind their beady eyes, the thing licked its teeth and crawled a little swifter, leaving behind itself a faint trail of powder where the chalky dust of its body raked against the rocks and the gravel, but it did not care.

It would fill its empty belly.

Or at least, that’s what might happen – but someone jumped right over its back, a keen poleaxe in her hand, and nailed the thing’s round head with its hammer end, crunching the chalky skull into a burst of powder and goo.

The body seized and stopped moving, while those behind it hesitated, raising on their hind legs to face the intruder.

Madama Kishirra, Prode d’Ansàrra, stood over the thing’s body and pulled back her weapon with a wet squelch, groaning at the pain that flared on her side.

“Ow. Is asking for some rest too much around here?”