The rest of the day Katie spent at the market selling a few of her soaps, not as many as she expected, but she was not concerned. A few asked after her to make sure she is ok seeing the bruises on her face, she lied saying she fell while picking flowers, and others left her at that. She picked up food for the week and went back to the Mr. Soper’s to make dinner. That night she showed Mr. Soper the work on the soaps she had done they were set off to the side curing. “These are good work,” but he was not looking at her like he would normally, she could tell something was off, but wanted to wait until after dinner, to find out why. Dinner was a stew something that was put on in the morning and allowed to cook all day long. Since she was at the market she had had spent extra on a pie from the market, the scent of warm apple pie could not keep her away. Dinner was a quiet affair more so then normal but she did not want to lose her appetite having not eaten well in the last few days she did not want to waste the food.

After diner was done, she gathered the dishes to clean them when Mr. Soper stopped her.

“Katie,” Mr. Soper said, “we need to talk the dishes can wait.”

Swallowing hard she sat back down.

Mr. Soper left the room briefly and came back with a jug of hard cider, and two earthenware mugs. He poured two hefty glasses of the cider, sliding one to her.

“Katie, the day after…well you know,” Katie flinched when he started.

“I had a visitor to the shop, someone asking for a person that looked like you, he claimed that you were an escaped criminal, he said any that saw you should not offer aid or succor, anyone finding to do so will be considered an accomplice. I know you have done nothing wrong, you have been here for years, apparently, he went to every shop in town sharing the same story, I told the man nothing, he had a look that he would not accept anything that contradicted his story, he told us if we saw anyone that looked like you to send them to the capital to the temple of Inanna, with all haste. The butcher’s son, Frank tried to stand up for you he was in the center of town coming back from a delivery and he was cut down for lying in the middle of the town, the man watched him bleed out after he died, he was just left there, the man said it was a message ‘the girl’ needs to go to the capital, the man left after that. I-I helped carry Franks body to the edge of town, along with his brother Justin, we saw him buried by the old oak tree. You always welcome to stay here, but after that no one bought any soap that day or any day after that. I have some savings from the soaps that I have made, but the field is destroyed it will take years to come back, I can go into the mountains, a few days a way that hidden nook that I showed you with some of the rarer plants, that I sell to the nobility.

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“I will go back to the fields tomorrow, Mr. Soper,” Kaite said.

Mr. Soper shaking his head said “No, its Ok I am going into the fields, you continue to make the soap, and call me Scott, we have been apprentice/ Master for three years now, I think it’s time.”

“But Why that was my job.”

Sighing, “I did not want to tell you this, you knew that field was trashed that day, but I go there every day and it’s not getting better someone is undoing my work and making the field worse, I have other areas to get my flowers.”

“Yes, the mountains and the nook, but you said those need to be left alone so they can keep coming back.”

“Its fine we have a stock of soaps I have that trader that will be coming by in a few days and I can sell him the excess he has been asking for more soap from me for the last year. We will be fine.”

They stayed silent after that, both lost in their own thoughts. Shortly after dinner, Katie was thinking about her day and how she had said things to the witch she never would have said before, and volunteered to go back to the field she never wanted to set foot in it again, but now the thought of going back into the field sent chills down her spine. That tea the witch gave me, it must have done sometime to me, Katie thought. Then she remembered the potion that she was given, take before bed, or not and come learn from me. Not now she needed to think things over she needed to sleep on what she was going to do.