"Still nothing?" Hailee asked, looking over my shoulder at my blank page.

"Still nothing," I said, putting it away. Two and a half weeks after seeing the grey giant in action and three weeks since I'd woken up in the forest, I still hadn't gained a single memory from the previous owner of my body.

I preferred it that way. I didn't know if regaining memories would overwrite my personality and I was fine not learning the answer to that through first hand experience.

There were other pursuits I had, however, where I didn’t find ‘still nothing’ quite so satisfactory an answer. Talking to Mr. Edward was fun and since he had managed projects for the baron in the past he had plenty of useful information about outside the barony and trade that I wouldn't usually get from a commoner around here. That being said, talking to him after our first meeting hadn't brought me any closer to finding magic or figuring out if I was a Teller or not.

Then there were those beans I'd gotten on the first day. Yeah, those were duds. They hadn’t even sprouted three days after I’d planted them, which is fine for normal beans, but quite disappointing for the kind you hope would grow into a skyscraper. Which is why I decided to pour some giant’s blood on them.

I’d noticed the grass around where the puddles had been was growing way faster than the grass for the rest of the yard, so I thought it might work as a magic fertilizer. It worked, just not good for what I was looking for. The beanstalks were sprouting by the end of the day and were surprisingly tall for the next day, but they just weren't growing at a good enough pace for magic beanstalks.

When the beanstalks bore fruit a couple days later, I decided to give them a try. Risking the food poisoning that might come along with that didn’t give me giant’s strength, unfortunately. The beans just tasted better than they usually would have. And no, they weren’t good enough to be wasting anymore giant's blood on culinary endeavors.

"Hopefully, the healer will be able to do something about that," Hailee said.

"Hopefully," I repeated. Hailee and her family were going to visit Ben and Matthew in Dearing and Agatha and I decided to tag along to visit a healer. Like I said, I wasn't interested in risking losing myself, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to put on a show.

Besides, I doubted there was any chance of a healer around here even being able to do anything for me. Mr. Edward already confirmed through our lessons up to this point that there wasn't much left for magic this far beyond the border after the giants and fey left the kingdom—excluding relics like the miracle bells, of course. Relics and magic for memory restoration were probably being hoarded away by the nobles. Which meant that a healer probably couldn't do anything about my memory and even more importantly, couldn’t tell whether or not I had any relation to the fey.

There was very much a chance of them giving me something that would poison me, however, and I had no plans on taking anything they wouldn't tell me the ingredients of. Agatha even asked me if I was sure I wanted to give the healer a visit. I think Agatha was worried that they might make my memory problems even worse.

Anyways, the trip to Dearing went just about how I expected it to go. Agatha and I went to the healer and they gave me some potion for old folks experiencing memory problems. It smelled like blueberries.

We paid the local alchemist a visit after that to see what he could do with the giant’s blood, but he didn't even know how to make bottled fire from it, let alone anything else useful from it. "The kinds of products you can make from magical ingredients and their formulas are secrets well guarded," he said. We thanked him for his time, then went on our way to meet Henry's family at the market.

"So, how'd it go?" Ben asked when we found them. Surprisingly, it was him and Matthew who were hoping for the most out of my visit to the healer. Agatha had already given up. After three weeks and no memories regained, she just settled on teaching me what I needed to know at this point.

That wasn’t the case for the twins, however. It was probably because they still hadn't spent enough time with me yet, but they were confident that there was still something that could be done about my condition.

"Don't worry," Ben said, "If that potion doesn't work, we've already got a backup plan for when we come to visit next month."

“Hopefully, it works,” I said. We spent some time with the twins and their family after that, before heading back to the hamlet. Once we arrived, I uncorked the potion the healer gave to me and poured it out onto our lawn.

A month later, like they said they would, the twins came around for a visit when they were given a couple days off in row. While they were here, they dedicated a good chunk of their time to helping me regain my memories. And what better way to do it other than doing the things that we used to do when we were young: shooting bows, throwing axes, setting up rope swings, and climbing trees.

“Come on, Jack,” Ben said as we raised up trees, “We’ve gotta get you into beanstalk climbing shape.” Once Ben rached the top of his tree, Matthew and I stopped where we were.

“You remember this?” Ben asked, smiling as he stood atop the highest branch of a tree.

“I don’t think so,” I said, taking a seat on my own.

“That’s because you were usually the one looking down on him,” Matthew said, sitting on a branch lower than his brother’s, but higher than mine.

“He was looking down on you too, Matt,” Ben said.

“Yeah, that’s true, but I’m not the one trying to change the story and put myself up at the top.”

“You guys, I thought we were supposed to be taking my recovery seriously,” I said with a smile.

“Yeah, Ben,” Matthew said, laying the blame fully on his brother.

In response, Ben played the victim. “Hailee, help me,” he said.

“Give me a sec,” Hailee replied. She was still climbing up my tree.

I gave her my hand, then helped pull her up onto my branch. Once she had herself comfortably seated, she immediately got to helping her brother. “You’re supposed to be helping Jack, Ben, not yourself,” she said. Yes, she was helping her brother gain some clarity.

Ben was taken aback. “You can’t say that to me, I practically raised you.”

“You practically raised me?”

“Yeah.”

She sighed. “Now, I’m starting to get worried about your memory too,” Hailee said and we all shared a good laugh at that.

“Make sure you’re careful, Hailee,” Matthew said, once the laughter had died down. “Mom will kill us if you fall.”

“I think she’d kill you if she found out that you even let me climb up this high in the first place.”

“That’s true,” Matthew agreed.

“So what is it then?” Ben asked with a grin. “You trying to get us in trouble climbing up this high, huh, Sis?”

“I just want to hang out with my brothers who barely come home anymore,” Hailee said, starting to kick her legs back and forth. “It’s been boring around here ever since you guys went and got those guard jobs.”

“Well look,” Ben said, “You’re hanging out with Jack all the time now, so it can’t be that bad.”

Hailee showed me a smile real quick, then turned her head away and said, “I guess.”

Instead of the one week she was supposed to originally stay with us, Agatha and Joyce agreed to have Hailee stay with us until the fall harvest. She was cool to hang out with and Agatha was dealing with her grief better with her around so I was more than happy to have her.

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With that said, however, Hailee was dealing with her own grief involving the incident with the giant. At fourteen going on fifteen, she and Jack's brother Andrew had been agemates. It was obvious that losing him hurt her more than the rest.

The first time I saw her looking off into the distance at nothing, I asked her if she was okay. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just thinking about something.”

I’d seen her get like that more than a few times by this point, but I never asked her what that something was. If she was reminiscing about the past, then I’m sure that me bringing her back to the present with the fact I couldn’t remember any of it wasn’t going to help.

It was frustrating not being able to say anything when she got like that. I could help Agatha, but I couldn’t really do anything for her. That summer, not being able to help her was one of the least of my worries, though.

“Oh, Matthew,” Ben said, “Remember what we were supposed to tell Jack?” He turned to me. “You need to be careful the next time you go to town.”

“”Why’s that?” I asked.

“Thanks to all the trouble those giants have been causing around here, the king’s army has started recruiting people in town, Jack or not,” Matthew explained. “Julian said that things have to be really serious for them to be doing that.”

“Serious enough for them to be looking for Jacks who’ve been avoiding the king’s decree,” Ben added.

“Which is why you need to make sure you aren’t doing anything suspicious the next time you visit us or go to the market,” Matthew said.

That’s right even if I didn’t have to worry about the giants returning, I was still a draft dodger. I considered the fact to be a ticking time bomb. It wasn’t the kind of thing you include in a story, unless it’s going to be relevant. My best guess was that I’d eventually be picked up by the army and sent on a suicide mission if I tried to live the simple life out here with Old Jack’s friends for too long.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Thanks for the heads up.”

The four of us spent the rest of the day messing around after that. Unsurprisingly, we ended up making no progress on actually restoring my memories, but looking back on it, it felt like the day’s goal was more to make some good new ones.

The next day, the twins were back off to their guard jobs in the town over and it was time for me to get back to work. As she did from time to time, Agatha left the house in Hailee’s care and decided to come with me into the woods. She’d often take Hailee with her and do most of the day's chores in the hamlet too if she could. Considering what had happened, I couldn’t blame her for wanting to stay away from the house.

“What do you think of Hailee?” Agatha asked as I chopped away at a tree. She caught me off guard with that one.

Thunk! “You’d know more about that than me,” I said. At least she would have known what old Jack thought of Hailee.

“Feelings change,” she said.

Thunk! “She’s a good friend. I like having her around.” Thunk! “Is that much of a change?”

“I guess not,” she said.

“Back to what we were talking about,” Thunk! “The war is supposed to be happening east past the mountains right?”

“Yes, and if you get caught by the army that’s where they’ll be sending you so—”

“So don’t get caught, Mom.” Thunk! “I still remember.”

“It’ll be wise of you to keep remembering.”

Yeah, yeah, I thought. “Anyways, what’s a mountain?” I asked. Asking people things they knew existed, but had never seen tended to produce interesting answers around here.

“Huh...” Agatha took a second to think. “Turn around,” she asked and I did. “Imagine a rock and then imagine it shaped like an arrow, except the sides aren’t so smooth.” She traced a triangle in the air with her fingers.

“Okay.”

“Now imagine that rock being so big it could touch the sky.”

I leaned on my axe and said, “That’s pretty hard to imagine.”

“Well, it’s hard for me to imagine it too,” she admitted, “But they’re supposed to be the bones of the world sticking out, so it makes sense for them to be that big.”

Hearing that got a grin out of me. Responses like that were why asking these sorts of questions were becoming a pastime for me. Usually the answer would be normally, but from time to time, I’d hear Mo— Agatha and the others say some crazy world lore like that. “Have you ever seen one before?” I asked.

Agatha shook her head. “No, but the ones that split this half of the kingdom from the east are supposed to be a part of the world’s backbone. That’s why they call it the Spine of the World.”

I was getting a little excited after hearing that. “That definitely makes me want to see them.”

“Well, that part of you hasn’t changed,” she said.

“So, how far away are they?”

“Far farther than I’ve ever been.”

The same with everywhere else, I thought. It was the answer for most of the places I had asked her about. What usually followed after was something along the lines of, “I shouldn’t be trying to go that far away, in the first place.”

With a sigh, I picked up my axe and turned back around to start on the tree again.

“I don’t see the point in you asking about all these far off places. Unless you’re planning to leave your poor, old mother behind.”

Thunk! It’s a bit much to be calling yourself old mother at thirty-three, I thought. Thunk! Wait, what did she just say?

I turned back around. "You think I'd leave you behind?"

"Well, I didn't have much faith that you wouldn't before you lost your memory,” she said. “You asking all these questions about far off places, isn’t making me feel confident that you’ll stay now either."

“Heh,” I turned back to the tree. Rather than trying to leave her behind, I was trying to find out where we stood in the world before it caught me unaware.

Thunk! "This is it!" I shouted when the tree I was chopping away at made a cracking sound. before We put some distance between us and it came down with a shriek. I could feel the shockwave through my feet as it slammed against the ground. It was a feeling other Jack had loved.

"Not bad?" I asked Agatha with a smile.

She shrugged. "You'd have to ask your father."

“Speaking of Dad,” I said, still feeling off calling Grant that. I’d been calling Agatha Mom for almost two months now, so the awkwardness was gone with that one at least. “Why did you and him name me Jack?”

"Your father was the one who decided we should name you Jack. I wanted you to have your brother's name."

"Well then, why did Dad name me Jack?"

"Because he wanted to name you after the king. I told him we shouldn’t do it because it would go to your head..." She paused.

"Did—"

"It did,” she continued. "Honestly, I could have sworn you thought you were some kind of hero before all of this happened. That's how you ended up getting yourself kicked by that giant, after all."

"From the way you told the story, you made it sound like that was just bad luck." And that would definitely be ironic if my Luck with Giants was inherited from him.

She shook her head. "It wasn't bad luck that had you standing behind that giant while everyone else was running and it wasn’t bad luck that sent you riding back into that forest with Ben and Matthew so one of those giants could get a chance to kick you again. You’ve always been acting like you’re too special to get hurt and you’re still doing it now."

"Well, I didn’t end up hurt after the giant kicked me,” I said, “So I guess we could say that I was right about that.”

"Oh?" Agatha raised her voice. "And you'd call losing your memories not getting hurt? You barely even remembered your own siblings’ names, Jack."

"Right,” I put my hands up to surrender, “Sorry, sorry."

Agatha sighed. "I wish you had remembered your sense before you had remembered how to be difficult."

I shrugged, then started back over to the tree to delimb it. "Well, at least I'm remembering something," I said.

That got her taking a softer tone. "Look, I'm sorry. I just—"

Thunk! "I know," I said. She didn’t need to tell me. It didn’t take two months and some Minor Cunning to tell that Agatha was a good person. It’s just that she’d been hurt was all. Thunk! And just as I had been sure at that first funeral, I was still as sure now; I wanted to support Agatha for as long as she needed me.

Thunk! “Anyways,” I said, “When’s the count going to come around to pay for all this work that I’ve been doing for him?”

“He should be paying us a visit a little earlier than the summer’s end.”

“Great,” Thunk! “So more than a month of back breaking labor left until we get paid.”

“You’ll still be breaking your back after he’s come and gone too if that makes you feel any better.”

“It doesn't,” I smiled, “But thanks Mom.”

“I try my best,” she said. And yeah, I’d try my best for her too.

'Part 1: Adjustment' Ends