"Since me and Atraeya went east last time, we can go west. She still doesn't know the area that well," Poe said. That worked for Atraeya, since it was true, and she really only knew Poe. He was easier to talk to, and knew how to look for food. The rest of the kids determined their group and split up. This time, she paid attention to whatever Poe pointed out. She would commit it to memory, of all the food she could find in the forest. Chestnuts, leeks, spinach, various berries, celery, asparagus. Poe tried to point out a few mushrooms, but she couldn't wrap her head around them.

Eventually her brain had overloaded with too much information and she began to look for her stick. She picked up various kinds with all kinds of thickness. For writing, it was best to get find one that could provide as much writing room as possible. But she had never written before so how much space was actually needed?

"Don't tell me you're looking for another stick…" Poe mumbled.

"It's for your mom, so she can carve her name in it."

"Why are you so interested in writing?"

"If I can learn to write, I can learn to read. Then I can read the book."

Poe groaned, as if his complaints were obvious to everyone but her. "But it's just a book! If it was actually important then someone would just tell people the important bits."

Atraeya paused. That was true. But she couldn't tell him that the only person who could read its contents to her had been run out of the village. "Well… I won't know how important it is unless I read."

Poe only sighed. But he must have been curious too, because he helped her find a good enough stick. By the time they found one, the sun had past it's peak for a couple of hours. She wanted to go home now. She already got everything she needed, but the other kids weren't done yet. Poe and her sat around the logs, where Poe tried to teach her about when these foods were available and how often she should pick them. It went in one ear and out the other.

Once everyone gathered, they huddled up and exchanged all kinds of foods. Atraeya ended with with a batch of fresh strawberries. She couldn't wait to share them with gramps.

By the time the sun was low in the sky, not quite sunset but almost, most of the younger kids were yawning, after forcibly woken up so early in the morning. They made it back early this time. When she spotted Mira, she ran up to her, and showed her the stick. "You can carve your name in this!" Atraeya proudly smiled.

Mira was a little shocked at first, but eventually recovered enough to smile. "Alright, come on in," she said. The both of them bounced inside, Atraeya a little more excited than Poe. They hastily set down their baskets, and ran to the table. "Poe, go get the carving knife inside the storage."

She waited patiently as everything got set up. Once Mira began to carve out the letters, her eyes squinted and she watched with bated breath as letters formed into words. How the lines and curves were made. Her eyes were entirely glued to the branch. It was only when Mira was done did clock that something was off. "Mira" seemed like something simple to spell, but when it was written down it seemed much longer. Her faced got all scrunched up as she thought it over, staring at the letters. She didn't know how to read, but something is clearly off.

Laughter broke her concentration, and she looked up to see Mira with a wide grin. "Mira of Verdantvale. That was how I was taught to sign my name."

Atraeya's eyes sparkled like the night sky. She had gained more than she bargained for. So there were three words, not just one! She looked back down at the bark, and could now see spaces in between some of the letters. Three words. More letters for her to learn than she thought she would get. Her finger pointed at the first one. "This says Mira?" When she got a nod and an affirmative tone of voice, her finger drifted to the next word, which was only two letters. "So then this one says of. And this one is Verdantvale."

Mira nodded once more. "My oh my, how smart you are." Pride swelled within her. Really though, she was only guessing.

"But which letters are which sounds? How do I read this?"

Mira shrugged. "I only know those are the letters that make my name. I'm sorry I can't be of more help."

"That's OK." She picked up the branch and her basket. "Thank you, Mira!" she called out as she rushed out the door. Her footsteps pounded against the dirt roads as she ran back to her home, breathless and excited. She burst through the door, startling her grandfather, and dropped the basket on the table.

Now it was time to get to work. Her fingers traced over the letters carved into the bark, mumbling to herself, sounding out each word slowly at first until she figured out where one sound ended and a different one began. It took her an entire hour to figure out how to read "Mira" and by then it was time for dinner. She focused so hard on the letters that she didn't smell the food cooking, nor did she notice gramps had slid a plate in front of her.

"Atraeya!" he called out. She jumped out of her skin and looked around. Gramps sat across from her, as grumpy as he normally was. "Put that stick away and eat your food before it gets cold," he said. She quickly scarfed down her food, not caring what it was, and did the dishes in record time. Atraeya had come to like the studying, now that she knew what the words were. And if she knew what all the letters were, she would know all the words as well.

Next, "of" was rather quick to figure out, but "Verdantvale" was so long, and with such complicated spelling to boot. It baffled her long enough that gramps had to come out of his bedroom some time after going to sleep, that she had not noticed of course, and yelled at her again to stop wasting candles and go to sleep.

The next morning she unintentionally slept in, and after breakfast she got straight to work tending to the field. Some sprouts had come in by now, so she had to make sure they were watered and had enough space to grow. And after she was done with that, the clothes needed to be washed as well. It took her the entire morning, and some of the afternoon to get everything done. At least she didn't have to sweep. Imposing a will was simple. She could probably do it to the dish rag so she would spend less time doing dishes. And once she made a cleaning potion, then the dishes could would be done in no time.

Atraeya grabbed a clean dish rag, and laid it flat on the table. Her wand was still tucked under her bed, from when she hastily stashed it yesterday morning. She reached for it, but just before lifting the bed, she looked around. There was no one here, of course. So she grabbed hold of the wand, holding it close to her body like it was some dirty secret. She stared at the broken window, double checking no one was peeking in, before she finally relaxed a little to perform her magic.

With a deep breath, she placed one hand on the rag, and the pointed end of the wand in the center. She closed her eyes, and searched inward for the mana in herself. For all of the channels that moved her mana throughout her body, and focused them all to move toward her hand. It warmed a bit, and she forced it out through the wand, onto the dish rag, as she thought of all the ways a dish rag would need to behave.

An hour later, she could feel the dish rag was now filled with her mana. It couldn't take much, apparently. She cut off the mana, willing it to start moving. But nothing happened. Maybe it needed dishes, and there weren't any to clean. At least she didn't feel as drained as when she did the broom.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

At long last, all her tasks were done and she can continue with learning to read. She glanced at her stick. Mira of Verdantvale. Would that be enough letters to read the book? Atraeya bit her lip, and glanced at her bed. The book laid under it. It was worth a shot, at least. She dragged it out, and flipped open to a random page. "_otion… potion? Potion of… _leep? Does it make the drinker jump high? What's that letter?" She figured she would get nowhere with pondering it's usage when she could look at the ingredients. "_eat_er_, popp_ _ee_ _"

Atraeya scrunched her eyebrows together in thought. It made no sense. There was no use going through the rest of the ingredients list when she could barely understand the first two. She needed more letters. She sighed, and shoved the book back under her bed. Maybe she could find more folks who could sign their name. She grabbed her stick, and a carving knife. But when she opened the door, dusk was setting and gramps was hobbling through the yard. It was too late to go anywhere.

"Where are you going?" Gramps asked.

"No where, apparently," she mumbled.

"Come help me make dinner." In his free hand, he held a basket of groceries. Bread, vegetables, various grains. Not much variety, but that's where the basket of forest forageables came in. As they got to preparing, her thoughts drifted back to the words. If she wanted to learn more letters, she would need to find more people who knew how to sign their name. Would gramps know? Old people know everything.

"Gramps, is there anyone in the village who knows how to sign their name? Besides Mira."

Gramps hummed at the question. His knife scraped against board as he cut up some vegetables. "Hmmm. Well, there's the Lady. But you can't ask her…" Atraeya would never. "There's Bali, down the road past Mira's house, and his wife Jess. They're out all the time so you'd have better luck catching them out an about. And of course our Chief would know how to sign her name. She might know a few letters too, but I don't think it would be right to ask her either. Hmmmm Devra should also know how to spell her name…"

Atraeya desperately tried to remember all of those people gramps began to list off. She asked what they looked like and how to find them.

The next day, she set off early, with her branch in one hand a carving knife in the other. Well, the carving knife was carefully holstered in her pocket so it wouldn't stab her. The first person she found was Devra, tending to her garden. It seemed to have more flowers than food. Her face was weathered from years in the sun, and small streaks of gray ran through her hair. Her clothes were old, and patched up in many places. "Um… Good morning. Are you Mrs. Devra?" Atraeya called out.

The women looked up, and after a moment squinted at her. "Oh! You're Elmer's granddaughter!" She laughed and stood up, brushing the dirt from her hands with her apron. How did she recognize her? Her confusion must have been written on her face. "Oh, don't give me that look. You're the gossip of the whole town. A brand new kid comes in all alone, and lives with that grumpy old man who's said nothing about you. Quite mysterious, eh?" She winked, a playful smile wide on her lips.

A little gasp escaped her lips. Atraeya was completely shocked. She thought she was doing a rather good job of hiding who she was but apparently that's the opposite of what she should have been doing. That's why they looked so weird and angry when they smelled the failed potion. She should have been making friends with everyone instead.

When Atraeya didn't answer, Devra continued. "Anyways, what can I do for you, dearie? You didn't come by just say 'Hi,' now did you?"

She held out her stick, which Devra took with a look of confusion. "I'm trying to learn how to read, and gramps told me that you know how to sign your name. Can you write it down so I can learn the letters? Mrs. Mira already signed hers."

"Ah," she said. Devra turned it around until she saw Mira's handwriting. Another smile slowly formed, more sly than the previous one. "And why do you want to learn how to read? If you're gonna live all the way out here you won't need to."

Atraeya definitely couldn't tell her about the book. She decided to go with what Mira had talked about. "I can get a good family if I know how to read."

Now Devra was studying her more closely. Her eyes drifted up and down, scanning for all kinds of information. "I see. I suppose you are at about that age. All right then, you got anything to write with?" Atraeya pulled out her sheathed carving knife and handed it over. As she carved out her name, she continued to speak. "You know, if you really want to learn to read and write so badly, you should just ask Chief Trina. Oh, don't give me that look. You first saw her the other day right? She's not normally that scary, I promise. She's just scared of witches."

That was precisely the problem. No way was she going there. Instead she watched quietly as Devra carved her name right below Mira's. It was much easier to read her handwriting than Mira's or the book's handwriting. Once Devra was done, she flipped it over to her and smiled. There it was. More letters. Atraeya smiled back at her. "Thank you!"

"So, who are you off to next? Anyone else know how to spell their name?"

"Gramps said Bali and Jess know."

Devra nodded. "There's also Curie. She lives down the street from here, but she might already be in the fields."

She thanked her again, and left for the farming fields. Indeed, there were already about a dozen people working away. If she knew how to read, they wouldn't need to work so hard. The potions would do most of the work. And if she made them happy, they wouldn't want to run her out of town like they did the last witch. She watched where she stepped, and made her way through the fields to the closest person, asking for Curie.

Eventually she found her. The woman was toiling away at the fields, with part of her skirt hitched on her girdle, away from all the dirt and mud, and her black curly hair pulled into a messy bun. She was hunched over, picking at various things in the dirt. "Excuse me," Atraeya said. The woman glanced at her, then went back to work. "Are you Curie?"

"Who's askin'?"

"I'm Atraeya. I'm Elmer's granddaughter."

"Well, Atraeya, I'm a bit busy. What do you want?"

She held out her branch. "I was told you know how to write your name. Can you please carve it onto my stick?" Curie snorted, but said nothing. After a few moments, Atraeya realized she was ignoring her. She frowned. "Please?"

"I've got better things to do than carve my name in some stick."

"But… I want to learn how to read…" Atraeya seemed to deflate with each passing remark.

"No one wants to learn how to read, kid. Go bother someone else."

Her arms dropped to her side, and she hung her head, completely rejected. Curie didn't waste another word on her, which left her with no choice but to leave. Hopefully, Bali and Jess wouldn't be so rude. She trudged on. The young couple were apparently hunters. If they weren't butchering their catches then they would be out hunting. Following gramps' directions, she eventually found their house a few minutes later. It was a bit quiet, and looked like any old house. One story. Thatched roof. There was a shed off to the side. Maybe that was were they were?

As she inched closer she heard voices. Two of them, a man and a woman. Whispering and giggling. She peeked her head past the entrance way. The two were intertwined with each other, the same way married couples do. "Why are you covered in blood?" she blurted out.

The couple jumped, the woman yelled out in surprise. Their heads snapped to look at her as they pulled themselves apart. "Cause we're in the middle of working. See?" The man pointed to a wild turkey hanging from the ceiling. Or at least, she thought it was a wild turkey. It had been cut up quite a lot by now and it was hard to discern.

"That didn't look like working."

"Wow, I didn't realize the auditor was coming by today. My apologies," the man grinned as he leaned on a desk behind him.

"What's an auditor?"

"Basically someone who makes sure you're doing your job correctly and all your money is in order."

Atraeya nodded like she understood but she didn't. Why would someone need to check that? "Well I'm not here for that. Are you two Bali and Jess?"

"We are. What do you need, little miss?"

"I'm trying to learn how to read, and would like you to carve your name in this branch so I can learn the letters."

"Who told you we can write our names?" Jess asked.

"Gramps." The two glanced at each other, and she figured she said something wrong. She didn't want to get gramps in trouble though. "But it seemed more like a guess when he said it…"

Bali shrugged, and was the first one to hold out his hand. "Alright then. Do you have anything to carve it with?" Once she handed the carving knife over, he was able to carve his name in no time, then handed it over to Jess. She was a little more careful, and time seemed to stretch into an eternity as Atraeya bounced up and down at the idea of new letters to learn.

She grabbed the stick the moment they were done, and suddenly it all clicked once she saw Jess' name. The 's'. It was a Potion of Sleep, and it was asking for poppy seeds. She screamed in delight, holding up the stick far above her head as she did so. Her legs kicked up, and jumped all around on the spot. "I understand now! Thank you!" Atraeya shouted to the couple as she ran back home. They were left in the dust, and no idea what she was on about.