Much to Lou’s surprise, he had made it to the barn, was given a flat head shovel, a spade, and a hoe, and during that time, Patrick’s sons had all ambled away to return to their chores.

All save for Oliver who waited by the barn doors with his shoulder pressed against the frame and his arms crossed.

As Lou handed Patrick his coppers, the man jangled them together in his palm while staring appraisingly down at the monk.

“You know, we aren’t the type to start feuds, Brother Lou, but if someone were to choose to make us enemies, they’ll find no peace until the day they’re lowered in the ground and Zeviras judges their soul.”

“I can tell your family is the peaceful type.”

Lou clamped his mouth shut. He hadn’t meant to say that sarcastic barb out loud… it must have been because of his nerves…

Oliver gave a snort behind him while Patrick’s expression darkened.

“Mr. Kelly, I mean no offense, but this is the second ‘warning’ I have been privy to from your family in less than a day. What is it you think I’m going to be doing that has you so upset?” Lou decided he may as well be candid.

“Oxby was a farming town. We looked after our own, and what little we had, we all shared,” Patrick began after sharing a brief look with his son. “Then, the war had us dealing with both armies stomping through our fields, chasing after our wives an’ daughters… an’ now, they have a base here. Now they bring the big city people with ‘em, and we have been swindled, scorned, pushed out of our town. They’re devils, an’ us Kelly’s are saying enough’s enough. We aren’t going to let them have their way.”

Lou listened intently. Patrick Kelly’s calm yet impassioned speech captivated his attention completely.

“An’ you being here means we might now have to wage war on the holy institution if you choose to side with these newdies.”

Lou blinked. Had he misheard?

“Sorry, Mr. Kelly, the new… what was it?”

“The newdies. New devils. Newdies for short.”

Lou looked over his shoulder toward Oliver, who remained perfectly serious.

“Mr. Kelly do you… happen to know what the word ‘nude’ is?”

“I said they’re called newdies not nude, an’ I told you what it means. So are we going to have a problem, Brother Lou? Or will you stay out of the Kelly way?”

Lou opened and closed his mouth. He knew he should probably let the whole ‘newdies’ bit slide… but… as always, he got hung up on the unimportant things…

“Mr. Kelly, I just- before I address your question, I need to explain to you that the word ‘nude’ means naked, and the term ‘nudie’ is a crass term for an illicit drawing. Now, with regards to your-”

Patrick seized the monk by the front of his robes. “Are you condescending to me?”

Fire roared through Lou’s veins, but he fought it back with all his might, and swallowed slowly.

“Mr. Kelly, I just wondered if you knew what it meant. And you were missing the word ‘being’. ‘Am I being condescending’. As for whether or not I-”

Lou didn’t get to finish his sentence before Patrick half dropped, half shoved him away.

“Get off my land. You’re just like the rest of them.”

Cringing and rubbing his forehead, the monk tried again. “Mr. Kelly, my apologies. I can see how it’s a term that isn’t widely known, but just wanted you to-”

“GET OUT!” Patrick boomed, before he turned his back on the monk and stormed from the barn.

Lou raised a hand and tried to think how he could appeal to such a prideful man, but drew a blank.

Pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh, the sensation of his hairs once again standing on edge appeared yet again.

“Mr. Oliver Kelly, are you standing right behind me for any particular reason?”

“I’m here to help you get off our land,” the growl that emitted from the man told Lou that Oliver must have been standing less than a foot from him.

The monk sighed while turning to face the eldest Kelly son. “I did not mean to insult your father. I only meant to help him express himself more clearly.”

“We don’t need your help. You’ve made it clear what side you stand on.”

Lou gaped. “W-What?! I never gave an answer, how in the world did you come to that conclusion?!”

Oliver scowled down at him.

The monk’s incredulous expression fell flat. “Do you know what ‘conclusion’ means?”

He should have been expecting the fist that collided with the side of his head.

It knocked him over onto the rough barn floor, skinning his wrist and knocking the side of his head sharply.

“Get off our land.”

Oliver stalked out of the barn, his boots thundering on the boards while one of the horses in the barn whickered as though he were laughing.

“For… the love… of the GODS!” Lou shouted while sitting up with a wince.

When he opened his eyes however, he found himself glowing. The light was the color of honey, and was emanating softly from his skin.

“Shit! No, no, no! No! I’m not upset! No!” Lou hastily clasped his hands together, and bowed his aching head to the dusty hay strewn floor. “Zeviras, I promise, I do not need a power of Reckish, please, please. I understand I did not handle the interaction with one of your people well! I was not patient enough. I should have been kinder…”

Lou inhaled deeply, and did his best to temper the racing in his heart. He didn’t know how long he spent kneeling on the Kelly’s barn floor, but when he eventually cracked a wary eye open, was relieved to see the glow on his skin had disappeared.

Letting out a sigh of relief, and resisting the warm tears in his eyes from welling any further, he rose to his feet and dusted his robe off.

“Well… might as well go try to buy some seeds for the garden.”

Lou left the Kelly family’s barn late that morning, his knees still trembling as he walked.

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Despite his unsteadiness, he managed to climb into the driver bench of his cart, picked up his reins, and set the cart gliding back over the field they had first crossed. While he knew he should’ve walked his steed over the hills to be safe, he wasn’t certain he could make it back to the road without half collapsing, and he didn’t want to give any of the Kelly men a reason to come back and risk having a new power from Reckish emerge.

He made his way through the town in a daze, and didn’t even notice the countless stares and whispers as he passed the townspeople as they began their days under clear blue skies.

Absentmindedly, Lou pulled up to one of the shop windows that displayed a colorful assortment of flowers with the prices neatly scrawled out on slates. He had spotted the shop earlier that morning on his way to the blacksmith, and guessed it sold seeds and other plants.

Lou hoped he was right, as the ache in his head and agitation in his heart grew worse.

After tying his pony to the post out front, he opened the emerald green door, sending a small brass bell above jingling brightly.

Closing the door quietly behind himself, Lou peered around at the white shelves filled with potted flowers and pottery figures of rabbits and… more rabbits.

In fact, there was an astonishing number of the crafted critters… It was as though one set of the rabbits had been left to their own devices and bred more and more…

Lou found himself investigating the figurines more closely. Some of the rabbits were sleeping and could fit in the palm of your hand, some were standing beside red capped mushrooms with white spots that came up to his knees, and some wore hats and bonnets that could fit in a child’s pocket…

He stopped and he stared at two rabbits that sat nose to nose with their eyes closed. One with brown floppy ears, and the other with black ears and nose.

Lou smiled.

He didn’t know why, but there was a pureness to the whimsical creations that eased the chaos in his being, and of course the quiet cool shop that smelled of wet soil and fresh blooms only enhanced this feeling.

“Oh, hello! Sorry, we haven’t quite opened yet, so I hadn’t heard you come in!”

Lou, startled from his moment of peace, looked up to see a woman with dark skin, and poofy curly hair appear from a curtained doorway that led to the back of the shop, a smile already touching her lips as she dried her hands on a towel.

“Ah, yes, I’m here to purchase some seeds. I know I’m late in the season, but I’m only looking for some spinach or kale.”

“Of course!”

The woman wasted no time making her way around the counter, her dark yellow skirts swishing about her ankles. She strode over to a basket that sat innocuously on an old chair wedged between the counter and a set of shelves. After rifling through for a few moments, she plucked up two brown envelopes, and with her heels scraping the fresh floorboards, made her way back behind the counter.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but… you’re the new monk, aren’t you?” she asked, her smile widening.

Lou bowed his head in acknowledgment. “Please call me Brother Lou.”

“Divine to meet you, Brother Lou! I’m Mary Wicks! I run this plant and seed store, and my husband, he’s in the army, you see.”

Lou nodded along to her explanation. “Is it you that made these figurines, Mrs. Wicks?” he turned to look again at the rabbits he had been marveling.

“Oh, no… I wish I could. Darling things they are, but it’s actually one of the old residents who brings those to us. Benny is his name,” Mary explained, her brown eyes twinkling.

At hearing the reference of the old residents, Lou carefully clasped his hands behind his back and turned to address the shopkeeper while hoping to appear casual.

“Ah, yes. The divide between the old and new residents has been mentioned to me.”

Mary winced briefly before busying herself tallying his total.

“You’ve heard already have you? Real pity that we all can’t get along… Though a word of advice, be careful around the Kelly family. They are the worst of the bunch.”

If only we had met sooner… Lou mused irritably to himself.

“Are all the old residents of a… prickly nature?” he asked instead while sidling closer to the counter.

“Most of them are. Benny’s an exception though. Everyone loves Benny,” she explained with her bright smile returning.

Lou nodded while glancing around the shop. “I think I’d like to meet this young man. I’ll be interested to hear what he has to say as someone who is well liked by both the new and old residents in town.”

He then proceeded to place two coppers on the counter.

Mary Wicks smiled. “I think that’s a fantastic idea, Brother Lou! Honestly, no one can say a bad word about Benny. Not even the nasty Kelly’s.”

Lou picked up the crinkled envelopes with his seeds with a smile, and bobbed his head to the shopkeeper. “Thank you for your help today, Mrs. Wicks. I look forward to seeing you at the first mass.”

“My husband and son will be there, Brother. You have my word! Oh, and to find Benny, you just have to visit the sheep farm to the west of Oxby. It’s the cottage with all the dandelions. Benny loves them, so they never bother to weed the field.”

Lou smiled in thanks and wordlessly turned to take his leave.

By the time he stepped out onto the sunny street of Oxby, he felt his spirits buoyed thanks to his time in the shop.

Somehow, he had been reminded that he was in control of his destiny.

It was his choice how things went. He would ignore his calling as Reckish’s priest, and when the year was up… perhaps if he created a respectable following in Oxby, they wouldn’t exile him from the temple. Perhaps they would simply make him an abbott, and that horrible feeling like he was about to unleash some power upon the world that was beyond his comprehension, would disappear. In time.

Once again comfortable in the driver seat of his cart, Lou turned his pony to head back to his new home.

Things would be alright, one way or another. He simply had to have faith in himself and… perhaps avoid the Kelly family for a little while.

While this surge of reassurance and confidence set the monk humming the cheery tune that had been in his head since waking up that morning, he failed to notice how despite Oliver Kelly’s punch to his face that sent him to the barn floor… there wasn’t a mark of the blow anywhere on his person. Not even a blueberry sized bruise…

In the heavens above, Reckish cackled.

He couldn’t wait to once again visit his chosen priest in his dreams to herald the good news.

A new divine power had been released.