9 : 182 : 18 : 03 : 41

We gather at the breakfast table every morning with our fingers crossed over steaming bowls of thin, watery rye porridge. I’m not entirely sure why.

“May the Divines bless our meal and grant us the strength to do our best this day,” the old man recites, eyes piously closed. “May the mighty Lords protect us from evil and keep us and those we love safe from harm. May we bring glory to the Heavens through our modest deeds.”

“What are divines?” I ask Selia.

“Divines are great spirits that watch over the creation in place of the old gods,” she tells me. “They see all, know all, and wordlessly guide us in our lives with their wisdom.”

She seems to take that for a fact.

“Are these ‘divines’ in the room with us now?” I ask her, unable to fully hide my smile.

“I don’t know! They could be. But we normal people can’t see spirits. They’re invisible to us.”

What a surprise. Hope there are none in the outhouse, or I’m calling Ghostbusters.

But my senses assure me there’s nobody else around, spiritual or material. We’re alone. Always will be.

Done with the prayers, we can finally pick up our spoons. I’m starving.

“If we prayed harder, do you think the mighty Lords could spare us some salt with this slop?”

“Shush! You mustn’t insult the spirits!” the old man reproaches me in an uncharacteristic show of strictness.

Weeks turn to months. I work steadily on my rehabilitation through the spring. Able to stand on my own two feet again, I take longer and longer hikes into the surrounding forest of Felorn, and contribute to our livelihood by picking up dry branches to burn. Not a glorious job, but hey, we all have to start somewhere.

A few times, I go explore the nearby village of Buckinworth, while hiding my unnatural looks under the shawl Selia gifts to me. She tells me it belonged to her late mother. A kind of heavy gift, but I’ve no choice but to take it, seeing as I have no clothes of my own and Gucci doesn’t have a brand store around.

Rather than a village, or even a hamlet, Buckinworth is a shitty little settlement of blackened, rundown shacks huddled together under the trees in a perpetual state of disrepair. A society of xenophobic loonies in their decrepit hovels, almost completely isolated from the rest of the world. When I saw the other villagers in the woods before, I mistook them for goblins.

The locals get by almost exclusively through foraging. Nobody farms or keeps livestock. There are a few calling themselves hunters, but their tools are so old and crappy it’s a miracle they can even feed themselves.

There’s something of a market street going through the village; a trampled, muddy gap between the shacks, where the folk sell their hard bread, wild berries, roots, vegetables, and whatever else they can get their hands on. Nobody has any money. Goods are traded for other goods or favors, firewood being the most popular form of currency.

One trading cart passes between Buckinworth and the next village down yonder to bring in luxury goods such as flour, salt, oil, turnips, and sometimes even a few eggs. But the cart comes by only once a month. Supply is limited and most of the imports used up before the dust has settled.

The old man can sometimes scoop together enough tinder to trade for flour, but seeing how old he is, his income grows thinner by the day, as does the quality of the wares. Wood is something anyone with functional arms can get, so the trade value per stick isn’t too high. Sure, there’s the goat too, but it’s not an endless milk machine and has bad fur, and most of the stuff goes to personal use.

Getting a loaf of moldy bread is behind back-breaking labor.

Not every week is that good.

“How can I make us some quick money?” I ask Selia one day, as I watch her patch her dress on the porch. She’s got the whole of thirteen centimeters of thread left, and has learned to use it efficiently.

“Well, I suppose it depends on what you can do,” she gives me a diplomatic answer.

“What I can do?”

“Yes. For example, the demand is high for carpenters and lumberjacks, seeing as the houses in the village are in such poor shape. But most of the tools we have are rusted and useless by now, so we’d need to get new ones first. Hammers, saws, nails, and so on. But those must be brought from afar and are very, very expensive. It could be cheaper if we had our own blacksmith to make them. But smiths need raw materials to work too. We’d need to buy iron, which is only sold in proper towns. The local trader is old and doesn’t go so far, so we’d need a new, more hardened merchant who can make longer trips. But a merchant needs a horse and a carriage to transport the merchandise. There are no horses left here, and you’d need both a carpenter and a blacksmith to make a good cart. In other words, you’d have to go a long way on foot to buy horses, metal, and tools to start making money. Which we can’t do, since we don’t have any money.”

The explanation is a little hard to follow.

I have a rough idea of what are blacksmith, carpenter, and merchant, but simply knowing the basic job description is probably not enough to actually become one, even if we had what we needed to set up shop.

“Yeah, I can’t do any of that.”

“Do you know how to cook or bake?” Selia asks.

“Nah.”

“Can you read or write?”

“Dunno. Never tried to.”

“Umm…”

Is there nothing even a gal without any unique cheat skills can do?

“I suppose gathering is all there is,” Selia continues. “Summer season is just about to begin. But since picking up things is something anyone can do, you have the whole village to compete with. We’d need to find a harvest ground the others don’t already know, and I don’t think there are any left within walking distance. And the villagers wouldn’t like it if we got in the way of their business. Mrs Rheymar, in particular. She grows berries and onions behind her house and gets angry with anyone trying to trade the same. Hers is probably the wealthiest family in Buckinworth. Mrs Rheymar’s husband has the largest firewood stock too. His sons hike many kilometers every day, starting before daybreak, and gather almost everything in range. They only leave some branches near our house out of pity.”

Are they hardworking, to get so much done every day—or just super lazy, for never trying anything more difficult than picking up sticks? I can’t tell.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we found a new place with tons of juicy berries?” Selia fantasizes, eyes sparkling. “Or maybe mushrooms? We wouldn't even have to sell any. Only having a bit of variety on our table would be plenty. It could be our secret. Our secret place. Ehehe!”

Selia flashes me a guilty smile, for holding such naughty thoughts, and seeing that face makes my body temperature spike.

If there is such a hidden spot, I’m so going to find it. I’ll give it my all!

9 : 153 : 17 : 03 : 43

Summer rolls on and the days get warmer. I’m getting more comfortable with moving in my body, but our ascetic, veggie-heavy diet keeps me from getting too buff. As a result, even the addition of a new worker keeps our budding firewood business largely nonprofit.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

You wouldn’t expect to run out of wood in a forest, but reality is stranger than fiction. All the smaller trees have been mowed down decades ago, leaving only the biggest and toughest. The trunks are stripped bare of branches in arm's reach, and are too wide and plain to climb. You’d need a big saw or a sharp axe to cut one down and, as said, we’ve only got air guitars in stock. Sure, there are always new saplings coming along too, but they’re too small and full of water to burn well. All they do is fill the cabin with smoke and give no heat.

We can only scour the forest floor in search of dried branches the wind shakes loose from the heights. Like we’re a bunch of rats chasing bread crumbs from gods’ table. We cheer and dance whenever a stormy day comes by and a gale rock our hut, because it means a lot of fodder to burn the next day. But everyone else in the village wants to warm up their leaky hovels too, and the grounds are picked clean again in a matter of days.

It becomes clear we’re going to have to broaden our horizons, if we mean to survive.

Selia seems to think the same. She takes me out to the village one morning, to teach me about berries and mushrooms at the market.

Honestly, calling it “market” is false advertising. There’s a grand total of three regular stalls open for business. And two of the three happen to belong to the same household.

We’ve no choice but to learn from the rivals, I guess.

The first stall belongs to Mrs Mahlia Rheymar, the fifty-something matriarch of a family of twelve. She may be the wealthiest woman in town, but is hardly any less filthy and poorly dressed as the rest of them. Money can’t buy what doesn’t exist.

“Good morning, Mrs Rheymar,” Selia greets the older lady.

“What’s that you got there?” Mrs Rheymar ignores her and eyes me with deep suspicion.

She talks about me like I’m a stray cat, or something. My ears are safely hidden under the shawl, though.

“This is Ereia,” Selia introduces me. “She got lost in the woods and is staying with us for the time being.”

Hey, I haven’t approved the name yet. Don’t try to make it go viral!

“Ereia?” The old bag gawps at me and a heavy frown twists her ugly face. The woman is so fat that when she leans over, her stomach rolls onto the table and the berry crates on it. Not everyone in this place is starved, it seems. “What a weird name! She a foreigner? Speak of the devil, I saw her sneak by the other day, eyeing my wares. I didn’t like that look! You had better teach her not to touch other people’s stuff! I catch her stealing even once and I’ll give her a beating she’ll remember for life. Mark my words!”

I told you, the name sucks.

“She wouldn’t do anything of the sort!” Selia defends my honor, putting her hands on my shoulders. “Ereia is a good girl!”

“Good enough to get ditched on beggars’ doorstep! Ha! Well, better yours than mine!”

I wholeheartedly agree.

Selia teaches me the names of the berries on display. Blackcurrant. Gooseberry. Buckthorn. Foxberry. Wild strawberry. It’s a fine selection. They all look so colorful and sweet, I can’t stop drooling.

Aw, I want to be rich so bad…Too bad, rich we’re not.

Soon enough, Mrs Rheymar gets enough of our company and shoos us away.

“Off you go, dear! Bet you have nothing of value to trade today either. Go out there and find your own berries, if you want lectures! It’s about time you and that no good Miller started to put in the real effort, instead of relying on the good will of others! And I have my eye on you, you little vixen!”

Selia responds to the tongue-lashing with a modest bow.

“We’ll do our best. Have a pleasant day.”

We head on to visit the mushroom stall further down the lane.

Mr Reuben Rheymar is hardly any younger or taller than our old guy is. The same brand of short, bent, sun-burned apeman in his colorless rags, what little hair left bleached by living, a sooty cap low on his brow. He’s probably not even sixty yet, but the taxing life in the wild has made him look closer to eighty.

I’ve noted there are a lot of old guys in Buckinworth. I guess there were a lot of young guys once, but without as many young girls too, the demographic curve ended up lopsided.

Still, this old man is visibly less withered than ours. There’s bounciness in his gait, a lively glint in his eyes, and he’s clearly more content with the present state of the world. Probably because he actually has something to put to the table. Although it was his sons and not the man himself, who gathered his stock.

Mr Rheymar nonetheless presents his selection with the bloated confidence of a hotshot CEO. Heaps of firewood in tidy little bundles, and baskets loaded full of shrooms. It’s another premium display, no way around it.

“Good morning, Mr Rheymar,” Selia repeats the greeting. And goes ignored again.

“Whenever did you pop out a kid?” Mr Rheymar asks. His voice is obnoxiously loud and carries far in the silence of the woodland. “And more importantly, with who? Not a lot of candidates in the hood! It had better not be one of my boys who did the deed! Who do you think you are, going around seducing reputable men? Find a lad closer to your own class, dammit! Who’ll even pay the godsdamned dowry? Not your pops, that’s a given!”

“This is Ereia,” Selia patiently introduces me once again. “We found her lost in the woods and took her in. She’ll stay with us for the time being, so please be nice to her.”

Gosh, will you give the name a rest? It’s embarrassing!

“’Be nice to her’!” Mr Rheymar exclaims and frowns at me much like his wife. “The kid looks like she wants to eat me for breakfast! The Hel’s up with those screwy eyes? Those ain’t no decent person’s peepers! The she-devil ain’t putting any hexes on me, is she?”

“Oh no! She wouldn’t hurt a fly!” Selia insists.

“Why, ain’t that a pity! Could fill her stomach with a fly or two! Ha! She’ll be luring ‘em in throngs by July.”

Ha, ha. Did you come up with that one yourself? Asshole.

Selia teaches me about the various mushrooms; which are edible, which have poisonous lookalikes, and how to tell them apart. Chanterelle. Portobello. Craterellus. Grifola. Then Mr Rheymar declares we’re frightening his customers and orders us to scram. There’s nobody else in sight, though.

Our crash course into forest ingredients cleared, we head back home along the shadowy footpath between the trees, nearly overgrown with gorse as it lies. Even now, Selia is smiling happily, as though we had a jolly little class excursion.

“How about Amber?” she proposes. “Isn’t that a beautiful name? It matches the color of your eyes.”

I won’t be swayed by flattery. Okay, maybe I am, a little.

I exert my formidable willpower to change the subject.

“Why do you just take it?”

I know I probably shouldn’t say this, but I can’t hold it in any longer.

“What do you mean?” Selia asks, innocently blinking.

Do I really need to spell it?

“They were insulting you and the old man. Why didn’t you say something? Tell them off?”

“That’s just the kind of people they are,” she says, a hint of sadness in her gaze. “What good would it do to start arguing with them? They’re not saying those things because they’re bad people at heart, but because life is hard, and it has made them wary of others. We are so far away from the more prosperous lands, we need everyone’s help to survive, but we also need to know who we can trust. The Rheymars will still trade with me when I have something to give in exchange, if only I keep cordial with them. Cutting ties with the villagers over a few rude words wouldn’t be very wise of me. I’m the only one who has things to lose.”

“But—it’s not fair.”

You shouldn’t have to put up with jerks like that just to survive.

You shouldn’t have to bow your head when you’ve done nothing wrong.

You shouldn’t have to fake a smile when you want to scream.

I can understand the reasoning, maybe, logically, but I can’t just accept it.

Selia stops and makes me face her, gently holding my shoulders.

“Listen to me. Whatever other people say, it won’t change who you are on the inside. It’s what you do that really matters. Nobody else can read your mind. It’s only through your actions that the world will know what kind of person you are. So don’t let anyone else decide your worth for you, by coaxing you into doing bad things. Don’t be a fool just because they are. You have to be the one to make your own choices, for the right reasons. Always. Isn’t that right?”

I look away and say nothing.

What’s right, what’s not? How can you tell? I am only a few months old.

How can I choose who I should be, when I don’t know a thing about myself? My head may be crammed full of things I shouldn’t know, but how am I meant to excavate the bits and pieces of the real me out of that slush pile? All I can tell is that annoying things are annoying, and I want to shut them up for good.

Selia lets go of me and walks on.

“I don’t want to be the kind of person who loses herself out of mere pride and vanity,” she says. “That would only prove they were right to doubt me.”

Sure.

How many times have you repeated that to yourself? Isn’t the truth that it still galls you? I bet, deep down, you’re even more upset and hurt than I am.

The kind of lifestyle where you have to lie about your own feelings, deny them, hide them, keep it endlessly bottled up inside, just to get by, just to live another day—it can’t be right. Nobody should have to suffer that.

There has to be another way. Has to be.

I may not know who I am, but I can tell one thing. Selia’s ideal way of life isn’t for me. And one way or the other, I’m going to get her out of this garbage heap. I’ll find a way for us both to leave and find a better life elsewhere, and let those goblins stay and eat shit by themselves.

So I swear, quietly in my heart.

My silent oath.