Learning about Arlie during breakfast came as a real shock. Later in the morning, when Auntie had gone to clean the dishes, Addie had shared her suspicions with Nettal, about how Squishy came from a place much like the one Mr. Owlcharge had described while they were eating.
“Realmspace? Never heard of it before.” Nettal commented.
“It’s what Squishy calls it. I hadn’t heard of it, either,” Addie whispered back.
They were still sitting at the breakfast table, though the adults had all gone off to the kitchen to chat while cleaning up. Lily still sat across the table from Addie and Nettal.
Seeing the two older girls whisper to one another, Lily seemed to get curious. She scooted out of her chair and hopped onto the ground, drawing Addie and Nettal’s attention. She carefully and quietly walked over to Addie’s place at the table and then grabbed onto Addie’s sleeve with hopeful eyes.
That was just precious, Addie thought. But she didn’t know what the girl wanted, silent as she was. Addie looked over at Nettal for help. She just shrugged. Seems like Nettal didn’t know what to do either.
“Do you want something, Lily?”
Lily just nodded her head rapidly, still silent.
Somewhat more familiar with the little girl, Nettal got out of her seat and crouched over next to Lily. Then, with a bit of a heave, Nettal picked Lily up, walked back to her seat, and put the girl in her lap.
Now with Lily in Nettal’s lap, Nettal asked, “What did you want, Lily?” Nettal asked kindly.
After a few moments of silence, Addie spoke up, “Maybe she just wanted to hear what we were saying?”
At that, Lily nodded her head again, rapidly and with a smile.
Addie smiled having guessed correctly, “We were talking about Arlie and where he might be from,” Addie supplied.
“Hm,” Lily vocalized. It was the first thing Addie heard from the quiet girl since Breakfast.
Now back on topic, Addie looked at Nettal again, “Maybe Arlie is from Realmspace.”
“And if Arlie is from Realmspace, it might mean he’s related to Squishy somehow.” Nettal surmised.
That was when Auntie Lomain walked back into the room, with Mr. Owlcharge right behind her.
“What’s this about Realmspace?” Auntie asked as she finished walking back to the table.
“Nothing!” Addie said quickly. She wanted to keep her magic secret.
Looking at Addie’s pleading look, Nettal caught on quickly, “Nothing!” Nettal mirrored.
Auntie seemed amused, but she must have realized it was harmless, so she let it go.
“Well, come on girls! Let’s head into town. You owe me new milk, Addie!”
At first, Addie grew concerned, remembering how she spilled all the milk that morning, but after everyone started laughing, she realized Auntie was just joking.
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This was the first time Addie had gone into Mr. Owlcharge’s area. Unlike Auntie’s Area, which was barren except for her house, there was a large population of villagers. In fact, the entire Area even put Addie’s Area to shame. Rather than just some farmers and communal living, it seemed like Mr. Owlcharge had put a lot of effort into developing the town.
Addie and Nettal walked down the main path, side by side, following behind Auntie and Mr. Owlcharge who walked in the front. Lily had gotten too tired to walk, so she was being carried by her dad.
Even the main path was crazy, they had even wasted quarried stone to make the path smooth, even though gravel would have worked just fine. The differences between Addie’s home and Mr. Owlcharge’s didn’t stop there, though.
As they walked down the main road, for it was more a road than a path, Addie saw heaps upon heaps of buildings. Far more than her home. There were so many buildings down the road, and to the sides of the road, that Addie couldn’t possibly count them all. And this wasn’t even the only road, either! Some roads split off from the main road on either side. Apparently, those places where more roads met the main road were called ‘blocks’. Each time they came to another block, Addie tried to look down the connecting road to see the end, but she never did. In all directions, there were buildings upon buildings, at every block.
Every few meters, there was a tree on the side of the road, with a special circular plot just for it, but beyond that, Addie didn’t see any plants in the whole Area.
It wasn’t just full of buildings, either. There were more people in this Area than Addie had seen in her entire life. Most of them rushed past, perhaps busy trying to get somewhere. Addie didn’t know.
Occasionally, the townsfolk would recognize Mr. Owlcharge, at which point they would stop and bow at the waist as they waited for him to pass. Addie felt something like a proper Lady when that happened, watching the various townsfolk get out of their way like that.
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The various townsfolk had a variety of different dress, most of the women wore modest dresses with light fabric for the summer, and the men tended to wear thin work pants and button-up shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Most of the fabric was fairly basic, linen or cotton, and mostly browns or grays.
Addie didn’t see any of the rough fabric pants or hardy pullover shirts she was used to seeing from the farmers. Auntie almost seemed poor in comparison to all of these townsfolk, with her simple dress. She wasn’t embarrassed though, in fact, most of the townsfolk seemed to recognize Auntie Lomain and treat her with as much respect as Mr. Owlcharge. They probably knew she was an Area Lord, Addie guessed.
“Auntie, how come you look like a bumpkin?” Addie asked bluntly.
Mr. Owlcharge looked at Addie with wide eyes and covered his mouth to suppress a laugh.
Auntie looked scandalized, “Who taught you that word?” she demanded.
“My dad sometimes says I’ll look like a bumpkin if I get mud on my dresses. You have mud all over your pants,” Addie pointed out.
“Well, I’ll have to talk to my brother about the choice of vocabulary he is teaching you!”
“Mom, what does bumpkin mean?” Nettal asked.
Auntie ignored Nettal, “Addie, I wear these kinds of clothes because I work outside in the swamp a lot of the time, and it wouldn’t do to get fancy clothes all messed up. If I need to go out into town for a fancy dinner or something, I might put on a nice dress. But right now, just for a quick shopping trip? My normal clothes will do just fine.” Auntie defended herself.
Addie took that in. Maybe next time she could tell her dad she didn’t need to worry about getting mud on her clothes since she liked to play outside. Something about that didn’t quite seem right to Addie, but if it made sense for Auntie then it should work on her dad, too.
With all of the roads and the buildings (sometimes even with a second story!) Addie wasn’t sure where the market was supposed to be.
“Mr. Owlcharge?” Addie asked. Once Addie saw she had his attention, she continued, “Do the townsfolk all gather somewhere for market day today and put the stalls away later?”
“Ah, there’s been a misconception,” Before Addie could ask what that meant, he continued, “We don’t have a ‘market day’ in my Area, Addie.”
That explanation gave Addie a confused look, “I thought we were going shopping?”
“You see, in my Area, with all of these people and all of the industry we have going on around here, it wouldn’t do to have just a single market day. No one would be able to get the things they need on time. In my Area, we have dedicated merchants who sell various products every single day.”
“You mean, you can buy stuff whenever you want?” Addie asked with a sparkle in her eye.
“That’s right. I’m bringing you to Merchant Street right now. There, we can buy some milk and any other items you could need.
Addie guessed the milk must come from some of the farms they passed on the way into town. Overall, Mr. Owlcharge’s Area was very different than what Addie was used to.
When they got to Market Street, all of the buildings had glass on the outside, allowing Addie to see into the stores. They passed by a tailor with racks of colorful sheets of cloth, a store that looked like it had different kinds of toys, Addie even saw a full set of sparkling armor in one of the stores.
They passed by all of those, and eventually reached a store that was freezing cold the moment they walked in. There were racks of vegetables and fruits all around, even some fruits that weren’t in season!
Addie shivered as she waited for Aunt Lomain to pick up some milk. Mr. Owlcharge left some kind of metal circle on the counter and then turned to the girls.
“Do you want to try some ice cream?” He asked them.
Addie didn’t know what ice cream was, but she saw Lily nodding her head frantically, and even Nettal seemed excited.
They left the store with frozen white ice cream on top of a cone made out of some kind of sweet cracker. The man in the store called it a ‘waffle cone’. Addie thought it was the best thing she had ever eaten in her entire life. It was refreshingly cold in the hot summer binary, and tasted of sugar and cream, along with some kind of flavor she had never had before. Nettal said it tasted like ‘vanilla’.
Everyone walked back onto the road, now on their way back to Auntie’s Area, but Addie was distracted by her new treat. She idly walked behind everyone as she stared down at the ice cream in her hand, giving it her undivided attention.
A large crowd of people started exiting one of the buildings nearby, and a few of them bumped into Addie, causing her to stop and stagger. Luckily, she managed to protect her ice cream without dropping it. In the corner of her eye, Addie saw a man with a tiny hawk perched on his shoulder. It was odd, though. No hawk should be that small, let alone have white feathers tipped in purple. Addie watched the man turn the corner at one of the next blocks. He had seemed somewhat strange since he wore a black cloak— not something she would expect someone to wear during the summer.
No longer distracted by the crowd, Addie looked back up to search for Auntie and Nettal, or even Mr. Owlcharge, but she didn’t see any of them. Just a large crowd of people bustling this way and that, trying to get wherever they were going.
No big deal, Addie remembered the direction they were going and continued walking down the path. She reached the end of the block and was able to pick out Mr. Owlcharge’s form again, his head above most of the crowd. Addie hurried over to get back with the group and immediately grabbed onto Nettal’s hand once she reached her.
Noticing Addie, Nettal glanced over at her and then back to Mr. Owlcharge, who had been stopped by that same man in the odd black cloak from just a moment ago. This time, the tiny hawk was nowhere to be seen.
“M’lord,” he said with a bow and a smile. Addie could see his crooked brown stained teeth, “could you spare a moment of your time?”
“Apologies, friend,” despite his choice of dress, Mr. Owlcharge spoke to him with dignity, “If you have need of me, my manor is open to dispute settlements and landmark agreements once a week when I hold council. If you have need of me, I’ll have to ask you come during one of those times.”
“It is urgent, M’lord,” He spoke again, Addie noticed he used the highest form of address out of the three, but spoke with a bit of a slur of his words, making the title sound a bit disjointed, “Please, if you..”
Mr. Owlcharge cut him off, “I listen to all of the concerns of each of my citizens. Rest assured, if you make an appearance at the end of this week, I’ll be sure to hear you out. Right now, I’m escorting these girls back home, and as such I cannot attend to civilian matters. Is anyone in imminent danger?”
“Well, not exactly, but”
“Then I’m afraid I’ll have to see you in three days from now. Good day.”
After that, Mr. Owlcharge continued walking down the street, with everyone following behind him.
“Shouldn’t you have heard him out?” Auntie asked Mr. Owlcharge.
“If I let everyone stop me on the street for their urgent matters, I would never have time to myself. Besides, I make time for everyone each week, he can wait two or three days. He’ll get his chance.” Mr. Owlcharge explained.
The rest of the walk back to Auntie’s was uneventful and most of the rest of the day was, too. In the morning, it sounded like Christena planned on giving Nettal and Addie shared lessons.