Gong... Gong...
The bell in the town’s clock tower tolled twice, rousing me from my half-conscious state. It rang every four hours, and the two tolls meant it was now four in the morning. Field workers typically woke up to this bell, whereas town residents started working to the tolling of eight in the morning. The orphans in the church started working at four, but the old hag only woke up at eight, so it would be a while yet before anyone noticed she was dead. After making sure the night sky was indeed getting brighter, I left my hiding spot in the woods and started down the road to the neighboring town.
I wasn’t sure how long it’d take me to reach the campsite, but even on my child’s legs, I hoped to arrive by nightfall. Unfortunately, I’d overestimated my stamina. For four hours, I walked—not bad, all things considered. The sky had grown bright and the bell tolled for the third time today, far in the distance.
Logically, there was no way a child could’ve walked for hours without a proper meal and on virtually no sleep. I’d reached my limit, and I slumped to the ground, a dull ache in my head and a haze forming over my vision. This was bad, I knew, and I dragged myself a few meters off the road on weak, trembling legs. I took refuge in the forest, under the shade of a tree, out of view from the main road.
I reached into my pack and took out a leather canteen, taking greedy gulps of the musty water to soothe my parched throat. It’d been mixed with fruit liquor to prevent spoilage, which made me cough violently.
After catching my breath, I brought the canteen to my lips again, drinking in small sips this time. As my consciousness cleared, the roar of hunger in my stomach grew more intense. I rifled through the food I’d stolen from the old hag and grabbed a piece of white bread, thinking it would be best to eat it before it got moldy. The first bite felt nostalgic, reminding me of a flavor I’d experienced long ago with my family.
Soft white bread was a luxury. Even when I’d still had my parents, we’d only eaten it on special occasions, which I’d looked forward to. My father, a guard, had apologized to my mother every day for not being able to afford white bread. I remembered finding it odd at the time, but if the knowledge I’d acquired from that woman was to be believed and my mother had been of noble stock, then my father’s behavior made sense.
As if willing my wistfulness away, I tore into the bread, then washed it down with water from the canteen. On a full stomach, I finally felt more alert.
“Ow.”
Now that I’d calmed down, I felt the pain in my feet and grimaced. At the orphanage, all the children were barefoot, so this was my first time wearing sandals. I wasn’t used to it, and my feet were chafed and bleeding.
It hurt, but I wasn’t scared. After making sure the injuries weren’t serious, I plucked a clean-looking hand towel from my pack and used the knife to cut strips off of it to use as makeshift bandages. While I was at it, I treated the cut on my hand from my scuffle with the woman the day before. I’d already performed basic first aid last night, but now I cleaned the gash with the alcohol-laced water from my canteen before bandaging it up.
Though I now knew how to do these things, my child fingers were surprisingly clumsy, and it took me quite a while to finish patching myself up. That wasn’t the main issue, however.
“I’m low on water.” Having used it to treat my wounds, I was left with very little.
Perhaps due to my concerns over what remained of my drinking water, the knowledge I’d acquired from that woman surfaced in my mind—small children needed to consume plenty of fluids. Perhaps failing to do so had left me in my previous state. I wondered what to do and thought perhaps I needed “sugars” and “vitamins” from fruit and such.
I wasn’t sure what vitamins were, exactly, but I figured they must’ve been important. But where in this forest was I to find fruit? Once again, the knowledge volunteered itself, and guided by it, I searched for a while until I found blackberries growing on a shrub about as tall as my chest.
I plucked one, pinched it between my fingers to break the skin, and gave the juice a taste. It was rather tart, not very sweet, and quite acidic. “So sour...”
People usually made these into jam or dried them before eating, but they were still edible raw. After making sure there were no snakes nearby, I picked more of the black fruit, using a large leaf—torsol grass?—as a makeshift plate to collect them on. Afterward, I organized my belongings, then began eating.
In the bag I’d brought with me from the orphanage I had a number of garments, cloths, food items, and some coin. The tunic I was wearing was standard among commoner children. A bit big, but it’d suffice for now. I had one loaf of white bread remaining, plus some jerky and a chunk of dried cheese, which meant if I rationed my food, I had enough for another three days. Adding in the money I’d taken from that woman, I had fifteen silver, eight small silver, and thirteen copper. It was quite a large sum, considering I could buy meals for a few copper, and a single silver covered three days’ lodging.
As I checked the pack I’d taken from that woman in the alley, I found bundles of wilted herbs and two ceramic vials containing what appeared to be potions. And, tucked away at the bottom, there was a small book that seemed to be a pocket journal.
“Strange,” I mused as knowledge yet again bubbled to the surface from looking at the book.
Books were expensive, but not that rare. According to my knowledge, plant-based paper had come into widespread use on this continent around 120 years ago, replacing parchment made from animal skin. Torsol grass, the same plant I’d used earlier to collect berries, was used for pulp. The leaves were large, supple, and covered in short, fuzzy hairs. Originally, it had been used for cleanup after doing one’s business. I myself had used it for this purpose, in fact, but it was fair to say it wasn’t good for much else. While the leaves were soft, they were very fibrous, and the only animals that grazed on it were goats.
Supposedly, plant-based paper was discovered because ancient nobles, displeased with using the leaves for wiping, had ordered alchemists to research an alternative. When torsol grass was heated, it lost its coloration and turned into a yellowish paper. Over the decades, the quality of the process had improved, and books that had once cost over ten gold had dropped to a tenth of the price.
What I’d called “strange” was actually the fact that this book was made of parchment. The pages were flimsy, perhaps worn thin from having been rewritten on many times, and contained detailed information on various medicinal and poisonous plants, mushrooms, and minerals, complete with intricate illustrations.
I wondered if that woman’d really had a scholarly side. My gut told me she’d stolen this from whomever had taught her magic. What a waste of space she’d been.
Regardless, this truly was good news. My knowledge helped me understand what the letters on the pages meant, but I still needed to learn how to read and write proper sentences. This would be helpful for that.
The potions, it seemed, had also been stolen from her mentor. They were high-level healing potions which she’d apparently planned to use to treat me after embedding the aethercrystal into my heart.
As for the bundles of wilted herbs, they were just ordinary medicinal plants that grew everywhere and were used in most homes. I took one into my mouth and chewed it. Enduring the pungent, grassy smell that filled my nostrils, I rubbed the herb into my wounds, then re-bandaged them.
By then, the sun was high in the sky, and my consciousness was at its limit. Before resting, I repacked my belongings and used the knife to chop off my long hair, which the old lady had told me to grow out to sell. I hungrily devoured the berries I’d picked, then hid in the shade like a wounded animal before quietly closing my eyes.
Until recently, I’d been afraid of the dark. Of pain. Hunger. Loneliness. But that’d been because I hadn’t known how to survive on my own.
A quiet noise made me half-open my eyes, and I brought my knife down on the head of a snake that had been approaching my feet. I watched, unfazed, as it writhed for a while before growing still.
It was the unknown that had been frightening to me. Now, small pains no longer scared me. My knowledge helped me understand how much I could endure without dying. I had no reason to be afraid anymore. Had I become this way because I’d absorbed that woman’s decades of knowledge? Still, I didn’t think I’d become someone else as a result.
I was still me. Alicia. No one else.
With those thoughts in mind, I drifted off into a shallow sleep, remaining alert to my surroundings as I rested to heal from my physical fatigue.