She needed composting worms rather than simple earthworms. Both were extremely important for the health of the garden, but they had different characteristics. The composting worms she was looking for were actually a specific type of earthworm. They lived in the top layers of soil and reproduced quickly, making them very helpful for disposing of waste. Back in her own world, they were popular to use as fish bait.
Demi consulted with Soa on suitable locations where her chosen worms might be found. Then it was simply waiting for a day with rain.
It was spring, so a convenient rainstorm came before the week was finished. The evening after the rain cleared, Demi prepared her tools for worm hunting.
As might be expected, Aelfric followed her like he was her shadow.
(And Dollop followed the both of them. Glimmer, as might be expected, was not particularly interested in the prospect of worm gathering.)
Once night fell, Demi went out with an alchemic lantern and a wooden pail filled with dirt and leaves, where she would place her new farm residents until they could be transported to their worm mansion.
She found a good spot at the edge of the woodland, where the ground was moist from the weather and the nearby passage of the Rosebrook. The search function was invaluable here, as it was in most situations. Demi actually got detailed statistics about the worm populations in each area when she engaged it, so she had a good idea of where to go and how many worms it was reasonable to take from each location.
She got down on her knees on the soft earth, with her little spade in hand and called out, “Here little wormies! ~ Here little wormies wormies wormies! ~ Come out my little wormies wormies wormies! ~”
Aelfric, standing to the side and holding the lantern, made no comment.
It wasn’t that Demi actually thought that worms would come if she called for them, but she had been in the habit of doing so from the time she was a small girl and had first started paying close attention to the denizens of the garden.
She knew that even in a favorable place, right after a rainstorm, she would likely have to dig for worms. That was why she had brought her spade.
But astonishingly, almost as soon as she had called for them, several small red worms popped out from under the loamy earth.
And they patiently waited for her to collect them.
“Ara?” Demi said, tilting her head to the side as more red worms came wriggling out of the earth, waiting for her to collect them.
She didn’t know what else to say to such a response, so she said it a few more times, as she kept collecting worms.
Standing and holding the lantern, Aelfric continued to say nothing, inscrutable as always.
Dollop, who was watching Aelfric closely, flashed up a knowing face.
—( ￣ 〜 ￣ ;)E
He grunted in response.
“Pii pi pi pii pi pi pii pi,” the slime noted philosophically.
In the end, from that one spot along the creek bank, Demi managed to get enough worms to start off her vermiculture box. She had even had to leave some worms behind and move a little distance up the stream because she was worried that she would take too many from one spot and disrupt the ecosystem.
The worms that she left behind lingered briefly, but once she departed, they wriggled off again into the soil.
The whole experience had been a bit surreal and certainly inexplicable. She had expected her worm hunt to take a few hours, but instead she had finished it almost immediately.
She took her worms to their new opulent abode, the worm house tower, and settled them in. She had already added some scraps for them to eat, which were by now partially broken down by microorganisms.
The worms were very cute, so Demi couldn’t help singing to them again.
“Wormies, wormies, happy, happy wormies. ~ Wormies, wormies, have a good night. ~” She sang as she put them into the box.
In the pail and in the worm mansion, the worms wriggled to the song, as if they might be trained, performing worms.
Demi had no idea how to react to that, so she just kept singing to them, because it apparently made them happy, even though by this point, she was feeling mildly embarrassed by everything that had happened. Still, she had required the worms to relocate without really asking their permission, although she supposed they had come when she had asked, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as all that. But really, the least she could do was sing them a song if that’s what they wanted.
Standing to one side, Aelfric still said nothing.
Demi made sure the wriggly worms were happy and comfortable, then closed up the box so that flies would not harass them.
The worms did indeed seem to be happy, so that was probably good enough, she thought.
Still feeling a little baffled, she put away her tools and then went with Aelfric into the house.
Once they were inside, he finally spoke.
“So,” he said, and the word was so heavy it was almost painful. “Is that normal for you?”
“Of course it isn’t!” Demi answered immediately, throwing up her arms. “Or, well—”
Maybe it’s because I’m a goddess? she wondered. Hollyhope said that she was also the goddess of bacteria. Maybe I’m the goddess of earthworms?
“I don’t know!” she admitted, throwing her arms up again. “I don’t know if that’s normal or not!”
And that was true about a lot of things.