After their arresting confrontation on the bridge, their conversation for the rest of the evening generally concerned where Demi might go the next day, to test out the freedoms of the open door. It was fine to start small, Aelfric assured her. She did have a very nice house, after all, and quite a lot of responsibilities. Someplace close by was probably best for her maiden expedition.
The site of the canal lock was probably the best in terms of location, relevance, and travel time. Even Dollop had gone back and forth to the worksite several times already. It felt a little strange when Demi realized this, but then it didn’t, because she recalled that this had also been a perfectly ordinary element of her life at Forest Home. It wasn’t as if everyone was confined to the estate. People went back and forth to the local village or even farther afield every day. She was the only one who was practically confined to the premises.
But before she could go off on her jaunt, she needed to take care of her daily responsibilities. That day, she was due to have a meeting with Foreman Oakroot about how the site preparation was progressing. The beavers had apparently already started moving earth to lay the foundation for the lock keeper’s house which would stand adjacent to the lock itself. Demi had decided that after their meeting, once she had finished the day’s paperwork, she and Aelfric would go with Foreman Oakroot to the worksite so she could see it for herself.
After Foreman Oakroot had given his report, Demi felt that it was an opportune time to bring up the idea of building a large-scale waste treatment facility using the model of vermiculture and employing slimes.
Demi wanted to raise the idea with him before it was pushed out of her mind by everything else she had to think about. It was important to get an idea early on just how feasible it might be and at what scale it might work. Proper waste disposal and water treatment were two important elements of urban planning.
With the new fox settlement being planned and built, it was probably a good time to talk about other infrastructure even if they did not plan to immediately leap into yet another project.
Foreman Oakroot listened thoughtfully as Demi described how the worm house worked, and at the end he nodded.
“I’m sure we could come up with something, especially after we’ve finished the weir and lock. I’ll ask Izar’s opinion,” Foreman Oakroot said. “The man’s right.” He nodded toward Aelfric. “This kind of thing could be right useful, particularly in a place like Cradle. I mentioned it before, but their harvests have been in a strong decline for years now. They’re one crop failure away from a lot of people dying of starvation. If they could turn their waste into fertile soil, I’m sure that would help them quite a bit.”
“One public works project at a time, right?” Demi asked wryly and the beaver foreman guffawed in response.
But Aelfric, who had been listening to their conversation without comment, as he usually did, suddenly approached the farmhouse table where they were sitting and leaned over it, bracing himself against it.
“Excuse me,” he said, sounding tense. “Did you just mention the town of Cradle?” he asked.
“Um,” Demi answered hesitantly. “Yes?”
She wasn’t sure of the reason, but she got the feeling that this was not an answer that he would find pleasing.
“Your discussion leads me to believe that we are relatively close to Cradle. Have I understood this correctly?” he asked, his brows drawn together.
Demi nodded.
“I haven’t been there yet myself, but it’s the closest human town,” she said, then looked over at Foreman Oakroot for confirmation.
“It’s about fifteen miles away as the crow flies, but around twenty if you take the road,” he agreed.
Aelfric closed his eyes and it was not difficult to tell that he was angry. Demi could not say why he was angry, but it was clear that he was. His hands were trembling slightly against the table. He took a deep breath and reined his emotions in, and when he looked back at her, he had mastered his feelings and was calm—or at least, he gave the impression that he was calm.
“Where are we, exactly?” he asked, sounding exhausted.
Oh! Demi realized suddenly. Aelfric hasn’t been anywhere but the farm and the dryad’s forest since I found him. I haven’t gone anywhere, so he hasn’t gone anywhere either. He hasn’t gone outside of the veil of protection at all. I just assumed he was staying because he wanted to stay, but maybe, maybe he just had no idea where he was. He was mostly dead when I found him, and I brought him here inside my inventory.
Demi began to feel slightly guilty and uncomfortable.
He had never asked where they were, so Demi had just taken for granted that he knew.
“We’re at Rosewood Farm,” Demi explained, and that much he surely knew. Duncan Oakroot had built a very pretty little sign that Eleonore Silktail had painted with the name of the farm and some very lovely roses. “We’re on the north road,” she continued. “The high road, between Rushford and Hollyhain Assembly.”
As she thought it over, she realized that just by happenstance, she didn’t think Aelfric had ever been party to any discussions that mentioned the three towns. He had heard them talk about the Rosebrook, which was an entirely new river system, and Hollystep, which was the new settlement, and the lock site, but he had never heard any other actual geographic markers for where they might be relative to anything else.
Maybe his question about whether anything even existed outside of this farm wasn’t purely metaphorical, she worried.
Upon hearing her answer, Aelfric briefly looked as if he was going to have some kind of fit. He brought his hand to his face and covered his eyes for several seconds, then again got control of himself.
“This place,” he began slowly. “This place,” he repeated emphatically, gesturing vaguely, apparently to the entire picturesque tableau of the farmland that surrounded them. “Is just north of the blightwood?”
He sounded nakedly incredulous.
I can’t really blame him, Demi thought sympathetically. I guess as the days passed, I just got accustomed to this place. But honestly, there’s this huge, lovely house, and outside are two incredibly beautiful waterfalls, and rose petals are just constantly raining down, and then there’s the cutest chicken coop in the world. Everything is pretty enough to have come from a storybook and whimsical enough to have come from a fairy tale. I don’t really know what the rest of the world is like, since I haven’t been anywhere but this farm, but even if this world is absolutely filled with charming, adorable places, this place has still got to be in the top five.
“As far as I understand, yes,” Demi agreed apologetically.
Foreman Oakroot grunted in agreement.
Aelfric covered his face with his hand again and made a quiet nonverbal noise.
“All right,” he said at last, turning back to Demi. “Will you tell me how to get to the road?” he asked. “I have to get back. I’ve been away for too long already.”
Demi was surprised and alarmed by this sudden announcement.
She had known logically that Aelfric would go on his way eventually. Surely he had other places to be. He was the Shadowstep Alchemist after all! But as he had lingered on, day after day, even after he had recovered, she had become accustomed to him. She honestly wanted him to stay. But then, perhaps he hadn’t been staying because he wanted to. Perhaps he had stayed because he felt he had no other choice.
Perhaps she had inadvertently been holding him prisoner.
That idea made her feel awful, especially in the context of the previous day’s conversation, so she pushed down all of her feelings, all of her reluctance.
All of her disappointment.
(They had been going to visit the lock site today: her very first trip away from the farm. Now she would have to go by herself, and that made her feel lonely. But then the loneliness made her feel both sheepish and selfish. Surely she could go to a nearby place all on her own, a place that was filled with people who knew her and liked her. She wasn’t a tiny child. She could do it on her own. But she would miss him not being there.)
She pushed all of that down, and smiled at him.
She hoped that he would be willing to visit her again, someday, sometime.
But she could not escape the guilt that she was somehow responsible for whatever it was that was testing Aelfric’s patience so severely.
“Of course,” Demi said. “I’ll show you to the edge of the forest. You can see the high road from there.”