I opened my eyes to blinding light pouring into the room. I couldn’t help but roll over and bury my head in the feather pillow. I’d thought I might be able to enjoy a good night’s sleep in a bed after so long without one, but I had been naive. The unfamiliarity of the too-soft bed had left me unable to fall asleep. I was too used to sleeping on the hard ground in a sleeping bag.
I lifted my head from the pillow reluctantly, refusing to get up any further, and checked my watch. It was earlier than when I’d usually get up, so I sighed and let my head fall back down.
The easel stood between the two beds with Nito’s coat hung over it. It was supposed to be some kind of partition, though it was largely ineffective. Past it, I could see a round mound of blanket resting in the middle of the other bed, with shining silver hair spilling from the gaps in the fabric. The mound gently rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Nito must have been happily off in dreamland.
The light from the windows shone down on me mercilessly. Blearily thinking that it was even more effective than my alarm, I gave up on sleeping in and pushed myself up. I combed my bedhead into some semblance of tidiness with my fingers as I walked over to the window. The temple building was atop a small hill, so the view was fairly uninterrupted. The curved road lined with gradually denser rows of houses had to be the one we’d traveled down yesterday, but in the morning sunlight, it looked utterly alien.
In the distance, I could see the feet of the mountains, as well as the overrun fields we’d passed and their relatively little greenery. That glow of brilliant white light off to the right of the fields was the reflection of the morning sun hitting water. It must have been a lake—there were our water supplies, and a place to wash, and maybe we’d even manage to get fish.
I couldn’t help but smile when I realized how natural such thoughts had become. My first thoughts upon seeing the lake weren’t that it was pretty, or that we should go sightseeing, but about its potential utility for our life. I really had become an out-and-out traveler. It was hard to tell whether that was a good or bad thing.
I picked up my toothbrush and tin mug from the bag on the bedside table and left the room. The corridor that had been so dark the night before was now full of light, and the grain of each of the wooden doors was clearly visible.
I opened the door into the temple proper and found it completely silent. The towering windows let the light pool in around the lines of pews, and the dust floating through the air seemed to sparkle in the light. The saint’s statue was wreathed in dark shadows with only its outline visible. I almost forgot to breathe as I stepped through the door. This was a place of prayer, and the silent air was almost palpably thick in the room.
Suddenly, I noticed a figure sitting in the exact center of one of the pews. It was Charolles, and she was looking vacantly up at the statue. She didn’t show any sign of noticing my approach.
“Morning,” I greeted, finally prompting her to glance toward me.
“Right, morning.”
“You’re up early.”
“I like mornings. They put me in a good mood.”
I nodded in agreement before gesturing toward the space next to her. She told me to go ahead and I sat down next to her, letting out a breath.
“Thanks for yesterday,” I told her. “You made Nito’s day.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Think you’ll find your story?”
“Who knows. I’m not holding out much hope at least.”
“You’re looking even when you don’t think you’ll find it?”
“I’ve been looking for this story for a long time now and I still haven’t found it, so I can’t have baseless hope. It’d just make me feel depressed,” she explained evenly.
She may have been really blunt about it, but she did answer my question. I guess she keeps communication to the bare essentials.
At the very least, she definitely wasn’t the type to start a conversation because she found the silence unbearable, and our discussion came to a standstill. We were sitting with a person’s worth of space between us, looking up at the statue as the sun slowly lit the saint’s profile. As the sun steadily rose, the angle of the light changed in turn, making the shadows on her face form phantom expressions.
“...look sad,” I heard, catching the very tail end of the sentence.
“What?” I asked.
Charolles didn’t repeat herself. I definitely hadn’t misheard, yet I couldn’t guess what she’d meant. I found it difficult to see any real sadness in the saint’s expression. Just as I was about to ask what made her think that, the door behind us opened.
The old woman from the day before came through it, her bucket dangling from her hand. She looked at us sitting there and raised her eyebrows, before walking slowly over to us.
“Good morning. You’re here early,” I said.
She waved me off.
“That’s what happens when you get old. You’ve got someone else with you besides the half-elf girl?”
“We met here last night, by chance,” I explained.
“Meeting new people out in the sticks like this is pretty rare. You’d be better off on Mercian Street.”
“Mercian Street?”
The woman walked up to the statue and put down her bucket. I stood up as well and went over to join her.
“It’s a leisure area for the rich on the way to the lake from here. No one lives there normally, but it’s packed during the summer and winter holidays, full of people with too much time and money on their hands.”
So it’s a town that only has residents twice a year? Sounds like a weird place.
The woman stooped and wrung out her cloth before offering it to me. I took it right away, already knowing my role for the day. Still, I couldn’t help but give a rueful smile.
“Where am I cleaning today?”
“The upstairs windows.”
I followed her pointing finger to see a steep, narrow set of stairs up to a second floor. Only a narrow walkway ran along the wall up there.
I guess treating yourself to a bit of cleaning before breakfast ain’t bad once in a while. Healthier than sleeping in at least.
“You come over here too,” the woman said, beckoning Charolles, who came over from her seat without complaint and took the cloth she was offered.
“You do the windows on the first floor.”
“Very well,” she answered.
“You’re way too adaptable,” I muttered.
Charolles wasn’t showing any confusion. This had already happened to me yesterday so I was fine, but despite the bizarre situation of meeting a woman for the first time and being set to cleaning for her, Charolles didn’t bat an eyelash. She just met my gaze, gave a slight shrug, and then wordlessly headed for the windows.
I guess that’s what you call an adult’s composure. Maybe she’s older than me, I thought, watching her leave.
“Enraptured, lad?” the old woman asked.
“Not at all,” I answered, trotting over to the stairs.