Rowing was harder than I’d thought it would be. The oars themselves were heavy, and they grew even more so as I dragged them through the water. Even putting my full weight behind each stroke, I couldn’t get us going as fast as I’d expected to.
“Incredible...”
Still, considering how much Charolles seemed to enjoy looking out at the lake as we went, I couldn’t complain. It was times like these when a man should be stubborn, after all. I got better at rowing the more I repeated the motions of it, and eventually the boat arrived at pretty much the center of the lake.
Its surface sparkled in the moonlight as we floated atop it. Boats were strange vessels. We were floating on the water, and yet it felt nothing like swimming. The sensation was completely different. I looked over to see Charolles sitting with her knees pressed together, her feet tucked off to one side as she leaned outward. She put her left hand on the edge of the boat for balance and looked out at the distant shore, the corner of her mouth lifting into a slight smile.
“How do you like your first boat trip?” I asked.
“Well...it’s not bad. I almost want one myself.”
“That somehow doesn’t sound like a joke, coming from you.”
After all, she had her magic bag. She could easily have carried one around with her.
We didn’t speak any more than that, just sat quietly spacing out. The night darkened the landscape, so the only shapes I could really make out in the moonlight were the mountains and the trees. The slight lapping of the water against the hull of the boat was the only sound. It felt like we were perched atop a sleeping world.
“Do you have any dreams that you’ve never been able to get out of your head?” Charolles asked suddenly.
I thought back vacantly.
“I do.”
“Like what?”
“A birthday party, I guess.”
“A birthday party?”
I had my chin propped on a hand, leaning forward over my lap as I looked out at Monty’s house on the shore.
“I got invited to one at a friend’s house when I was young. He didn’t just have his family with him; he had all of his friends there to celebrate too. There was a huge cake on the table along with a lot of food, and we all wore pointed hats. We sang for him, clapped... I was incredibly jealous.”
“Have you never had one?”
“My parents were barely home, so I never asked. Things weren’t exactly great between us either, so any party we had probably wouldn’t even have been fun.”
That birthday party had shown me a family unlike my own—one where you could come home to your parents, who’d cook for you and celebrate your birth. That type of family had seemed to be the more common one as well, and so I’d gotten envious. Thinking back, it might have been better if I hadn’t gone to the party at all. I couldn’t be jealous of what I didn’t know.
“What about yours?” I asked at length, shaking off my thoughts.
She reached into her bag and pulled out a book. Its leather cover had faded, grown shiny from how much it’d been handled over the years.
“I was obsessed with this.”
“That’s the one you were searching for, right?”
“Right. It’s a story about a mouse-knight and a human princess traveling the world and looking for something truly beautiful... It’s childish, I know. You can laugh if you want.”
I shook my head.
“It sounds like a wonderful story. So you wanted to be the princess, then?”
Charolles leaned forward, speaking quietly, like someone about to tell an important secret.
“I was much more boyish as a child.”
“Oh, so you wanted to be the knight?”
“I did. Even though he was so little, the mouse-knight defeated these huge monsters and always caught the bad guys, using a tiny magic sword and his massive imagination. I used to take the sword my dad kept for chopping wood and would happily swing it around, mimicking the knight. I had no shortage of villains either—he and my brothers were all way taller than I was.”
“No wonder you’re more reliable than me.”
“I’m a well-trained knight, after all.” She chuckled, gently stroking the book’s cover and falling into thought. After a moment, she continued, “I read it over and over and over again. I didn’t know how the story ended, though, so I could never get it out of my head. I wanted to know how it’d gone and whether he’d gotten what he was after. Until I knew that, our journey together couldn’t end.”
“Which is why you’ve got to search for the rest.”
Charolles shook her head, though.
“It doesn’t exist.”
“Just because Monty said so? Even he hasn’t read all the books in the world.”
“That’s not it,” she said, lifting her head to reveal a listless smile—the kind of smile worn by someone who had given up. “He wrote it.”
It all fell into place then, and I finally understood. I scratched my cheek, nodding slowly. If the person that’d written the story said it had no ending, then there was no other answer to find. It was such a simple thing that anyone could understand it—if the author had never created it, then yeah, it wouldn’t exist.
“Do coincidences like this really happen, though? You just come along to a village and find the author living there?”
“I came here on purpose. My dad told me he’d gotten this book in a village he stopped in while traveling for work. I didn’t know which village it was, but I did know that couriers note down everywhere they stay in their maps.”
“So...you’ve been using those maps to check each place?”
“I have. In between jobs, of course, at first. Once the world ended up like this, the search went more quickly. It was fortunate that he’d gotten the book from the writer himself and that he was still alive.”
“So that’s why you don’t need it anymore.”
Charolles finally had the answer she’d been obsessed with finding—but it wasn’t the answer she’d wanted. She must have been disappointed, bereft...or maybe even relieved.
“Um...” I ventured, “why did it have to be that book? Surely there are lots of others?”
“I don’t know my actual parents,” she told me.
“Could you quit just coming out with all that heavy stuff?” I fired back. “I need time to prepare myself for it first.”
She laughed, amused by my sudden plea.
“It’s fine,” she assured me. “I was brought up with even more love than if they’d been my real parents, and I got along with my siblings as well as anyone does. I did wonder where I’d come from, though. The mouse-knight in the story was also searching for his birthplace, and it felt like I was reading about myself. Like maybe my dream could be fulfilled somehow, even if just in a book. I’d be able to smile and close the book, then sleep soundly, content knowing how it all ended.”
I let out a breath of understanding as she planted her hands behind her and leaned back on them to look up at the sky. The moonlight cast floating shadows across her pale throat.
“There’s no end to that story, and my role as a courier is over. I haven’t even ever fallen in love. At this point, I don’t think I care whether tomorrow comes.”
The way she was speaking gave off a different impression than her usual attitude. It seemed almost childish, I thought, but soon revised my opinion. Considering how young she still was, it was probably better phrased as acting her age.
“We can’t have that,” I pointed out. “Nito’s looking forward to the festival.”
“You’re right. We can’t afford to make her sad.”
Without sitting back upright, she turned her head to look curiously at me.
“Is your world a good place?”
“That’s an odd thing to ask.”
“If it is, then things must be hard for you. You’re lost in this world with nothing to do while everything ends around you. There’s no hope of saving it either.”
Her voice was firm and carried no tones of despair or anger. She’d simply accepted the fact that the world was ending and spoke about it with no real feeling. Everyone still alive here probably needed that detachment in order to live in this world.
“Things are still fun here, in their own way.”
“Because you’re with Nito?”
I shrugged in place of any real answer. After that, I spaced out for a bit, watching her face. Her long eyelashes quivered slightly and I knew right then that this memory would always be fresh in my mind.
Yet even this conversation with Charolles would someday break down into crystals and fade away like it’d never happened. We were facing each other, but not looking at each other, both of us simply spacing out. Neither of us found any answers, nor had any significant thoughts. Time spent just drifting like this was most definitely a necessity in life.
Even so, though the boat wasn’t a rental with a time limit or anything, I knew it was time for us to head back. I picked up the oars and turned the boat around, rowing back to the shore. Charolles said nothing. However pleasant the time you spent was, it ended eventually, and we’d both come to accept that understanding. Despite our reluctance, we didn’t fight against it. We knew we couldn’t keep floating here forever—we had to go back to reality.
When we got back to the jetty, I got out first, mooring the boat. As Charolles stood up to disembark as well, I spoke to her.
“Did you have fun?”
There was a pause before she answered.
“I did, actually. I’d been longing for something like this, a moment that feels like it could have come from a story.”
“I’m just sorry it was me you had to share it with,” I said, holding out a hand toward her.
She looked steadily at my hand and then took it with a small smile. Her own hand was delicate and soft, and her skin had a slight chill to it. She hopped lightly out onto the jetty.