"Hey, Charlie!"
Griff descended the stepladder and turned towards her, stashing the leftover letters in the drawer with one hand and tugging out his earbuds with the other. He had a wide grin on his face, like seeing her was the best thing to happen all day. Though judging from the fact he was stuck behind a counter all day in a dead movie theater did seem pretty dismal.
Charlie forced a smile in return, looking anywhere but his eyes. She didn't want him to see how red hers most likely were. Instead, she flicked her gaze to the current list of playing movies. "Hey, back. Bossman know you're listening to music on the clock? Pretty sure he'd shit a brick if not."
Griff shrugged. "Eh, he can blow me. The same shitty music through the fifty-year-old speakers every night can drive even the strongest guys crazy. Didn't you work for Jaeger at some point?"
She immediately recoiled at having to recall the memories for a second time in one night. "No, but I might as well have. It was Jorgen Chase HQ. I worked as secretary to the CEO," she said, jabbing a thumb back at herself. "So basically, when someone pissed the Big Lady off, shit would roll down hill and I'd get the brunt of her attitude."
"That sounds…incredibly shitty."
"It was right next door to the JaeMart HQ and it was enough to make me never want to set foot inside one of their places again, regardless of what it was."
"Girl, same," he replied, rolling his eyes towards the neon JAECO FILMS sign on the nearby wall. "So, you finally feeling up to reminiscing a bit? I'm hitting the saloon tonight because someone ditched me in favor of his shitty girlfriend."
Charlie thought about it a moment. She didn't really want to go home—not right now. And without the sass and glares from the rest of the posse, it sounded like the perfect opportunity to settle her nerves. She'd been wanting so badly to talk to him, and this was the perfect time to let things go without worrying about catty remarks or cold stares.
"I'd love to, Griff."
He grinned. "Hell yeah! Meet up at six, my girl!"
"It's a date," Charlie said with some friendly flirting, and Griff grinned back.
‡ † ‡
While not a real 'date', Charlie felt it would have been the best one she'd ever been on. The beer was ice cold, Cal's pizza was absolute perfection, and Griff was everything Charlie feared he wouldn't be. In the span of an hour, they'd caught up and things were like no time at all had passed between them.
Well…save for the absence of Ignis. Whatever. He didn't seem to care that she'd come back, and if he was going to be that way, then why should Charlie even spare him a passing thought?
It was like Charlie had never left the town and had instead grown up side-by-side with the goofball. Nothing but Griff's carefree smiles and unapologetic sense of self that completely set her at ease. Any apprehensions Charlie had about reconnecting melted away in the light of his complete authenticity.
Though he had given her flack about ordering pineapple on her half of the pizza.
"Way to choose the only topping that can make pizza bad," he recoiled.
"Pineapple is the only topping worth getting, Fro Boy. Fight me," Charlie shot back through a mouthful of cheesy, fruity goodness.
But no one was perfect. At least he didn't comment on how she killed her entire half, or that she ate it almost as fast as he did. Orchard work built up one hell of an appetite, and there was no way in the nine hells she going to pretend to come off as another person by picking at a salad in a misguided attempt to impress.
The conversation flowed smoothly through dinner, and afterwards they moved to the arcade machines at the back room. He asked about Charlie's life after moving to the big city, what school she went to, what her new place looked like, any friends she made, and—her least favorite—about her job at Jorgen Chase HQ. They bantered about the bad and relished in the good, and their conjoined casual sensitivity made Charlie feel so at ease.
He gave her the rundown of Miner's Cove since her disappearance, pointing out things she had yet to discover. Things like how the seasonal festivals had changed since George became mayor, how the mines were still a death trap, and how the past few years strange noises had been coming up anytime it rained. That interested Charlie a lot more than hearing about how boring George was during events, but the topic Griff kept coming back to was his childhood dream of attending the Airdeis Annual Tournament. She could immediately tell he still had the same fervor for the event as he had as a child and was too young to go.
"You have to go with me!" Griff said, abandoning his digital knight as he turned away from the arcade cabinet. "We can be a team! 'Defenders of Moonfall'!" he added with a dramatic flourish.
Charlie laughed as he spun her stool around to face him, bumping her knees against his in the tight space. "Tempting, but I'm going to have to decline."
"Whyyy? I can't compete by myself! It's a memory to make with friends, and I already have costumes planned!"
His single-minded enthusiasm made her smile, even as she shook her head. "I don't even know how to use a sword yet, and you're wanting me to jump right into a world-renowned battle event? No thanks. Too much can happen. Besides, I think I prefer the smaller, local events."
Griff opened his mouth to argue his case but was cut short.
"Harassing her already?"
Charlie turned to see Ignis enter the game room, a mildly amused smirk on his face as he leaned against the pool table across from them. Griff turned to his friend with a grin.
"Oh, come on, Iggy! I'm not harassing. Tell her she needs to join us! She'd have some great ideas."
"We don't need ideas, which is why I told you to ask Gabby."
"I was talking about the tournament, not the costumes, ass," Griff replied.
"You're joking, right?"
Griff groaned. "Fine, fine. But Gabby never shows up to brainstorm, and whatever we come up with is straight cringemare fuel from the shittiest mobile rip-off games." He looked to Charlie. "You didn't learn to sew by any chance, did you?"
"Nope."
"Ugh, fine," he said, hanging his head in defeat. "I'll ask Gabby. But you should still think about the tournament. 'Guardian of Moonfall' has some awesome fighter potential."
"Hey, I'm not there yet," Charlie laughed.
Though she was curious about Griff's reaction—despite realizing how shitty a person Gabriela was not just from Griff's prior talk of her but also of her first impression, why would he ask her to help design something over someone who was supposed to be his friend? It wasn't really any of her business, though, so she decided not to mention it.
"Eh, I'll think about it," she promised. "But my answer is probably going to stay no. I can come over and help sometime though, if you want."
That seemed to satisfy him, and he brightened up as he started talking about what he'd already envisioned for the Airdeis event. Charlie smiled and nodded when appropriate.
"So, what do you think our group theme be? Nottica Hill, Tibagodad, Nordica, or Venetzi?"
"Oh. Hmm…" She thought for a moment. "Well, all four of those are some of the world's biggest carnivals, and their styles are all well-known… If you're gonna make your costumes, then you gotta go with the style that started it all: Venetzi. Maybe throw in some Nordica?"
"Told you, dude," Griff said with a triumphant grin. "We should definitely do Venetzi."
Ignis rolled his eyes. "I wasn't debating the theme. You were arguing with yourself. And you know those jesters freak me out."
"Sure, sure. You know you can handle it if you're wearing the same kinda face." Griff looked down at his phone and grumbled under his breath. "Sorry guys, I gotta bolt. Dad's got some more late shipments that need to be out ASAP. Later!"
Griff left in a hurry, leaving Charlie and Ignis alone in the game room. Without the high energy of their mutual friend to keep the conversation going, Charlie felt the coldness from before return as she found herself once again under that blue gaze. An uncomfortable silence fell between them. She debated m
aking up some excuse to leave as well, but she decided she give Ignis the benefit of the doubt and try to rekindle their lost friendship.
"It's good to see you again," she said, cringing inwardly as soon as the cliché opener left her mouth.
"You, too. Nine years is quite a while."
"Well, I couldn't exactly help it."
"That's how family works. No one can make their own choices." He stuck his hands in his hoodie pockets and glanced at her indifferently. "That's why you're the talk of the town. The next Guardian in a five-hundred-year tradition."
Charlie gave him a sad smile. "I see you're totally unaffected by that."
He shrugged but didn't comment further, and the silence resumed again. This time, Ignis was the one to break it.
"Your grandmother passing isn't the only reason you came back," he said, catching Charlie immediately off-guard. "Haven't spoken to me or Griff in years. Not so much as a call, or even a text, and then suddenly you come back and try to pick up like nothing happened? Guardian or not, that's pretty shitty of you."
Her eyebrows shot up as she gaped at him. "That's a lot to infer on someone you used to be best friends with, don't you think?"
He shrugged again but didn't look away. "That's all you seem to be now. Just someone I used to know."
Charlie's smile faded subconsciously. She felt her defenses break down under his steady gaze, and it unnerved her. She didn't like how transparent he made her feel, nor how his dead tone crawled all over her.
Charlie broke eye contact first, looking out the window to where she could see the stars twinkling just right in the inky darkness. She sighed.
"Think what you want, then. Yeah, I came home because I have a job to do. But I also came home because I had nothing left. I was just some ant crawling among millions."
She saw Ignis nod from the corner of her eye, but she didn't look back to him. Saying it out loud brought a lot of compressed emotion back to the surface—the grief, the rejection, the betrayal. And admitting it to someone else, someone she hardly knew and could make her feel so vulnerable with a single glance, was not a good thing. She needed to leave. Now.
"Anyway, I have to get home and fill out some ledgers before it gets too late," she said abruptly, hopping off her stool.
Before Ignis had a chance to respond, Charlie turned on her heel and left the saloon as quickly as she could without causing a scene. The tears finally started to roll as she turned down the road and saw the lights of her house twinkling through the leaves of the apple trees.
VI
Charlie awoke the morning of the Bunny Festival feeling a little apprehensive. Today was the day to start harvesting the apples in the southwestern section color-coded as 'green'. Yet when she stopped by for one last check before retrieving the ladder and baskets, she stopped dead in her tracks. There were no apples on the branches. Like, literally none. She had spent the last few days nervously eyeing those sweet round fruits, counting down the days until harvest. And now they were gone.
In a panic, she checked the journal she had gotten into the habit of carrying everywhere, just to make sure she was in the right section. And she was—large square plot northeast of the greenhouse. Every tree in that plot had a faded, but still very green ribbon around their trunks.
Looking around showed the other trees were heavy with fruit, but they were the red and pink apples, both in fruit color and their respective ribbons. As much as she wanted to deviate from the routine that had been in place for decades, green was what was supposed to ship this week.
Whatever kind of trick this was, it wasn't a good one. It was messing with her source of income, and a source of goods for dozens of stores in the area.
Looking up suddenly when she heard a short, melodious chirp, Charlie spied some burlap sacks near the sprite hut. The sacks bulged like they were filled with baseballs, each tied off with a purple ribbon. They weren't there the day before. She cautiously approached, tugging the ribbon away. Her eyes widened when she saw what was inside: green apples. The next sack was the same, full to bursting with ripe, freshly picked green apples.
"What in Erde's name…?"
She looked at the journal and then stared hard at the hut. Had the sprites finally come back? There were no footprints, definitely a crapload of small fallen branches, and no fruits dropped at all on the ground. The apples had been gathered and neatly placed into bags…almost by magic.
It had to be the sprites.
Crouching to get a better look at the little constructs, Charlie gingerly pulled open the door attached to the front of one. And inside she saw…nothing. Nothing but empty space and the hard-packed plot of dirt upon which the construct sat.
"Maybe they are just shy…"
Closing the door, she stood and turned to the sacks.
The sprites were the only ones she could think of to do this, and in such a short amount of time. Without magic, picking, bagging, and placing said bags of literal thousands of apples would have taken a normal, full crew of people over a week. She'd last checked on the trees before bed the night before, so not even twelve hours had passed. She wasn't upset the sprites wouldn't show themselves, just curious. And ever-so-thankful.
She tossed the journal back into her small messenger bag and picked up the first sack. It was heavy like she'd expected it to be. With a determined exhale—and a muttering of thanks—she carried it up to the shipping bin.
‡ † ‡
Two hours and a long shower later, Charlie was feeling a lot better. She lost count of how many sacks she had carried to the shipping bin, but it was enough to put a sizeable dent in the pile. Taking a moment to finish the day's entry in her new ledger, she smiled to herself. She had officially started on her first harvest. And the sprites—she'd convinced herself that no one else could have done it—definitely eased the process along.
She made a physical note to speak to Tal later about help with shipping, then a mental one to go to the library. The libraries in Drasil had computers with public internet, so it was her best shot here with how shit the Wi-Fi was. If not, they might at least have a book or two she could check out.
It was so bizarre to her that, with as many times Marianne mentioned them in her journals, there were no concentrated works over them in the house. And aside from the library, the only other place she could begin to think of would be the tower…and that was a dead end. For now, at least. With a sigh, she hoped once more that the immortal within was okay and would wake soon.
But those were issues for Future Charlie. Today, Bunny Festival.
She remembered the event from her childhood. Seeing everyone that now called Miner's Cove 'home' come together for a community-wide celebration excited her. She recalled one of her upstairs neighbors trying to arrange a meet-and-greet in the building shortly after she moved from the suburbs, but they learned very quickly that city residents had zero interest in socializing with others over nothing but proximity. People kept to themselves, for better or worse.
Thankfully that was not the case in Miner's Cove.
Charlie arrived at the village square shortly after the official festival start time and was pleased to see that most of the town had already turned out. Tal was running a shopping stand, and waved Charlie over to offer some new strawberry seeds he'd gotten in stock.
"You haven't lived until you've had a strawberry-apple pie," he grinned.
"Guess I haven't been living, then," Charlie smiled back, gently reminding him of the 'famous' Alavai Pie he made for Griff's birthday one year.
He laughed. "Well, there went my sales pitch. Still, they're limited time only!"
Of course they were.
Despite the cliched advertising, she still bought three packets. Might as well try her own hand at that famous pie. She couldn't remember the taste fully, but she did recall making Griff cry when she stole the birthday boy's portion. Waving, she turned to survey the square.
A massive spread of food was displayed across two tables, with Cal run
ning between them stirring dishes and fiddling with hot plates. Troy was positioned suspiciously close to a large bowl of punch, and Charlie watched with amusement as he stealthily produced a flask from his pocket and poured it in.
Walking through the courtyard, Charlie stopped to briefly chat with a few of the townsfolk she'd grown close to. She talked television with Masae and Sophie, catching up on the latest episode of their favorite crime show, and then played a jump rope game with Nate and Tia.
Jason was predictably being cornered by Hannah, so Charlie didn't bother approaching him. She had no problem with Hannah, but the other girl demanded Jason's full attention when they were together. And as Hannah clearly only had eyes for him, trying to engage either of them was an exercise in futility.
As she wandered about, Charlie spotted a few people she hadn't met. An older woman with an eye patch stood near Tal's shop, picking away at a stone with a rather sinister-looking sharp object. She decided to skip that introduction for now. A man with hair that was longer and more luxurious than her own was in deep conversation with Elizabeth—the young owner of Blue Moon Vineyard just west of the beach—and she didn't intrude there either. Most interesting, and most creepy, was a wide-set woman lurking near the riverbank, watching the festival from afar. Charlie only saw her for a moment though, because when she locked eyes with her, she seemed to vanish into the surrounding flora.
She was still staring in the direction of the river when Griff called to her. She turned to see him waving cheekily, flanked by Ignis and Gabriela.
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