‡ † ‡
For the next hour or so, the only sound was the clicking of keys, pen on paper, and the smooth motion of sketching. It was a comfortable silence, though. They were both absorbed in their respective endeavors, so there was no need to for small talk. Charlie was determined to cram in as many notes as possible, but she knew she wouldn’t get it all. That's where a certain someone would have to fill in the blanks.
Speaking of Adagium, it was odd she couldn't find any information on him. She tried 'immortal moonfall guardian' and 'bloodline protector' but all she found was something called Meteor Methuselah. Figuring she had no choice but to wait until the guy's eventual wake-up, she jotted it down.
The pages quickly filled with summaries, sketches, the mines, and even certain weather patterns and their connection to odd occurrences in the area. She'd also started looking into local artifacts because she felt bad for Ruby and her 'museum'. That woman was so sweet.
Evening was approaching by the time she decided she had enough, and Charlie wanted to get home before the sun fully set. The mountain path wasn't lit, and the last thing she needed was to be caught in the dark with a sprained ankle. She gathered her things into her bag.
"Well, I'm done for now. I'm gonna head back home. Thanks again, Ignis."
"Hang on," Ignis said without looking up.
She watched as he continued to draw, eyes and hand in perfect sync. He clicked various buttons on the tablet's side and then finished with an exaggerated final stroke.
"Sorry. Had to finish that last bit before I lost my concentration."
He set the pen back into its holder and removed his drawing glove. He stood, stretching his arms above his head.
"Let me give you something before you go," he said, stepping over to the corner bookshelf and pulling a box off the top shelf.
Charlie was curious what this 'something' was but managed to retain some of her remaining patience and simply watched. Ignis dug through the box, but his back was to her so she couldn't see what was inside. She decided that talking was the only thing that would keep her sufficiently distracted.
"So, what kind of work do you do?"
"Digital art. I make webcomics and freelance."
She figured it was something like that, but the freelancing part surprised her.
"Ooh, nice. I tried working as a scripter back in college. Anyone who can deal with those picky artists or do both jobs gets props from me."
Ignis chuckled softly, but it had a bitter edge to it. "You're the first."
"First what?"
"The first to say anything nice about what I do. No one here takes my job seriously." He pulled out a strange black thing that looked like a football goal. "It's like they think I'm doodling all day or something."
"That's ignorant of them." He turned at that, looking at her with genuine surprise. Charlie smiled at him. "Freelancing. Drafting a coherent story. Drawing. It's all pretty hard, and for what it's worth, I'm impressed you juggle all three."
Ignis stared at her for a moment, seeming lost in thought, before offering her a small smile. It didn't last long before he ducked his head out of view, but it was the first time Charlie had seen Ignis really smile since she came home.
"Here," he said, pulling out a USB dock with a long black cable. He connected the pieces and handed it to her. "Connect it to your laptop. You have one, right?"
"Yep."
Ignis nodded. "It's a long-range Wi-Fi adapter and should boost the crappy service George has hooked up all the way to your house."
Charlie hesitated. This was their first real conversation since her return, and he was willing to just give her what she assumed was an expensive piece of equipment? Her instincts told her there had to be a catch, but she couldn't figure out what. Ignis had never been the type to use bribery.
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Yeah. It's fine," he said with complete nonchalance. "I don't use it anymore, so it's just going to waste. Keep it as long as you want."
"Thanks, Ignis. Seriously. This will help so much," she grinned, carefully sliding it into her bag. She gave him a wry grin. "Although, this is a pretty extreme way of keeping me out of your room, especially when you're hogging two computers all to yourself."
He smirked. "I guess I'm still getting used to having you around again." His head dropped a little, his gaze flicking back forth between Charlie's face and the floor. "Sorry for being a dick."
Charlie laughed weakly, but her smile was bright.
"It hasn't been all that bad."
VIII
Charlie stood on the bridge, watching her the rush of flowing water. She idly wondered how long it would take for the river to carry her to the sea if she just jumped in. Being lost in the endless deep blue didn't seem so bad. It was better than losing her sanity to the crippling anxiety and boredom. And destroying her family's centuries-old legacy.
It had all happened so fast she still couldn't believe it was real. Springtime was just ripe for rain, but a proper thunderstorm tore through the town last night. The boom rattled the windows, startling her into a series of childish quivering. She peeked out the windows to watch the lightning flash and stretch across the sky. Then suddenly her vision went white.
It took a distressingly long time for her to regain her eyesight, long enough for panic to completely take over. When she was able to see again, it became immediately obvious what had caused the temporary blindness. Lightning had struck on the southwestern side of her property, starting a fire that had begun to spread across the tops of the apple trees in the plot just east of the pink apple plot.
Racing out to the porch, she stood frozen in horror as the trees burned, flaming branches falling to the ground and igniting the long grass underneath. As the flames began to rapidly move north, fear compelled her legs to function again. Charlie's screams were drowned out by another blue-silver thunderbolt as it crashed down into the forests farther south. In fear of falling victim to the flames, she ran.
In hindsight it had been a stupid move. Everyone knows you're supposed to stay indoors during active lightning to avoid being struck. At the time, however, the fear of very real fire was greater than the fear of potential electrocution. She sprinted east towards town, ringing the shop's buzzer like her life depended on it. A startled Tal opened the door, and upon seeing how shaken Charlie was, pulled her inside without question.
The rain came shortly thereafter, a torrential downpour battering the windows and roof. It lasted for hours, long enough for Charlie's racing heart to settle and drowsiness to take hold. She managed to grab a few hours of sleep on the living room couch before morning arrived, and after a bracing cup of coffee, Griff walked her home to assess the damage.
The good news was that the rain had snuffed out the fire well before it reached her house. The bad news was the plot of red apple trees—the ones that were set to harvest and ship out that week—had been reduced to nothing by charred stumps and blackened ground.
Somehow, she managed to keep it together in front of Griff, but as soon as he headed off for his shift at the theater she broke down. Who was she kidding? She wasn't cut out to be a Guardian—she didn't even have the first clue where to begin, or how to do even a fraction of what her grandmother had. Marianne was gone, her mother was gone, her dad was gone—she was all alone, and the only one who could give her a clue where to start was stuck in some weird magical coma. Hell, she couldn't even manage the orchard without fucking that up.
Curling up into a ball in middle of her bed, she wept bitterly. She was a failure. No matter how hard she tried, she wasn't going to make it out of the abyss she'd fallen into. She had spent all week finalizing paperwork with Crestwick for those apples, counting down the seconds until she could harvest them—or carry the sacks of sprite-gathered fruits into the shipping bin. Now she would have to tell them that Mother Nature wanted those sweet round fruits for herself.
When her tears were spent and her breathing steady, Charlie forced herself t
o get up. She needed air. Somewhere clean, away from the smell of charred wood and broken dreams. She swapped her pajamas for a pair of shorts and headed for Forest West.
There was no way she was going to pass the twisted and charred remnants of her family's pride and joy, so she cut through town. The walk helped, and so did the change in scenery.
Her inheritance—as specified in Marianne's will—was dispersed on a monthly basis, and this month's had yet to come in. She'd already blown through her first one, along with her last paycheck, with the move. Bellvue hadn't locked in their order for the apples in the green plot yet, and wouldn't for another two weeks, leaving payment for them to come another week on top of that. With the red apples now nothing but ashes, that left Charlie without income for almost three weeks. Well, income for food and other basic living necessities. She'd already paid the utilities and taxes for that month, thank the astrals. She just had to figure it out.
For a brief second, she considered asking Tal for a part-time position in the shop but dismissed the thought as soon as it came up. She'd rather starve than place a burden on such a kind man, knowing he had little Nate to look after.
Downgrading her phone plan was the first step. Cell service was outrageously expensive, and she couldn't even use her data anyway. The money saved there could get food until the green plot was ready to harvest.
Well, some food. It wouldn't cover three weeks' worth of meals, so she was going to have to supplement somehow. She remembered Sophie talking about the forest being full of berries and vegetables to forage, and so she decided to take a look while there was still some daylight left. Passing the black carnage without so much as an upwards glance, she grabbed a tote bag and a few gallon-sized Ziploc bags from the house and started walking west as soon as she re-crossed the stone bridge.
‡ † ‡
Barely two hours passed and two of the five plastic bags were full of juicy red salmonberries and her tote overflowing with leeks, spring onions, fiddlehead ferns, morels, and another small brown mushroom she couldn't name. She was pretty they weren't poisonous but decided to stop by Sophie's just to be safe. Still, even if those other mushrooms weren't edible, she could totally get by for a while on the other fruits and vegetables alone. There were at least a dozen berry bushes she hadn't touched yet, and she could trade the leeks to Doris for bread and pastries. Maybe Marla would cut her a deal on eggs.
Returning to the main path that wound around the lake on Marla's land, Charlie spotted something that turned her already fragile heart to cinders. A bright, blue-silver flash crashed through her memory for a second time, and she realized now just where exactly that monster of a bolt had connected to the earth: the tower.
The smooth grey stones now displayed curls of black ash and charred cracks. The surrounding earth, once green and full of life, sat black and dead. Something was still smoking despite the heavy rains the night before.
Dropping her bags, Charlie took off at a dead sprint for the door. To her surprise it sat partially open, blown off its hinges from the strike. Thankfully once inside there seemed to be no traces of fire damage. Or life at all. The place looked frozen in time, nine years' worth of dust coating the tables and shelves.
Hopefully, whatever kept Adagium asleep also kept his home safe.
A creeping sense of dread overcame her by the time she crested the first small set of stairs. She shivered so much she couldn't push herself onwards. Whatever protected this place, it didn't want her there, and she wasn't going to potentially anger it by defying. But she had to see if Adagium was okay. He was supposed to be her family's—well, her—protector, and he wouldn't be any use to her dead.
A floorboard creaked behind her and she whirled around to find…
"No one," she muttered. "This place gives me the creeps."
Looking back once more to the stairs that led to the upper part of the tower, she returned to the foyer. As she reached for the door, she saw a thin wisp of something green. Tucked away to her far right, partially covered by an old rug, was a hatch. It looked heavy, like something from a medieval movie. And Charlie couldn't budge it by herself.
If Adagium was in this tower, he had to be down there. And Charlie needed help to get to him. Hell, she needed help for everything now, by the looks of it. She knew it wasn't going to be easy taking over things, but that entire day had just been her thinking of how to get by without the charity of others. And it didn't leave too many viable options.
Back in the fresh air, Charlie gathered her bags of forage and headed for home to think up a plan. If she could get the immortal to wake up, maybe she could kickstart her Guardian stuff. Going back as far she could remember, the journals all stated that training began at summer's end. With it currently being the middle of April, that still left a few months. Surely Adagium could teach her something that time, right?
In all honesty, Charlie only had two options: Fight, or wallow. And while it seemed like a damn good time to wallow, she had to push past it. She was still alive, she had Griff, and she had Adagium…somewhat.
She could do this.
‡ † ‡
Closing the freezer with a satisfied huff, Charlie went to her laptop to check her finances. Even with the payment from her shipment of pink apples, she had been somewhat frugal with her spending the past week or so, and hadn't really sat down to look at her budget. Plugging in the life-saving Wi-Fi adapter, she logged into her bank account. When the page loaded Charlie's mouth dropped open in shock.
How was her balance that low? There was no way… Paging through her transaction history told her the whole story. Rent, bills, line after line of bar tabs from before she left…and two massive charges that were not supposed to be on there at all. One was a car payment for a vehicle Charlie had given up before even moving away, and the other had Jorgen Chase's disgusting name slapped on it. What was worse was Jorgen Chase was nearly triple that of the car payment, and that thing was a literal brand new 2018 Cereveda.
On the verge of freaking out, Charlie pulled out her phone and stared for a few seconds in hesitation at her mom's ex-girlfriend's number before hitting the 'call' button.
‡ † ‡
The next hour found Charlie sitting on her front steps in a daze. It was like her brain shut off to avoid facing the reality of her situation. The money would not be coming back.
Sarah—her mom's ex-girlfriend—was the head of the HR department back at Jorgen Chase headquarters and, while being one of the sweetest people to ever grace this planet, she couldn't help. She did her best to explain the extraordinary charge, though. When Charlie had entered her position with the company, she'd signed a document that stated she needed to work a full two years before leaving the company or else all money put into her using the company vehicles and all the flashy uniforms and dry-cleaning services would be charged to her upon her leave. It was absolute highway robbery and had to be illegal somehow, but with the place being one of the biggest, richest, and far-reaching companies on Äerd, there didn't seem to be anything she could do to get the money back.
As far as the car payment, Charlie was nearly blind from the pounding migraine that surfaced. Simply leaving the car at the dealership with the keys and a note that said 'I can't deal with this anymore' wasn't clear enough to them. She clenched her teeth at her own childish stupidity, but to her relief Sarah offered to take over the vehicle, claiming she'd always loved the unique seashell blue color it had. All Charlie would have to do is print off and sign a bunch of documents, provide proof of identity and that would stop the car payments. No sense in paying seven hundred a month for a car you didn't have, right?
But the reasons now didn't matter. What mattered was that the safety net Charlie thought she had built up for herself over the past few weeks was gone. On the verge of losing it, she thanked Sarah profusely before hanging up with a promise to keep in touch. Out of everything in that shithole city, she truly did miss that woman.
Taking a deep breath she sent a message to Griff
, asking him to come over. He replied instantly, telling her he was on the way. He didn't question her request for him to bring to a pair of good work boots, and she was glad.
‡ † ‡
Griff met her by the bridge just as the sun was beginning to set over the mountains. It wasn't quite dusk, but time didn't matter. With the mix of fear and adrenaline flowing through her, it could've been midnight for all Charlie cared.
Together, they retraced her steps south, around the lake, and then up to the tower. Her own anxiety subsided just a bit when she saw Griff swallowing his own. She expected him to call her crazy or even bail when she explained just what it was she intended to do, but he agreed to help.
Thanks to the guy's almost inhuman strength, the hatch opened with ease, revealing a ladder that vanished down into a deep darkness. They both looked down—Charlie with determination, and Griff almost with horrified anticipation.
"Uh, you sure you wanna go down there?"
She nodded before she even had the chance to doubt herself. It was something she needed—no, had—to do.
"I'm going," she said. "With or without you. Adagium is…he might need help."
"I'm all for helping the guy, but what if he, you know…" Griff trailed off and when Charlie looked to him, she saw something akin to fear in his eyes—but it wasn't for himself. He was worried for her.
Now that she thought about it, she didn't remember much aside from the various times the man had saved her, or the instances she witnessed Marianne yelling at him for something or another. As a child she didn't pay it any mind. Back then, she saw Adagium as her family's employee, and they're supposed to get yelled at from time to time, right?
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