Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Fine Dining and Goodbyes

I sighed as I stood in front of the back door to Fox and Hound. It felt like I was sighing a lot today.

Stalling for time, to avoid having to confront Belle, I started thinking about today.

In the end, Jamie just said to dismiss the things Mr. Weirdo (that was the name I made up for him) told me. I thought he was probably right but... Didn’t it seem too odd to be a coincidence? After all, he knew my name and even my blessing...

Thinking about it, he also told me that coincidences don’t exist.

‘What did he even mean by that...’

Before I could get lost in my thoughts, I stopped and decided that I’ll have plenty of time to ponder their words on the trip to The Academy. After all, it wasn’t a short trip.

Almost all the northernmost territory of the Revel Kingdom is uninhabited. The only reason Revelstoke City can have livable conditions whilst being the farthest north city in the kingdom is that it’s a port city, beside the ocean. There is an ocean stream called the North-South passage that travels up from the Southern Continent, upwards, until it reaches us here in the Central Continent, bringing warm weather with it. Because of this, the Revel Kingdom’s north-Eastern coast only gets to about -15°C in the wintertime, whereas the northern interior of the kingdom’s winters usually ranges between -35 to -50°C.

Because there are 2 other kingdoms and one Duchy below the Revel kingdom, it’s very rare to get visitors from the southern kingdom in Revel. There are 2 reasons it’s so rare. One of those reasons is that they would need to get permission from all 3 nations to sail through their waters to reach the Revel kingdom in the North. This takes time and money, so why would anyone put in the effort when they could just trade with the humans from the more southern nations?

Furthermore, I’ve heard the fairies in the Western continent never leave... The only continent we could trade with is the Eastern continent, home to the vampires, but in the last 20 years they’ve completely closed off all their borders. No one knows what they're thinking.

Anyways, The Academy is about a week’s worth of a trip from Revel City by carriage. The Academy has dorms, and all the students live there full-time. As far as I know, there are multiple townships and villages on the way and surrounding the Academy. The town that The Academy is in is called Bellias, and I’ve heard it has a decent population of about 15,000 citizens, not counting the Academy students. Although it truly pales in comparison to Revel’s approximate 6 million citizens, Bellias is not a small community.

What kind of people live there or what do they do for work... I don’t know yet. I suppose I’ll find out.

Some homeless beggars who lived in the alley behind Fox and Hound were starting to give me weird looks. After all, I’ve probably been standing in front of the back door for upwards of 5 minutes already. I sighed for the umpteenth time today and stepped forward to open the door.

The bell rang as I walked into the bistro, and I saw a few regular customers in for an afternoon of drinking. Belle, who was behind the bar looked up and was about to rush up to me but paused upon seeing my attire.

“Goodness Noel, what happened to you!? Where have you been since yesterday? I’ve been asking for you everywhere and haven’t heard a single word about you!”

She started angrily, but the anger quickly turned to relief and then to worry. I immediately felt guilty for making her worry... Wait, did she say yesterday? Yesterday? Why did they keep me in the hospital for that long...? If someone with a healing blessing healed me, I should have woken up soon after they finished. Did they wait a whole day to heal me? How odd... Perhaps I was attended to by an intern since my background wasn’t at all impressive.

I wasn’t given time to dwell on it though. Aunt Belle came up to hug me.

“Stupid. Don’t disappear like that again! I’m glad you’re okay.”

I suddenly felt a pang of guilt knowing I was leaving the day after tomorrow.

As I pulled away from her embrace, I finally spoke. “Auntie... Let’s eat meat tomorrow”

She gave me a look and sighed. I knew that look... It was her look of ‘I’m fed up with this.’

“Seriously, Noel? You come home after worrying me sick and the first thing you talk about is meat? Besides, it’s Tuesday tomorrow! How could we eat meat more than once a week1...” She instantly trailed off as she got a better look at what I was wearing.

“Hey. You... Didn’t go rob anyone, right?” My jaw almost dropped. Did she have that little faith in me? I don’t live on the streets anymore! I stopped stealing 9 years ago...

I sat down at the nearest table and urged her to sit down as well, and then I started explaining everything, from when it started raining yesterday to waking up in the hospital, only leaving out getting ripped off by the carriage driver and my strange encounter with Mr. Weirdo.

Her face displayed a myriad of emotions and expressions, from surprise to relief and finally to sadness when the fact I would soon be gone set in.

“Gosh, who will help me around this place while you’re gone!”

Belle sighed and then smiled bitterly and remarked in a regretful tone “by the time you come back, you won’t be a teenager anymore...” She paused for a second before temporarily putting her sadness aside. Looking back up at me, her blue eyes sparkling, she posed a question. “Hey, Noel. What is your blessing?”

I smiled and recounted what I thought it was and why. Bella had always been rather infatuated with blessings and magic, but since it was always something unreachable for us, she had to put it aside as an unnecessary fantasy and focus on running the tavern.

Now that I was home, I finally let myself become a little proud. You could get a good government job with a blessing after all! And that meant I could make good money, enough to support Belle and maybe even renovate this whole building.

“I wonder who it was that owned that carriage? Did you see the crest?”

Bella’s voice snapped me out of my money fantasies.

“No... I didn’t see the crest at all.” I shook my head in regret and recounted how the only thing on my mind was the 5 pounds in my wallet.

If I wasn’t so obsessed with that money none of this would have happened... But on second thought, it wouldn’t change the fact I was blessed, I just wouldn’t have awakened it, and that money was important to me. So, I couldn’t blame myself.

Bella brought me a wooden bowl of potato stew alongside her bowl. We ate in silence, and after about 10 minutes we started seeing an increase in customers. Just as we finished up our meal, I heard the bell at the back door ring. That meant the primary chef, Billy, had come in for his shift.

I left Aunt Belle to clean up our bowls and spoons and went to greet Billy at the back door.

Accompanying him was a short boy, probably somewhere around 12 years old.

“Hey, Billy!” I greeted him enthusiastically. “Who’s this with you?” I smiled at the two of them.

Billy gave me a complicated look before replying to my question. “This ‘ere is my boy, Jonny. ‘M ‘opin’ he can get a job ‘ere cleanin’ or washin’ dishes. ‘E’s getting past the age of lazin’ around n’ lettin’ ‘is pa do all work.”

Billy only moved to Revel City in the past 10 years, and his Southern Revel accent was still rather heavy. Over the 4 years, he’s worked here, I’ve gotten used to it and had no problem understanding. I thought I knew him rather well, but who knew he had a son?

Actually... Since I’m leaving for The Academy soon this is perfect timing. Isn’t this a little too perfect? I was happy on Bella’s behalf, as now she wouldn’t have to search around looking for someone to fill in for the hole I’ll leave in the tavern’s staff when I leave for The Academy.

I smiled and found a table in the corner Jonny could sit. I invited him to order anything while I discussed it with Belle since she is the owner.

Of course, Belle agreed.

After the night was over, and the tavern closed, I went upstairs. I had long changed out of my expensive clothes and gotten into regular old work clothes. Now I took them all off and ran a warm bath. Getting in and lathering my body and hair with soap, I thought over what was going to happen in the future.

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At least packing my suitcase wouldn’t be very difficult. After all, I don’t have many personal belongings. The only thing I could consider bringing with me was the knitted quilt Bella had made for me when I was 9 or 10. It was rather worn but carried many fond memories.

As the water turned cold, I finished rinsing myself and stepped out of the bathtub to dry myself.

After brushing my teeth, I headed back to my room and lay down on my small cot bed.

I put the oil lamps out before getting into bed and wriggling under the covers.

‘I bet The Academy has gas lamps...’

Slowly, I drifted off to sleep thinking about what lay in my future.

***

‘That should be it.’

Standing up straight, I looked at my half-full suitcase. Inside was my quilt, my wallet with all the cash I possessed, my favourite teacup, and a deck of playing cards. Closing it up, I headed downstairs to help Aunt Belle with counting last night’s profits. The tavern didn’t open until 3 pm, so the day was always calm and quiet inside.

Hearing me open the door that led to the narrow set of stairs to the next floor, Belle stopped me. “Oh, Noel. Don’t worry about helping me count profits this morning. Just eat some breakfast and then do me a few favours instead!”

She walked over and handed me an envelope. “Can you mail this for me? Also, it’s your turn to go grocery shopping today. The market has a new stand, greet the owners for me, okay? Lastly, go take a walk around town. Let people see your face a little before you leave! You stay inside during the day too much. Half the people who live on this street have never seen you outside the tavern before!”

I was instantly barraged with a whole bunch of tasks. She was going to work me as much as she could before I left, wasn’t she...

Sighing my first sigh of the day, I could only accept what she told me.

After quickly eating breakfast, I went out and completed my smaller errands. After that, I went to the market and grabbed everything I needed... And extra. I had money to spare, and I was going to be leaving soon. Why not pig out a little? It was a bit of a challenge to make it back home, but I got there eventually. Thankfully, I got home just before it started pouring. Thinking of the last time I got caught in the rain... I’d rather not go there again.

I put down the heavy bags of groceries and pushed the back door open. To my confusion, it was completely dark inside.

‘The lamps couldn’t have all run out of oil at once, right... That’s just ridiculous.’

I sighed to myself for the nth time this week.

Surely, I’m not having another strange encounter like my one with Mr. Weirdo, right?’

With a complicated expression on my face, I simply picked the bags back up and made my way into the dark tavern. I wasn’t sure if anything could surprise me at this point; these past 2 days have just been too full of utterly bizarre happenings and I’m becoming desensitized to the strangeness of it all.

Or so I thought.

After taking just one step inside the tavern, someone holding a candle jumped out of the hall in front of me and screamed, which in turn made me scream and throw the bag with a leg of chicken in it at them!

I fell backwards and was about to scramble to my feet when I finally got a better look at the man holding the candle. It was fucking Jamie!

Seeing my still shocked yet furious expression, Jamie burst out laughing.

“Gosh Noel, who would ‘a thought you were so Pidgeon-livered2!”

I was about to retort, but the lamps that were mounted about the walls of the bistro lit up one after another, and I realized there were a lot more people here than just Jamie.

Apart from Jamie, Belle, Billy and Jonny, multiple other familiar faces could be seen.

This included a few regular customers, the neighbours Miss and Mister Jaekle and their daughter Elanor, and a few old friends of Belle’s father’s children who Belle and I have known for a long time. In summary, all my friends were there.

Shaking my head, I reached to take a hand that Jamie had extended, but when I got about halfway up, the bastard let go! Falling back onto my ass, I shot him my best glare as he tried his best not to laugh... And then we both immediately burst into laughter.

Internally cursing whoever decided who’s fated to become friends with who, I stood back up. After scratching my cheek in embarrassment, I asked: “What’s going on here?”

Belle lit the last lamp and called from across the room. “It’s your ‘going away party’ Ellie!”

‘Ellie!’ She hasn’t called me that since we were kids...Why now? Jamie just got another thing to laugh at me for!

“Belle...!”

I was turning red with embarrassment. I wasn’t... I never really was one to flush. But if I could, I’m sure I’d have been as red as a tomato by now! This was just too much embarrassment within 10 minutes... ‘Please auntie, save me some face3!’

In the end, I moved on quickly. We had a great lunch party that continued into the evening, even becoming a dinner party, and Belle even closed the tavern for the night so we could have it all to ourselves. Mr. Jaekle happened to be a musician, and he played us songs on his fiddle while we ate, drank and sang into the night.

***

“Are you sure? I can’t even wash up a few dishes?” Smiling helplessly, I knew it was useless. Once Aunt Belle’s stubborn side was revealed... There was no going back. She is seriously the most hard-headed person I know.

What was happening right now is a good example. Just because it was a party for me, and I offhandedly mentioned it had tired me out she absolutely would not let me help clean up and just insisted that I go to bed because I have a big day tomorrow!

After getting the same answer of ‘of course, I’m sure! Not everyone is as indecisive as you, Ellie.’ (Seriously, she’s pushing the limits of my patience with that nickname today...) I headed upstairs and got ready to sleep.

Climbing into bed and turning off the lamp, I smiled bitterly. Once I learned to read, I’d send many letters to Belle from The Academy.

Fondly imagining the future, I seamlessly drifted off into dreamland.

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