Chapter 64: Day 63

Day 63,

As expected, everyone asked about my hand when they picked me up on the way to the Village this morning.  Less expected was for one of Cass’s sisters (Ourania I think?) to pull out a knife and spend the ride giving me instruction on proper fish cleaning technique.  I’m not sure how well the demonstration with a root vegetable in place of a fish will translate, but I’ll try to keep it in mind next time.

Once we got to the Village James pulled me and Cass aside while her siblings unloaded the wagon.  Apparently he’d found out about the planned floating island trip and didn’t appreciate being left in the dark.  In hindsight, Cass being uncharacteristically quiet the whole ride over probably should have been a red flag.  I told him that it wasn’t a planned trip so much as a hypothetical idea that we were still figuring out if it was even viable or not.  I wasn’t keeping it a secret, I just didn’t think it was worth concerning him with something that might not ever even happen.  And if we determined that such a trip was in fact feasible, that was when I had intended – and still intend – to loop him in to the actual planning and ask his permission for Cass to join me.

But since he knew now and was concerned about it now, I went ahead and explained what we knew so far.  Schedule calculations, cross referencing with moon phases for mist nights, an abridged version of what Pat had told me about islands, shades, and Priscilla, estimates of required supplies.  And that Vernon the mediator, and Lin the doctor’s daughter/assistant had expressed interest in assisting and/or accompanying us so we wouldn’t be alone or without medical care in the unlikely event that something bad would happen.

Still not seeming totally sold on the idea, James turned to Cass and asked how important this was to her.  She said that this sort of thing was why she agreed to apprentice to me.

With a concerning amount of hemming and hawing followed by a long sigh, James agreed to let Cassandra go on the excursion, and even help provide some of the supplies on the following conditions:

• The next mist night occurs before the next island docking.  Based on my island calculations and his better estimates of moon phases than mine, that will make this upcoming island circuit the only one for a long while that won’t have a mist night occurring in the middle of the trip, which he won’t allow Cassandra to be out for.
• James is to be kept apprised of any updates to plans and gets to inspect our gear and supplies before we leave.
• Lin goes with us.  Or her father.
• Even if the floating island gets close enough to another island to safely disembark, we stay aboard until it returns to Siren Overlook.  We are not to risk getting stuck with the floating island leaving us behind.  This had been my intent anyway.

With those terms agreed upon, Cass and I went off to the library, but not before I checked in with the man who said he’d have a cloak for me last market day, and indeed he now had one.  Realizing that it might get cold and wet if the island went high enough, I inquired about acquiring three or four more.  One for Cass and a couple more adult sized.  He said he’d found some others in storage along with this one and to come back tomorrow.

Back in the archive, Cass apologized for her dad finding out about the trip but didn’t seem to want to say how he found out.  I didn’t push, and said it was fine and, like I told him, I wasn’t exactly trying to keep it secret.

I also filled Cass in on my encounter with Theo.  She found the whole thing suspicious, but I can’t help but wonder if my recounting biased her.  And if some of that suspicion is from being a kid about to have an adventure and looking for a villain.

Most of the rest of the day was spent on more grammar and writing practice until Vernon showed up late in the evening as Cass was getting ready to leave for Norman and Marva’s.  Told us that he thinks he’ll be able to get most of the supplies we’d need for four people (me, him, Cass, and Lin) for the duration and even a loan of a cart and animal to pull it to get said supplies to the island.  We’d have to hurry and offload them all by hand once we got there though.

Needless to say, that’s great news to be ending the day on.

On a weirder side note though, it seems that I have as much trouble processing and writing down the proper name for those capybara-like creatures that people use as beasts of burden around here as I do with the actual name of fairy juice.  I’m just going to call them capys (capies?) until I stop getting a headache trying to write the actual name.  And also try not to think about how I can write down the translation of a made-up shortening of a word.

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