Chapter 5
It didn't take long for Tianna to dress; the clothing was fairly self-explanatory. She put on what seemed to be white poofy shorts and a shift beneath the heavy material of the brown dress and managed to lace herself up reasonably. Her hair was braided but she tucked the end through itself so that it made a knot at the base of her skull. She carefully folded her farm clothing and put them in the wardrobe. Her riding boots were at the wardrobe's bottom and she considered them for a moment. Since Thanlos hadn't brought her anything else to wear on her feet, she had to assume they were appropriate, or at least not attention worthy.
Or maybe he had done all he could afford. The dress and other garments looked new. In times like these, they had to cost a pretty penny. Guilt assailed her again, but then, he was the one who insisted on waiting until the full moon. She put them on.
When she made her way back to the living area, Thanlos had opened several of the other packages and was slicing a section of meat that looked like ham. He looked up at her and eyed her dress critically, before nodding and turning back to his task.
A fresh loaf of bread sat on the table. He nodded to it and passed her a knife. As he did, he pronounced the word for it. She repeated it and he smiled. Then, he pointed to the bread and gave her the word for that as well.
Lunch was sandwiches with freshly processed ham and bread baked that morning, along with some tart apples he had acquired somewhere. It was one of the best meals she had eaten in a long time. She thought it had something to do with everything being fresh since there didn't seem to be a great cooling system.
This time they sat at the dining table and Thanlos made her go over all the words she had learned the night before, as well as new ones. Tianna picked up the words easily and soon began pointing to other items in the living space. She repeated them to herself over and over in her mind.
When the meal was over and cleaned up Thanlos, gestured to the stairwell and made a beckoning motion.
A thread of nervousness strung through her. Of course, she wasn't just going to sit in the tiny apartment until the full moon. Thanlos had gone to some trouble to conceal her untoward appearance, and she understood enough of history to know that people tended to kill what they didn't understand and then ask questions later. What if someone asked her questions? Or she managed to perform some faux pas that revealed her?
Still, the urge to get out and look around this new world was almost overwhelming. Where the heck was she? She had always been a little on the superstitious side, a remnant from being raised by her grandmother, so she accepted that this wasn't her world, or at least not her time.
Which was it? She wondered. The buildings spoke to a combination of the old west and some medieval village. Either way, she had to admit a burning curiosity.
Thinking of the style of dress made her run back to her room and grab the hat that Thanlos had provided. She carried it back out to the living space and showed it to him, a question in her eye.
He smiled gently and shook his head, pointing to the hat and then out the window.
Ah. Hats and veils were for outside. Ok. She was a little disappointed but considering her earlier anxieties, also relieved that his plan was not to leave the building. He had purchased the hat, so it wasn't as if he intended to keep her cooped up here all month. Baby steps were probably appropriate.
They made their way down the stairs and Tianna got a good look at the first floor where she hadn't been able to the night before. Had it only been one night? God it felt like forever.
Aside from the little back entrance that they had come through last evening, there were three closed off rooms, each with a bed and small table along with a stool. Everything was precisely placed and immaculately clean. Thanlos unlocked a fourth room which looked to be a workstation. A wide table sat in the middle and shelf upon shelf of glass bottles and jars lined them, all labeled neatly. Baskets on the floor held items that she could not identify but looked to be plant in nature. On the table sat a set of balance scales, a mortar and pestle, and something that looked like a Bunsen burner from her university days.
The front of the first floor was taken entirely by what could only be a shop. Large windows opened into the square, and a door, complete with a bell hanging above, allowed entry. There was a tall desk with sheets of paper at the ready, along with ink and a quill. The front had shelves, as well, and there was a variety of bottles, jars, and powders lined along it, as well.
She put the pieces together and came to the conclusion that Thanlos was some kind of old-time doctor. The irony of it was almost too much. Losing her job and going through hell, just to wind up here.
After showing her the various rooms, Thanlos led her back to the workroom and lifted up a basket of dried looking dark strips from the floor. He placed it on the bench and, from a nearby shelf, pulled a wide ceramic jar with a lid. Inside was a fine dark powder. He showed her the process of taking a tiny chunk off one of the strips and grinding it until it was as fine as dust, then he dumped it into the ceramic jar with the rest of the powder. He did this several times before handing the equipment to her.
She nodded. She could do this, she owed him that at least. And there was no point in her sitting around doing nothing.
Tianna ground the strips. The process was slow and painstaking, but she refused to be lazy and stop before the powder was as fine as Thanlos' demonstration. Several times she broke off a piece of strip too large and discovered that the larger bits were much more difficult to work with.
She heard three customers come through the door as she worked. Their soft voices carried to her work-station clearly, although she remained hidden. One of the voices, at least, had a terrible sounding cough, though she couldn't tell just by listening if it was a simple virus or something more sinister.
The afternoon passed quickly and, before she knew it, Thanlos was locking up and had come to the workshop door. Tianna had made good progress on the strips and the jar of powder was nearly full. Thanlos had checked in on her twice and seemed pleased with her work, gesturing to the jar and smiling broadly.
Tianna smiled back. It was nice to be appreciated. He helped her clean up the tools and then showed her the small bucket with soap in one corner of the room that was used to clean the equipment and her hands. He took the time to grab several buckets from the back entry and lead her out the back door to a tiny courtyard shared by four buildings. At the center was a water pump. He laid the buckets out in a particular order and she realized that he had labeled those as well. He rinsed and filled them in his particular order, and she helped to haul them back into the building.
Dusk was filling the streets and darkness was taking the interior of the building when he locked the backdoor and they made their way up the stairs.
The days passed in a similar fashion. Thanlos showed her how to perform household tasks, as well as the preparation of whatever concoctions he used in his doctoring. As he did that, he continued to expand on her vocabulary, until they could communicate in small sentences. She felt like a child, but she was also fascinated by this new world.
Thanlos had deemed her acceptable to go out and she often accompanied him on errands. She learned where the butcher shop and bakery were located, along with the grocer and tailor, though the last two shops mostly had things brought in by horse drawn cart every second week. At first, the towns people looked at her askance, but whatever explanation Thanlos had given seemed to have settled their initial curiosity and, in the second week, she stopped getting so many curious stares. Thanlos purchased another dress for her, this one of a dusky blue with matching accruements, and she was happy to have the change of clothing so that she could wash one dress at a time.
Oddly, every few evenings Thanlos would help her prepare the night meal and then, when he had seen that she was settled, he would slip out and not return until early morning. She tried to discern where it was that he was going but, without downright following him, it was impossible to tell, and she respected his privacy enough not to do so.
The day of the first full moon, three weeks after her arrival, Thanlos made good on his promise and they left at dawn for the forest, which was not just a stand of trees here, but a proper forest that went on endlessly. He was very cautious, even nervous, as they entered the woods and his reactions seemed to spark her own fear until she had a hard time pushing away the memories of the attack she had faced. He knew, somehow, when her nerves took hold, for he would look at her, a wistful expression on his face, though he hadn't offered his comfort since the first night she had rejected it.
As they walked, he stopped at a small flower there, or a tree here, and collected parts of the foliage. He would whisper the names for her as he did so and she found she could recognize, fairly easily, some of the more common ingredients that he dried and powdered or soaked and made a syrup with. Which was interesting, but by that time her hope was rising and thoughts she hadn't let surface for three weeks started bubbling over. Three weeks was the allotted time she had been suspended. Had she missed the first shift she was supposed to return to? How was Carlos doing? Did the animals have enough feed? She imagined the account was looking more than anemic. She had no idea how she was going to pull it together when she returned, and now that her mind wasn't bent on her immediate survival, she found the stress and worry at the forefront of her mind. The deeper they went into the wood, the more the fears seemed to pile up until tears threatened to spill over at the overwhelming weight that settled upon her shoulders.
It didn't matter, though, because the arch wasn't there. The grove was the same, the placement of the trees and the attack of the creature would be imprinted in her mind for the rest of her life. There were even a few remaining bones scattered about and picked clean from the creature. But there was no arch.
She remembered it had lit up when she had touched the side, before she had passed through. Could that have been some sort of signal for it to disappear? And if so, how could she make it reappear?
She wandered around the nearby trees looking for any clue, but nothing but nature met her. She even tried touching every branch she could reach. Predictably, nothing happened. They must have spent hours in the clearing before Thanlos cleared his throat. She glanced up at him.
“Getting late,” he told her.
Indeed, the shadows of the woods were growing long. They would have to hurry if they wanted to make it back to the village before dark.
“The arch,” she started and then struggled to find the words she needed. “Bring,” she paused and growled in frustration.
He tilted his head, waiting.
“When...Arch?” she tried again.
Now he shook his head. He said something in a long, complicated sentence that she tried to decipher, but she only caught a few words…gone...no more...and lost.