Leah spends Sunday grocery shopping and then relaxing at home, thinking over her plans for the future. She can hear the puppies faintly from the other side of the wall.

She leaves to sit on the balcony, and notices a row of empty pots, full of earth but growing nothing. She wonders what sort of crops would be worth growing in such small quantity, and her mind wanders to the dwindling supply of spices and herbs in her cupboards.

At the library, she asks the librarian where she could buy seeds or seedlings, and another library staff member says they actually have a plant-share program, just starting up. Leah agrees to being made a member, and the other librarian leads her to the second floor and then to a window-filled room, with plants on all the desks.

He explains how the sharing program works, and Leah is astounded at the good will of it all, yet simultaneously confused why people find it necessary to grow their own food. She reflects, and remembers she has seen no signs of farmland.

Maybe that’s why people supplement with home-grown foods. I hope this isn’t their only solution to having horribly over-sized cities; pots on the balcony are only good for so many months of the year. Especially if the climate is more like Algi’s.

She leaves with a tiny pot of chives, and another of oregano. Both smell lovely, though she recognises neither by name or look. She signs them out, and promises to bring back any seeds that they produce. The cost is just under three dollars, since she’s already a library member.

Back at the apartment, she digs in the dirt and plants her two new herbs, then goes back inside to look over the small book she took out on home gardening tips.

She reflects that this slow life, full of possibilities and unlimited choices, is a bit overwhelming at times, more so than her old hectic life ever was. She never feels truly in danger here. Well, that first week before I found a job and figured out how money worked, that was scary, but still. It’s been three years since I spent more than ten consecutive days never fearing for my life. I’d sort of forgotten how to enjoy my time off…not that they never offered me time off from adventuring, only, where would I have gone?

An hour into the afternoon, calm and at peace with herself, there is a knock at the door. Leah fumbles the book, then sets it down on the coffee table and goes to answer, baffled by this first ever interruption of yet another quiet afternoon.

The older woman standing in the hallway outside her door is distantly familiar, in an unnerving, ghostly way. “Oh good, you’re not dead!” the woman snaps, then immediately smiles and sweeps into the room, wrapping Leah in a hug. “You know, if you lost your phone or whatever, you could always have just emailed us, or used a payphone. They have them in the lobby, I saw them. Two dollars for a call, can you believe!”

Leah remembers the small painting on the table – the two people who were/weren’t her parents. This, she realises, is the woman from that picture.

Her breath catches in her throat. “Mum?” She barely whispers it.

“A month with no texts at all, I’m not surprised you’ve forgotten me.” The woman lets go of Leah and steps aside, looking around the place. Seeing the curtain, she smiles. “Oh good, it arrived safe! It fits the frame well? Perfect, I wasn’t sure it would be long enough.” The woman takes a deep breath and holds Leah by the shoulders. “Leah. I know you said you wanted this to be your own space, and that you wanted as little interference on our part as possible. At first I figured we were being helicopter parents, and that’s why you’d stopped answering. But three weeks?”

Leah tries to follow.

The woman presses on. “Was your phone stolen?”

Phone. She’d heard that word before, when the girls were holding those little rectangles that everyone seemed to own. She’d found one in her apartment, but it hadn’t responded to any of her poking.

Leah shakes her head, still a little dazed. “No, it’s just…not working right.”

“Well geez Leah you can borrow someone else’s to call us and tell us so, alright?”

Leah stands awkwardly, unsure how to respond. It hadn’t occurred to me…everything was so different, but I didn’t realise that everything would be different…

The woman sighs. “I don’t mean to be angry, but imagine it from our side! Three weeks, no response! I drove out here today just to make sure you weren’t dead, or kidnapped. They don’t put up Amber Alerts for grown women, you know.”

“Amber?”

“But that doesn’t mean you’re not still our girl, and when you just leave us in the dark like that we imagine the worst. Now, I need to phone your father and tell him you’re alright, and then we’ll talk.”

The woman walks to the side and pulls out a phone. Leah half-listens to the conversation, as the woman explains that Leah’s alright, that she just had tech problems with her phone, that everything’s fine, that they’re just about to start talking about it.

At that point, the woman passes the phone over. Leah looks at it, and the woman waves it impatiently. Leah takes it and holds it gingerly to her ear.

“Leah?” The voice is male, but garbled and crinkly.

“Yeah?”

“You forget how to use a computer or something? You sure spent enough time on it as a kid, you’d think you might have figured out emailing at some point.”

Leah trembles. “I’m sorry dad.”

“Did you at least call your grandfather to wish him a happy birthday? Or had you forgotten that was last week?”

Leah trembles worse. “Your dad?”

The man chuckles. “Yeah, my dad.”

“Granddad’s still alive too?” Leah’s voice is hoarse.

The man is silent a moment. “Well that’s a nice thing to say. What do you mean by that?” The woman watches in growing confusion.

Leah blinks hard. “It’s been a weird month, dad…still trying to figure it all out.” She sniffles.

“Honey? Honey? What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry I never tried to reach out, I didn’t realise…it would matter so much to you.”

The man starts reciting a string of reassurances, asking that she not underestimate how much they care, extorting a promise that she’ll call once a week from now on. “Give us the news, and such. We’ve missed a whole month! I never wanted to miss a whole month of my girl growing up.”

Leah nods, teary-eyed.

“Alright, my lunch break is almost over. Take care, and please, please think about us every now and then?”

“I do. I always do. Be safe.”

The man laughs a bit at this. “Most dangerous things in the office are Tracey’s puns. I’ll be fine, honey; you be safe.”

Leah nods, and the crackly audio beeps once then goes silent. Her arm hangs down, still holding the phone. The mother has been watching all this with a sentimental expression, and slowly reaches out to take the phone back.

Picking up a pen and notebook from the table beside the door, the woman writes a string of numbers down – “In case you haven’t gotten it memorised, for some reason,” – and Leah tries to think what she’s supposed to do with the numbers.

Leah fetches her phone, and the mother pushes a button to turn it on. “Seems like it’s working to me,” she mutters, and when it’s finished turning on she hands it over to Leah. “Now. Practice typing it in, so I know you’re still capable of it.”

Leah looks at the little green icon, and touches it; a number pad appears. She copies in the numbers from the piece of paper, and then holds the phone to her ear.

The woman answers her phone with a cheeky grin. “Hello? Who is it?” The voice comes through the phone in an echo, crackly and unfamiliar but so soft and sweet.

“Hi mummy.”

The woman grins wider. “Leah! How are things?”

Leah trembles again. “I love you mum.”

The woman’s eyes tear up. Leah is openly crying. They both discard the phones and hug again.

*

Sitting on the couch, each with a mug of mint tea, the two women talk.

Leah holds the mug gingerly, steam rising. “It’s just been so hard to adjust…everything here is so different from back home. So much bigger…noisier…and yet lonely.”

“Have you met people since you moved out? Six months isn’t a long time, in the scheme of things, but people from work…?”

“Oh yeah, the girls at work are really nice.”

“Did you decide to stay at the coffee place after all? It sounded pretty awful from your description.”

Leah shakes her head. “Oh, uh, no. I left. Got a new job at a bar instead.”

“Oh that’s good! What’s that like?”

“Weird hours, but decent pay.”

“Good tips?”

“I’m just the bar-back, I don’t get tips.”

The woman looks at her mock-sternly. “You should bring that up with your manager; if you’re serving clients in any capacity, you should get a portion of the tips. Have you got a pay stub I can look at? Maybe they include it with your salary…you’ll want to know when tax time comes back around.”

“It’s all done online…I still haven’t quite figured it out.” The woman looks like she’s about to protest again, and Leah rushes to reassure her. “I’ve checked with my bank, though, and the pay is coming in; a little over a thousand dollars, paid every two weeks.”

The woman makes a face. “That’s not very good money. You could be making more.”

“Well, when I’ve been there longer than just three weeks I’ll ask for more.”

The woman seems to accept this. “So your coworkers are nice? Bartenders, I assume?”

Leah considers how other people have reacted, and plays it safe. “Bartenders, yes.”

“Not too wild?”

“I went to one of their parties yesterday.”

“Oh! How was it?”

“Wine, pizza, face masks, something called ‘girl talk.’”

The woman laughs. “Ironic that you could never stand girl talk. How are things on that front?”

“Which front?”

“The girl front. Any possible leads?”

Leah struggles to understand. The woman sighs.

“Have you found a potential girlfriend yet?”

“Oh!” Leah tenses, but with every impression she’s gotten of this woman, the feeling is fleeting. “No, not really. One nice girl from work, but we haven’t really…I’m still a little cut up, from the last time. Not sure I’m ready.”

The woman frowns. “That was two years ago, Leah. I thought you’d gotten over Chloe.”

“I guess…moving away, being alone with my thoughts…I regret leaving more than I thought I would.”

“Leaving her, or leaving us?” The woman rubs Leah’s back. “Or is it a bit of both?”

Leah leans her head on the woman’s shoulder. She tries hard to stop thinking of her as ‘the woman’ and to start seeing her as ‘mum,’ but the differences are too strong. Yet this is the mother I would have killed to have…

The woman pats Leah’s hair a few times, her hand warm from holding the mug. “I’m not going to tell you to come home, because I don’t think that’s what you want. But if you need to visit, just for a bit, then we can come pick you up, or send you money for a bus ticket.”

Leah jumps on the opportunity, barely waiting for her to finish talking. “How about next weekend?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ll have to cancel my class for Saturday, but I don’t have anything planned.”

“Class?”

“I’ve started taking wrestling classes at a gym nearby.”

“Oh neat! I thought you were more into gymnastics?”

Leah does not recognise the word. “I wanted something different.”

“Well that’s good. You meeting any neat people there?”

“So many! They all have plans, and interesting careers, and unique backgrounds…it’s interesting to me that I share something in common with these people who are so very different from me.”

“That is cool. You should save those stories for your father, though, he’d love to hear about them, especially considering the time he spent doing MMA in university.”

Leah nods excitedly, not following but loving the feeling of having a family again. “Next weekend?”

The woman nods. “I’ll send you money for a bus ticket. You can take the bus from Attenburrough, and we’ll pick you up at the Commandant stop. Call us, to let us know when you’re getting close.”

Leah nods again reflexively, and rests an arm around the woman’s shoulders in a loose hug. Anxious happiness bubbles up inside her chest, and she feels a little dizzy. Is this a good feeling, or a bad feeling? Whatever it is there sure is a lot of it. She beams and sits back, sipping at her tea.

The woman ends up staying for supper, and Leah, stressed and wanting to make a good impression, cooks the one thing she knows how to make for certain: an Algic dish called Havroutset, with mutton and tart wild cherries (here replaced by plums) and red wine. The cooking time is long, and her understanding of temperature numbers hazy, but she’s made it enough times for the five to be able to improvise. It’s more of a special dish than she’s used to serving, and strange not to cook it over a wood fire, but serviceable.

The woman compliments the cooking endlessly. “Where did you find the recipe? Could you bring it to me next weekend?”

Leah remembers clearly being a preteen and helping her proper mother prepare this for the first day of spring, when the ewes who were too old or had failed to lamb healthily were slaughtered, and the meat cooked slowly for hours to make it as tender as it could be. She remembers turning the spit, the dog sitting next to her and drooling, and her mother occasionally passing by to put another layer of glaze on – wine drops bubbling on the hot skin, sizzling down to the coals beneath.

She pulls herself out of the memory. “I’ll write it down and bring it, sure.”

They say goodbye after supper, so the woman can drive home before dark. Leah sits on the couch, alone, and suddenly notices the gardening book she’d set down. She stares at it for a while, reflecting on how much had changed so suddenly.

She gets up and goes to the neighbour’s apartment.

Frantic barking greets Leah’s knocking, followed by frustrated shushing. The neighbour opens the door; a youngish woman, currently carrying a small mewling puppy in one arm. Leah bites back the urge to immediately coo and pet it.

Leah smiles. “Just wanted to say hello, and check how the pups are doing.”

The woman welcomes her in. A youngish man is busy spreading a new layer of newspaper over their living room floor, where a small pen has been set up with metal-mesh fences. A middle-sized dog with shaggy orange hair lies in the centre, tail tapping against the floor, with five puppies suckling. The woman sets the sixth down inside, and it makes its way over to the mother.

“I’m Leah, by the way. From next door. I can’t remember if I’ve introduced myself or not.”

The other two introduce themselves – Kylie and Etienne – and begin politely chatting about the dogs, and socially kvetching about the cable company doing work at seven every morning the past while, and joking about the landlady’s reaction to the puppies.

“Have you had any trouble from the landlady about the giant pride flag in the window? You can just see it from our balcony,” Etienne explains.

“Not that I can remember.”

“Hm, well maybe I should put mine out on the railing, see how she feels about it.” He gestures to a smaller flag currently hanging on the wall, in pastel stripes.

Leah nods encouragingly. “You should. This city has been wonderfully more open than my old home, and it’s been so nice to be honest about myself. You should feel free to be open too.” She says it as a light sort of comment, but the couple seem to treat it like a grand gesture of goodwill, their posture relaxing as she says it.

The conversation continues on to other topics, friendly and easy. She eventually asks the couple when the puppies will be old enough to leave their mother; she lies that she has been considering getting a pet, and that the timing seemed like a sign. Kylie says that in two months they will be ready to go, and that it might be nice to have one of them nearby.

“Collie-retriever on one side, and chocolate lab-pitbull-boxer on the other,” Etienne says, and Leah nods, uncomprehending. “They’ll need a lot of space to run.”

“Well there’s the dog park not far from here, so that’ll be alright.” This answer seems to satisfy them, but Leah makes a mental note to look for any hidden wild spaces nearby. Dogs need to run, not just chase each other around a pen. Maybe there’s a small patch of farmland or forest hidden somewhere here. I hear people mention a river, every now and then, but I’ve never found it…She draws herself back to the present moment.

The conversation wraps up shortly after, as the sun sets. Leah thanks the couple for their time and wishes them a good night.

Back in her apartment she looks at the large rainbow curtain hanging in the living room. She contemplates it, in the context of rainbows in Algi – sundogs in winter, and the spray from waterfalls…the Lady of Murk sometimes has rainbows associated with her, because of their liminal status.

It’s been over a month since I’ve done any religious observances, but I suppose in a world this distant, the gods probably don’t hear. Frankly I’m not sure they even listened outside of Algi, with how they’ve been warped around by Volst. And yet, at my lowest point, the powers that be delivered me to a universe with loving parents and a safe home…

Struck with a sudden nostalgia for her old rituals, she lights a candle and meditates a few minutes before bed that night, reflecting on the Lady of Murk – not usually a deity to invoke lightly, though her association with the crossing of thresholds seems highly relevant to the current situation. Leah knows the songs by heart, and hums them to herself, watching the candle flicker.

Not to her surprise, nothing happens at the end of the songs; no visions, no euphoric feeling, no wisdom. The old songs have served their purpose. What more could they give me here? I’ve already received everything I’ve ever asked for.

She goes to bed feeling at peace.