Disclaimer: Havest Moon isn't mine
1. Islanders
That was two weeks ago. It was strange, when I looked back now, and I saw how one simple boat trip would change my life forever. I was still wondering if it was a good change or not, but the answer to that question would come with the passing of time.
I now sat on Natalie's bed in her newly-built house. The construction was definitely questionable; someone with building experience would have to come fix it up sooner or later. But for now, the tiny house was fine and cozy. Natalie stood in front of me, gazing at her pile of books, looking at each of the titles carefully. "How did you ever manage to get those here?"
I finally asked her, for the silence had gone on long enough. She looked up at me and smiled, fixing her headband so it was just above her bangs. "Well, you know, it's odd. It's seems like every one of us managed to get one thing here; my mother brought these books, my grandfather brought his cane, I brought my pocketknife, Elliot brought his stupid green apron, and you grabbed your rucksack." When I thought about it, it was weird.
But when we had all sprint up to the dock in the dead of night when the storm was raging at its worst, my first thought was to bring my rucksack with me. Just before I had bolted out the door, I remembered my wallet wedged in between the wall and the nightstand and I had zoomed back to snatch it up, stuff it in the pack, and race out onto the dock. Taro had been right about the storm – and it was unlike any storm I had ever been in. The waves tossed the boat everywhere like it was some sort of doll, and the staff were doing everything they could to keep things in order, but it didn't seem to be helping.
They had yelled at all of us to get back to our rooms, but there were only three crewmen. How would they manage this by themselves? "They were soaked, of course – some of the pages' ink was completely smudged and is impossible to read now, but a few are alright – the pages just dried bizarrely," she mused, turning through them slowly. I nodded in agreement; I could hear Felicia busying herself in the kitchen in the next room, and I smelt something cooking, but I couldn't identify what it was.
"It was very nice of you to have me over for dinner," I said politely. Natalie waved the remark away as if it was a bothersome fly in the air. "Well, that old house of yours certainly doesn't have much – you'd be taking bites out of your table if we hadn't asked." I laughed.
"You're probably right," I agreed. Two weeks. It had been two weeks since myself and this bizarre family of four had washed up on this island the day after the almighty storm had terrorized the boat. I still remembered it vividly . . .
I am dead. I am dead. There is no possible way I can be alive. But if I'm dead, then how am I thinking? That was when I allowed myself to feel the rough surface beneath my left cheek. I ran my hand along it, digging my fingers into it.
Slowly, groggily, one of my eyes cracked open and revealed that I was lying on a bed of sand. Sand equals beaches, I realized through the haze in my brain. Slowly, with a low groan, I managed to roll myself onto my back – my muscles were so stiff.
\It hurt to move. I found myself staring up at the sun, the very same sun that had been high in the sky the day I had boarded that boat. But as I lay there, my head was clearing, and I was about to get up and look at my surroundings when a short dark shadow loomed over me. I couldn't make out who it was in the glare of the sun and my fuzzy vision, but the voice I recognized so quickly one would think I had known it all my life. "You okay, little missy?" the hoarse voice of Taro asked me.
Very slowly, I sat up. The world spun for a second, but finally I could see clearly as I ignored the aching moving gave me. My hair had dried in a disgusting way because of the saltwater that had been in it, and I could tell it was stiff as cardboard and sticking up in every direction.
"I think so, Taro." My voice sounded strange, even to me. I managed to get to my feet, gripping his skinny shoulder for support. "Careful," he warned me as I swayed dangerously. But I ordered myself not to fall; soon I was steady on my feet. A few feet behind the old man I could see the rest of our little group; Natalie was groaning and stretching, Elliot was sitting on the sand looking dazed, and Felicia had one hand on each of her children, and her lips were moving with speech, but I couldn't make out what she was saying.
"C'mon over," Taro said. As we walked, I was surprised he wasn't in worse condition; he was so old, surely his joints and muscles were hurting him a lot more than mine were. But if this was the case, the elderly man didn't show it. When I was by the little group, Natalie threw her arms around me in a tight hug.
"Oh, Chelsea, everything was so horrible! The storm, the seawater, the rain!" I hadn't thought this tough-as-nails girl knew how to cry, but here she was sobbing into my shoulder like we had known each other for ages. I patted her shoulder awkwardly and tried to soothe her with a soft voice.
She finally let go of me and turned to her mother. Elliot seemed too stunned to cry. He blinked several times before rising to his feet and turning to face us. He looked around for a few moments before saying, "It looks like we've washed up on an island." "Gee, figured it out, did you?" Natalie snapped. "Hush now," Felicia scolded. I looked around with sudden concern. "Where's the staff?" Taro sighed unhappily. "I don't know. Seems to me they might not have been as lucky as us," he said somberly.
I fell silent instantly, pierced by waves of sadness. Felicia bowed her head and closed her eyes. We stood there in silence a minute for the presumed dead before Taro said we should start surveying our surroundings. We hiked north a little ways before we came to the most open space I have ever seen. There was a broken bridge to the west that looked beyond repair, but there was another dirt road leading off into the east, and one heading farther north. "Sure is spacious," Elliot commented. For reasons unknown to ourselves, we decided to go up the northern trail first. What we found shocked us. In this particular part of land, there was a large field to the north of a rickety old house.
The dirt was perfect for raising crops, I discovered upon further investigation. Two bare plots of land stood to the north of the field, and to the west a long river snaked to the south from where we had come, which presumably emptied into the ocean.
Aside from that barren-looking house, there was also a building with two swinging doors, which Taro declared to be a stable. There was one building left, and it was the saddest-looking. Inside the old farmhouse, there was a small table and a twin sized bed, with two windows and a rug at the door. "This place has been abandoned for years," Elliot mused, "It probably used to be a ranch, though." I froze in place. A ranch. A farm. Were my dreams becoming reality?
"Well, someone could still live here now," Taro said, his beady eyes examining the land very closely. A sudden thought must have occurred to him, because he snapped his bony fingers. "Chelsea," he began. "Yes?" I asked. He hesitated for a minute, as if choosing his words carefully. "Have you ever given any thought to becoming a rancher, Miss City Girl?" I blinked at him before replying softly, "It's my life's dream." He smiled broadly. "Then maybe you should live here." I stared at the old man in wonderment for a minute, before his words finally sunk in, and I smiled wider than I had in years.
"Oh really? Really? That would be . . ." I paused, looking for the right word. Incredible? Awesome? Amazing? Fabulous? Nothing seemed to be enough. "Great," I finished lamely. "It's settled, then," Taro said.
"Hey, wait a minute," Natalie said sharply, "Where will we live?" Taro shrugged. "We'll have to build a place of our own I guess. We can all stay here until the job is done." "But how can Chelsea be a rancher," Elliot intervened, "if there's no one to sell livestock or crops?"
He looked around worriedly. "In fact, how will anyone even know we're here? What if we're stuck alone on this island for the rest of our lives?" "That boat ride was completely registered," Felicia said, "If we don't come back, people will start looking for us. And I don't think the boat strayed too far off course . . . this island seems fairly large . . . it's probably very hard to miss."
"Yeah," Natalie agreed. She paused. "I wonder why it was abandoned in the first place, though. It seems like such a nice place." Elliot shrugged. "We might never know. But hey, nothing is going to get done if we sit here wondering."
To my surprise, Taro and Felicia seemed to know more than I ever would have guessed about building. Elliot was clumsy with his work, often dropping or tearing things, and of course these things would not go unnoticed by his sister, who was much more efficient. She complained more often, though, which was almost as irritating as Elliot's incompetence. In one week, they had set up a little house using the island's recourses.
Dinner was some kind of odd root and wild grasses, which for some strange reason were shaped like hearts. Shiitake mushrooms were visible on the other side of the broken up bridge, and if I squinted hard, I was almost sure I could make out a pink-roofed house, which Taro dismissed as nonsense. It was early fall, so the growth of wild mushrooms was unsurprising. "I just hope they find us soon," Natalie sighed.
"I haven't slept in a long time because of Taro's snoring." Indeed, she had did have deep purple shadows under her eyes, and I had to admit I was getting worried; two weeks and still nothing. What if Elliot was right about being stuck here as castaways? I shuddered.
I felt sorry for Natalie, though, and the fact that I had a nice quiet little house made me feel selfish. And I really did like Natalie; that hadn't changed since the boat ride. "Natalie," I said slowly. She glanced up from her withered book in interest.
"My house is so quiet at night. If you really want a good place to sleep, maybe you could stay over at my place tonight." She grinned broadly and jumped up from her seat. "Oh really? That would be so awesome, Chelsea! Thanks! Grandpa! Mom!" she ran off to tell them. At around nine at night, as my watch said (thank heaven it was waterproof), we walked back to my house. I insisted she take the twin bed, as it wasn't big enough for both of us. She argued with me, but I could see the longing in her eyes. It wasn't so terrible to sleep on the floor; Natalie handed me down a blanket and my rucksack made somewhat of a pillow.
It wasn't long before I drifted to sleep, dreaming of healthy livestock and juicy crops . . .
A loud knocking woke me. I groggily rolled over, assuming it was heavy rain at first with my hazy brain. But the knocking sounded again, and it was coming in the direction of the door. Natalie rolled over and muttered something in her sleep, but she didn't wake up. She must be a heavy sleeper. I got to my feet, my body stiff from the hard surface of the floor. Annoyed, I looked at my watch – it was three o' clock in the morning. Who could that possibly be?
"Someone better be dead," I muttered angrily to myself. It was indeed raining, so when I opened the door, the short man standing there was entirely drenched. "Taro! What are you doing here? You'll kill yourself out in this cold." I shivered. The old man had a blanket draped over his shoulders and he was leaning against the old wooden cane he had managed to save from the boat, but he was smiling wider than I had ever seen. "Great news, little missy! We've been found."
He beamed. Suddenly the cold and wet didn't matter anymore, and my grogginess melted away. I was happier than I had been in months – no, years. "Really? Really?" I almost sang. I whirled and raced over to Natalie, almost dumping her onto the floor with the way I was poking, prodding and shoving.
"What's the big idea?" she almost groaned, trying to pull the pillow back over her eyes. "We've been found, Nat! They know we're here! We're going to be fine!" I was laughing and crying at the same time, something that had never happened to me before. She blinked at me for a second in her grogginess, uncomprehending. But then understanding dawned on her and she was just as excited as I was. She threw the blankets off, grabbed my arm and barreled to the door. We almost ran poor Taro over in our efforts to get around him and head towards the beach, where the rescuers no doubt resided. Taro held up his hands and jumped in the air once to stop us. Natalie and I stopped as he opened his mouth to speak.
But a coughing spasm interrupted him and the old man clutched his stomach. "Let's get him inside," I suggested. Natalie's eyes flickered in the general direction of the beach, but her grandfather came first. We helped him into my little house and sat him on the bed. It took several minutes, but Taro finally cleared his throat and discarded the soaking wet blanket. "They're not here," Taro finally said. Natalie's mouth fell open. "But – but you just said" – "That some people found us. I didn't say they stayed here."
His granddaughter blinked at him. "But . . ." "They left us some useful supplies. A lot of supplies; it was very kind of them. They offered to take us all back to the city, but I declined the offer," Taro stated matter-of-factly. "But don't you want to go home?" Natalie asked sadly. Taro shook his head. "No. I've been looking for a place to spend the last years of my life, and it's so peaceful here. If you want to go back, young 'un, then so be it.
But rest assured Elliot, your mother and I won't accompany you." "My mother? Elliot? They want to stay, too?" I asked. Taro nodded. Then he began speaking to us again. "The people who found us told me the background history of this island. Said people used to come here all the time, live here even, before it was abandoned because of the violent storms that sometimes hit the place. But they seemed pleased that some people wanted to stay and build the place up again. And we could do it – work hard and build it up. Now that people know we're here and that we're staying, they'll be cargo ships coming by to give us what we need." He paused for a second before looking at me.
"Chelsea, if you want to go back to the city, to your home, no doubt, no one's stopping you. But I wasn't joking when I asked you to be the rancher of this place. This land's perfect for it, and the plots of land up north past field would be perfect for building a barn and chicken coop.
Now, I had written some letters these past two weeks to my friends Mirabelle and Chen. They've both been looking for a place to come set up they're shops and here's the perfect place. There's a chance they'll say no, but I don't think they will. I gave the letters to the man on the rescue boat.
He told me he'd be back with the replies as soon as he could get here. The point is, though, that this place needs a rancher, a money-maker. It's a huge responsibility, perhaps one you're not ready to take on for being so young, but the offer's there." It was the longest speech I'd ever heard the old man make, and for a minute I let what he was telling me sink in. Here was what I had been wanting, dreaming of for so long, handed to me on a silver platter.
But now that I actually had the opportunity, I really had to think. This was a job that would a lifetime to complete. It was a huge decision, but when I thought of the city, of the stupid waitress job and my crappy apartment, I was sure. "I want to do it, Taro. I want to run a ranch." He nodded, pleased with my choice. Natalie was staring out the window, lost in thought. "It is really very nice here," she began. "Not such a bad place to spend the rest of my life."
She chuckled softly. She looked at her grandfather. "How long do you think it'll take to get replies from your friends?" Taro shrugged. "Three, four days maybe, little honey." Taro glanced at me. "Come over to my house in the morning for some supplies, little Missy. You could sure use 'em." I laughed and nodded.
"Natalie, maybe you should come back for the night and help us sort through some things." Natalie nodded eagerly, hugged me goodbye, and followed her grandfather out into the rain. I watched them go. When they were no longer in view, I closed the door and flew back onto my bed. All I could do was smile up at the ceiling like an idiot. I was going to the rancher of this place. And this island was going to be a grand place again.
I was sure of it.
