Diamond to Stone
Van's typical days of coming to Forget-Me-Not were still on the 3rd and the 8th, and because it was the 8th of Spring then Van would be visiting. Wyatt went to go see him and Van explained that there was a special item on sale.
"It's a goat and it will give you goat milk," Van said. Wyatt was actually really curious about this and decided to buy her. He named her Chevre.
Wyatt's selection of animals changed and at one moment of Wyatt being low on money he, sadly, had to sell Ermintrude and Walker. But he was able to buy more sheep and cows on a good growing season that Celia had.
Wyatt now had two cows, named Bessie and Belle, and two bulls, named Angus and Rodeo. He bought two sheep. One was a girl named Eunice and the other was a boy named Woolio, who Liam helped name. Lastly, Wyatt got two more chickens. The hen was named Luna and the rooster was named Sol.
Wyatt brought Chevre back to the barn, noting that his barn was now full. Wyatt walked outside and saw Alex finishing up on her crops.
"Hey, Alex!" Wyatt called out, waving to her. The redhead smiled and waved back after putting her hand over her eyebrows to get the sun out of her face and be sure of who it was yelling out to her. "Do you wanna come see my goat?"
"Sure!" Alex yelled back. "I've just finished up on the field." Wyatt nodded and walked into the barn, waiting about a minute for Alex to come in and comment that she was happy to see the goat.
"I actually called you in here for another reason," Wyatt said, also stating that he wanted Alex to see the goat because he knew that she would have wanted to see her. "I've been thinking about something that was brought up yesterday at the Flower Festival."
"What's that?" Alex wondered with a small smile and putting her hands behind her back and moving her body left and right as she awaited an answer.
"Do you know if there's a real Harvest Goddess?" wondered the blonde, scratching his head. Alex stopped moving around and thought about this.
"I don't know," she replied.
"I feel like we should talk to the Harvest Sprites about this," Wyatt insisted. "Honestly, I haven't spoken to them in a while because I've been so busy with my own stuff."
"Really?" Alex wondered, raising an eyebrow as the two left the barn and made their way to the forest. "I visit them a lot."
"I guess I'll have to visit them more often, then," Wyatt said. "I feel kinda bad now."
"This will be the first step to it then," noted Alex as they got to the forest and passed the Goddess Pond. Wyatt looked confused as Alex picked up a red mushroom and she returned him with the same look of confusion. "Don't you know what to do?"
"No, I've never visited them in their home before…" mumbled Wyatt, seeming a little embarrassed of this.
"Come on, Wyatt!" Alex complained, lifting the other red mushroom and handing it to him. "Eat it and we will vanish through the tiny door that we wouldn't normally be able to fit through." Wyatt nodded. The two ate their mushrooms and Wyatt felt dizzy and seemed to fall unconscious when he quickly woke up inside their house.
"Wyatt!" Nic said. Nak and Flak took their turns saying his name and saying what a surprise it was seeing him. They also greeted Alex and asked the two of them why they were in their home.
"Wyatt and I have something to ask you guys about something…" the redhead replied, turning to Wyatt to explain their question.
"What's the story about the Harvest Goddess?" he wondered a little bluntly. "Is she real? Does she simply not visit the valley? It's something we've all been wondering recently." The Harvest Sprites got quiet and looked at each other for a little while.
"Finally!" Flak said loudly.
"We've been waiting!" Nic replied, waving his arms with his blue sleeves that were too long for him around.
"We were waiting for someone to bring up the Harvest Goddess!" Nak explained.
"Why?" Alex wondered, putting a hand on her hip.
"We were cursed!" Nic said, covering his mouth and then uncovering it.
"We had to wait for people to return their interest to the Harvest Goddess before we could explain what happened!" Flak told them, falling over.
"Well…" Wyatt began, scratching the back of his head. "What happened to the Harvest Goddess, then?"
The Harvest Sprites took turns giving the story of the Harvest Goddess to Wyatt and Alex. A long time ago, pretty much before civilization even existed, the Harvest Goddess roamed the land and lived in her pond. Because there wasn't really a "harvest" she was more of a "Goddess of Nature," but no one referred to her as this.
One day, a girl simply named the Witch Princess who was the other magical entity in the valley decided that she would turn the Goddess to stone because she was sick of her, knowing that simply destroying her would make all nature and harvest stop. So, the Witch Princess invited the Harvest Goddess to her home acting like she was making up with her for all the trouble she caused, when she turned the Harvest Goddess to stone.
However, what the Witch Goddess didn't know was that the effects of turning the Harvest Goddess would end up turning her to stone as well because of some sort of counter spell that the Harvest Goddess always has on her, so the Witch Goddess's spell was reflected onto her as well.
"Wow," Alex's mouth was wide open in shock to this whole story. "So now that we've finally got interest in the Harvest Goddess, what can we do about this?! Where is she?!"
"We can take you to her," Flak replied with a hop.
"The Witch Princess's home still exists in the valley today," said Nak with a nod.
"We don't know how exactly you can help, but taking you to her is the first step!" Nic cheered. Wyatt and Alex looked at each other and nodded, determined to help the Harvest Goddess.
The Harvest Sprites took Wyatt and Alex to Romana's mansion, which made Wyatt and Alex pretty confused and worried about what this mean.
"I hope this means that there is no connection to Romana, Sebastian, or Lumina with the Witch Princess," Wyatt said, frowning and crossing his arms.
"No, but near here," the red Harvest Sprite replied. The two were wary, but followed the Harvest Sprites to the tool shed next to the mansion.
"The tool shed?" Alex wondered, even more confused. She almost wanted to laugh, actually, but knew she shouldn't when she noticed that Nic, Flak, and even Nak were shaking out of fear. The three nodded and Wyatt stepped ahead.
"Well, come on then," he began and turned around. "We've got a Harvest Goddess to save." Alex nodded, courageously, and followed Wyatt. The Harvest Sprites tagged along. The group was sure to sneak around so that no one from the mansion saw them past the windows.
Inside the tool shed was like any other tool shed. Tools all over, some used and some not, and no sight of a Witch Princess or Harvest Goddess.
"They're in here," Nic murmured, his voice and body shaking as he spoke.
"It doesn't look like it," said Alex, looking around cautiously. Wyatt looked around, too, and picked up a shovel. He turned it around and started hitting the stick part around on many different areas of the ground. "What are you doing?" The redhead was very confused until a spot in the ground made a different noise in comparison to the noise that was made when the shovel hit other parts of the ground.
"They're beneath us," Wyatt said, looking up and looking at Alex. "I know it." He ushered that she come over and he kicked aside a decent amount of dirt away and lifted one side of a hidden door so that Alex knew where it was and could help lift open the door.
"Their magical force is getting much stronger," Nak said, doing his best to keep his voice steady as he spoke. Wyatt and Alex started going down the steps, noting that it was pitch black in the room below.
"There's a light switch here," Alex pointed out a string hanging from the ceiling that was illuminated by the light from the main floor of the tool shed. She pulled the switch and suddenly many candles were lit up by fire that appeared out of nowhere and the whole basement was lit up.
It was exactly what you would imagine a witch's domain to be with bookshelves surrounding the walls with a myriad of books. In the middle was a still cauldron that probably would be bubbling if the Witch Princess was around. There was still some purple goop inside it. There was other stuff all just thrown messily around on the floor that any witch would need like bottles and such.
"Look!" Flak pointed ahead and there they were: the Witch Princess and the Harvest Goddess petrified. The Witch Princess was still in a casting a spell pose with her broom in her hand and the end of it pointed at the Harvest Goddess. However, the Harvest Goddess were completely turned around and looked rather natural in her stone state.
"This is really creepy…" murmured Alex, her teeth chattered as she clasped her hands together. "Let's hurry up and see what we can do with the Harvest Goddess!" Wyatt nodded and the two walked over, but once they got close enough to the Harvest Goddess, her statue started rumbling.
"This doesn't feel right," Wyatt said, cautiously. The two looked at the Harvest Goddess as her statue kept rumbling more and more until suddenly… a crack appeared on her face! This spread until the statue crumbled and collapsed.
"No!" Alex screamed.
"Wait!" Nak called out. "This isn't a bad thing!"
"Why not?" Wyatt asked, looking down at where the Harvest Goddess was standing. "She's pebbles now!"
"We felt her spiritual energy leave that body when the statue crumbled," Flak replied, confidently. "Her physical state will move on, somehow."
"In what way?" Alex wondered, crossing her arms.
"We're not exactly sure," Nic said, scratching his head. "Her spiritual state probably went into someone else, so we'll just have to wait until something is made obvious about where the Harvest Goddess is now."
"Alright then," Wyatt shrugged a little. "That was an easy little mission. But what about her?" The silver blonde pointed to the Witch Princess.
"We didn't really have any plans for her," admitted Nak with a small shrug.
"We should probably just leave her here," suggested Alex. "She's creepy-looking." Everyone agreed that this was a good idea, so they decided to leave the basement, covered the secret door, left the tool shed, and conspicuously made it past the mansion and stopped at the end of the hill.
"Thank you for all of your help today!" Flak said, falling over on his back. "We're all grateful that you had interest in the Harvest Goddess." The Harvest Sprites all agreed with what Flak said.
"It's no problem," Wyatt replied modestly.
"You're welcome!" Alex counteracted Wyatt's modesty, making him glare at Alex for a moment. The Harvest Sprites left and made their way back to their home. "Well I'm gonna visit Cody for a bit before going home. See ya!"
"Bye," Wyatt waved to the redhead as she made her way farther down the hill towards Cody's trailer.
Wyatt started walking back from the bottom of the hill when something caught his eye to the left in the bushes outside of Samantha and Grant's house. He started walking slower and noticed that it was a page! It was practically calling to him, so he knew that it must have been a part of Electra Heart. Wyatt made sure no one was around and casually went out of his way to pick up the paper and kept walking.
"This is definitely another page," Wyatt could determine this by simply scanning both sides of the page quickly. He looked around once more to see if maybe someone set the page there or if someone was gonna judge him for picking up the page and then examined the page once he was sure that no one was watching.
The page was part of the "Teen Idles" collection. Like the other two pages that the group collected, this one was the beginning of its respective section as indicated by the "1." The front side of the page was a pretty official-looking picture in black and white. Electra didn't seem to have a wig on, but her hair was white-looking with the sun shining down on it. She had on a white T-shirt with a pocket and some black spot on it that could have been either a bug or a pin and she also had what looked to be a tennis skirt on, but the picture cut off most of that so it was hard to tell. Electra was holding a red cup with a soda can almost completely hidden behind it on one hand with her middle finger with a ring on it holding onto the cup, almost as if she was flipping off whoever was looking at the picture. An interesting aspect of the picture was Electra's face: her tongue was stuck out with her left eye closed. Her right eye looked open and devilish, but it was hard to tell with a strand of hair mostly covering it. The background was possibly of a park because of the grass, bushes, and trees. The caption read, with hearts on both sides: " TEEN IDLE "
"Hmm…" Wyatt seemed mostly fixated on Electra's hair and looked at his own uncomfortably, but ignored it and turned the page over.
The back side of the page returned to the self-taken shots that Electra had from the other two pages. The picture seemed very badly taken, or maybe that was the point, as it was Electra turning her head to the right side with her possible blonde wig returning as it moved with her head movement. Electra was leaning into whatever took the picture and lying on a bed on her stomach with her feet in the air leaning to the left. There was some sort of bright light in a square in the background in what seemed to be a mirror. The caption read, with hearts on both sides of the caption: " TEEN IDLE #2 "
"Very aptly named," noted Wyatt, raising an eyebrow at the simple caption. Once he was done inspecting the page, he made his way back to the front of the Diamonds Ranch. Ironically, Celia was making her way towards the ranch too.
"Hi, Honey," she greeted Wyatt with a kiss. Celia looked down at the page in her husband's hands and seemed pretty interested. "Another one?" Wyatt nodded and handed her the page as she read it over.
"That first picture, I must say, it's pretty good," the blonde admitted. "And I'm not even trying to appreciate the quality of the pictures amidst figuring out whatever this Electra Heart even is."
"I agree," Celia said, looking over the two sides of the page. "Teen Idles section, eh? Where did you find this?"
"In front of Samantha and Grant's house," Wyatt explained. "I suppose it's a bit fitting since I feel like Kate will fulfill the archetype of a 'teen idle.'" He laughed a little at this. Celia smiled at Wyatt saying this as well.
"Interesting that you seem to just be finding these all over the place…" the farmer noted, handing him back the Electra Heart page. "I'm still curious as to why you're finding these in certain places and what this even means."
"I think we just have to be patient and get more pages and then we can figure it out on our own," assumed Wyatt with a little shrug. "Anyway, how's your day been so far?"
"Not bad," she replied with a smile. "We've just been bringing in what will die out next season so that we have room for crops that grow both now and in Summer. We're also saving spaces for plants that will start growing in Summer. How about you?"
"My day's been alright," Wyatt nodded. "I bought a goat if you want to see her."
"Oh, sure!" Celia clasped her hands together and giggled, excited to see her. Wyatt brought Celia into the barn to show her the goat he just got before the two got lunch and Celia went back to Vesta's Farm to go back to work.
The next day was the ninth. Marlin was up pretty early and couldn't fall back to sleep so he decided to go on a walk to clear his head before starting work early. He walked around in the forest and made his way back to the ranch and noticed Grant sitting on the bench by the river. Marlin was curious as to why he wasn't on his way to work so he decided to start up conversation with him.
"Hi, Grant," Marlin greeted Grant.
"Oh, hello, Marlin," he greeted him back. "What are you doing about so early?"
"I woke up early and couldn't fall back to sleep, so I decided to just have a wander," replied Marlin with a nod. "Why aren't you on your way to work?" Grant let out a little sigh.
"I was just thinking about things," he told Marlin. Grant moved over a little to let Marlin sit down next to him.
"Is it about your work?" Marlin wondered.
"Sorta…" replied Grant, scratching his neck a little. He sighed again and looked down at the river. "You know, a long time ago I had aspirations of things that weren't academic or formal work. Like acting or something."
"Really?" asked Marlin, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not sure I could see you being an actor to be honest… why did you stop following this dream?" Grant was silent for a while before he finally decided to answer.
"Well… my father abused me until I stop having those dreams," he explained. Marlin gasped and sharply turned to Grant.
"Grant…" whispered Marlin, looking quite concerned, but Grant quickly lifted a hand to try and assuage Marlin.
"It's not a problem anymore for me, don't worry," he said. "I had therapy and all that and it was a long time ago, so I mostly got over it. The easiest way for me to get over it was when he died…"
"I see…" Marlin clasped his hands together and looked into the water.
"You're probably wondering why I didn't just pursue my want to be an actor…" Grant said, closing his eyes. He didn't bother waiting for Marlin to answer. "When he passed away, I wanted to keep working to do a 'boring job' in the city. I actually found an interest in the job that he wanted me to do. So I guess in the end he won?"
"I'm not sure that that's the best way to look at it," Marlin replied with a frown. "I mean, if you're still doing your job then it's more of your own choice, too."
"That's true…" Grant smiled a little and stood up after looking at his watch. "Speaking of which, I probably should get to work. It was really nice to get all of this off of my chest. So thank you very much for listening."
"No problem, Grant," Marlin said, standing up and smiling as well. "Talk to me any time you need someone to talk to." Grant nodded and made his way across the bridge and towards the city.