Granger Things
Haley knew that Alex was going to ditch her for Maru at the Fair, but just because she expected it did not mean it hurt any less. Maybe it was petty of her to be a bit jealous, but Alex was her best friend. Why the hell was he hanging out with Maru all the time? She did not even seem all that interested in him - and her sense of who was a romantic rival for Alex had never been wrong in the past.
She sighed heavily as she spied Alex and Maru together near the rock smashing game. Haley pouted when she saw him flash his pearly whites. There was a time when she lived for that look. Haley wanted to be happy for Alex, but part of her felt left abandoned. Maybe if she spent time hanging out with other people, the photographer could forget how lonely it felt. Haley deserved better than being a wallflower, especially at the biggest event in town.
The blonde loitered at the edge of the Square, her baby blue eyes searching for one face in particular. Leah was relatively easy to find - her height and long, red hair kept distinguished her from the rest of the crowd. The sight of the artist took Haley's breath away for a moment. How was Leah so gorgeous?
While Haley was curvaceous, Leah was slender like a willow tree. Haley had thick, golden curls yet Leah's was fiery red and straight. Normally, Haley disliked braids because it often made girls look younger - or so she originally thought. On Leah, it somehow made her look more mature. Haley had always been into those with great taste in fashion, but the sculptor's bare midriff was so out of style that it was almost cute and retro again. For some reason it annoyed Haley that she found Leah so attractive, despite all these little things that were normally so off-putting.
And yet, there Leah stood on the opposite end of the Square near all the display boxes for the competition later today. She's alone, too, Haley realized. I guess I'm not the only one who got ditched by their bestie. The blonde quickly grasped that this was her chance to hang out with Leah without anyone else to pull the artist's attention away from her. Maybe she could finally try to tell Leah that things had changed since the Flower Dance.
Her feet moved toward Leah without Haley thinking about it and before she knew it, the blue-eyed beauty stood before the only outed lesbian in town. "Hey, Leah!" Haley greeted the sculptor with a casual wave, her curls bouncing as she tilted her head with a smile.
Haley's heart began to flutter when Leah's grey eyes focused on her, and the woman's expression mirrored her own. "Hey, Haley! I was wondering if I'd see you today." The ginger looked genuinely happy to see her and the blonde did her best to flirt a little.
"Oh my gosh, you look amazing," the photographer complimented her neighbor. "Did you do something new with your hair?" Haley unthinkingly reached out and flattened the braid against Leah's head delicately. Her hair is so soft! the blonde commented silently to herself. However, Haley promptly pulled her hand away when she realized what she was doing. Ugh, I'm such a freak! I didn't ask to touch her braid.
Leah, however, either had not felt Haley touch her hair or did not care enough to mention it, much to the blonde's relief. She would have died of embarrassment if the artist was offended, even if Leah would have had every right. "No, nothing special," the woman answered Haley's question with a little snort. Leah countered with a similar compliment. "You look picture-perfect, as usual."
Haley flushed. Leah had given her an even bigger compliment, even if it had been more general. "The rest of you looks great, too. Not just your hair!" The woman in blue did not want Leah to think that her long, silky braid was the only part of her worth mentioning.
"You don't have to try so hard, Haley," Leah assured her with a teasingly. "I already know you didn't mean it as an insult."
"B-But -" Haley wanted to tell Leah that yeah, she was sort of right. She was not insulting Leah, but at the same time, Leah made the wrong assumption. Unfortunately, Violet shoved herself into the picture, completely ruining Haley's fumbling attempt to show Leah she was interested.
"I'm back!" the farmer announced, "Grange display is all set up." The wavy-haired woman eyed Haley for a moment. "Are… you okay, Haley?"
The blonde did her best to diffuse her frustration in an inconspicuous way. She clenched her jaw but smiled at Violet. "I'm doing great, Violet." Haley noticed the new girl was wearing Sebastian's sweatshirt, so her eyes flickered to the empty space behind the newcomer, expecting him to appear any moment now. "Where's your boyfriend?" He needs to come get you so I can talk to Leah alone.
Violet exhaled heavily, dragging Haley's heart down with it. "Oh, he's got class today," the clueless woman explained. The former city girl wrapped a friendly arm around Leah, her hand resting on the ginger's shoulder. "And Leah got ditched by Elliott, so we were going to explore the Fair together." Haley could feel her face twitch as she tried to maintain a neutral façade. To Violet's friendly new-girl-in-town credit, she extended the offer to Haley. "Do you wanna hang out with us, too?"
Beaming, Haley accepted the invitation. "That would be the best!" she exclaimed. "Alex is with Maru and I don't want to go to the fortune teller all by myself!" the blonde did her best pout, her bottom lip protruding pitifully as her large eyes stared directly at Leah. Her puppy-eyed pout was one of her secret weapons. This should work!
Leah's perfectly sculpted eyebrows rose slightly. "Oh, I've heard about Madame Welwick," the red head recalled. "Do you think she's for real?"
Violet smirked. "Hey, it's cheap fortune telling at the fair," she reasoned with a shrug. "Either it's scary-accurate or it'll be something we can laugh at together, right?"
"I suppose…" Though Leah did not sound entirely sold on the idea.
Haley wrapped her arms around Leah, pressing her body close, and rested her head on the other woman's shoulder. "I'd feel weird going by myself," the blonde whined. "Won't you come with me, Leah?"
Leah chuckled at Haley's aggressively adorable appeal to their friendship. "Okay, okay!" she surrendered, gently prying the blonde off her. "Lead the way."
"Great," the blonde replied in a sweet voice. "It's this way!" Haley shot Violet a look before grabbing Leah by the wrist and leading her through the crowd toward the southernmost tent. Maybe I can "accidentally" lose Violet along the way, she supposed with a wicked grin, weaving through the tourists with all the skill of a self-confident extrovert.
"Now that I think about it," Maru said as they sat on a bench away from the gaming tents to finish their burgers, "I remember Sebastian telling me that he and Abigail got into a fight at the pier that night of Vincent's birthday party, so that would put her at the scene of the other acid splash."
"So, you're saying it has to be someone's birthday for this to work?" Alex replied flippantly. Maru sniffed sharply, entertained by the joke, but the young man continued. "But didn't you find the damage on the dock, like, way after that?"
Maru's shoulders twitched upward, taking the last bite of her meal, and wiping her hands on a napkin. "I only became aware of them because someone fell through the weakened boards," the scientist conceded. "But that long pier isn't used as frequently as the main portion by Willy's shop. And it even took me a few days to discover the corrosion on the cobblestones in the Square right in the middle of town."
Alex nodded, quietly introspecting as he chewed his sixth burger. For fun, Maru speculated whether Alex only started working out because he loved eating so much.
"So it sounds like in both cases, Abigail got really pissed off…" The jock's voice trailed off as he swallowed the last morsel of his final burger. "All we have to do to prove whether or not it's her is to make her mad, right?"
Maru's bespectacled eyes fixed onto her companion and her mouth stretched back to display her joy. "Alex, that's a great idea!" she praised him.
The athlete took his plate as well as Maru's, crumbled them into a neat wad of paper, and lobbed them into a nearby trash can. "And a flawless three pointer from Mullner!" Alex mimicked a sports announcer, throwing his arms up in celebration.
"Isn't that basketball?" Maru asked with an amused chortle.
"Just because gridball's my game doesn't mean I don't know how to handle the rest," Alex replied boastfully. He stretched with exaggerated motion, patting his stomach. "Now I gotta work off some of these burgers," the jock declared. His dark green eyes rested on Maru. "C'mon, I've got an idea!"
Once Alex hoisted Maru up on his shoulders, it did not take long to find Abigail. Nor did it take much for her companion to lure her into a physical challenge.
Maru scrutinized Abigail carefully as she swung the sledgehammer into a wide arc above her head with a loud battle-cry. Alex's plan was genius - if he could manage it. All he had to do was get the grocer's daughter angry to test her hypothesis that heightened emotion might be a key component in whatever was causing the acid splashes. That is, assuming Abigail was in fact the perpetrator. And what better way to stoke the fires of outrage than heckling from your opponent?
As the oversized mallet connected with the platform, a cylindrical weight flew up into the air along the track toward the bell, but it just barely fell short of making contact. "Strength level: Gorilla!" the shirtless bodybuilder proclaimed with his booming voice.
The woman handed the blunt instrument to the athlete. "Beat that!" Abigail taunted Alex with a sassy bob of her head.
Alex smirked. "Let a man show you how it's done…" He removed his letter jacket and folded it over his well-muscled forearm before handing it off to his companion. Maru held the outerwear closer to her chest, her eyes swiftly darting to Abigail. Sam had one hand on her arm as she seethed at the sexist language. Alex wore a simple teal t-shirt that was more form-fitting than what most people in town wore. Then again, most of the other villagers had not worked to sculpt their bodies the way Alex did.
The brunet widened his stance, bending his knees slightly as he took the mallet in both hands. When Alex swung the enormous hammer, Maru observed his dominant hand slid down the shaft toward the end, adjusting his grip at the last moment to hit the pad of the target with the flat head of the tool at dead-center. The puck flew upward, and instantly the bell rang out with a high tinny sound to indicate his victory.
Alex winked at Maru before he sauntered over to Abigail with a mocking expression plastered to his well-tanned face. "See? I told you a girl couldn't do it." As his rival lunged, Sam held back his girlfriend.
"Take it easy, babe!" the blond man begged, hugging Abigail to keep her from clawing at Alex. The skater looked to his neighbor desperately. "B-best two outta three, right, Alex?"
The brunet snickered to get a rise out of the challenger. "Sure, why not? I've got all day." Abigail swore, but snatched the mallet away from the jock, growling profanities as she approached the platform for the second round.
What Abigail did not catch was that the game master had switched the weight on the vertical track while she was not looking. The burly man winked at Maru, who paid him a small sum on the sly so they could conduct a "social experiment."
Abigail's form was unchanged since the last time and Maru knew before she even connected that the mallet head was not going to hit flat against the target pad and therefore lose its ability to transfer the kinetic energy properly. Still, she cried out so fiercely that she had to hold back her laughter when the puck hardly went past the half-way mark.
Before she could even process her frustrations, Abigail swung the mallet again, this time with an even more abysmal result. She growled, not willing to accept such failure, and swung wildly, thrusting her whole body into the motion. Everyone backed away from the violent, sporadic movements and Maru heard a soft sizzling sound. There was a small patch on the cobblestones and another on the ash tree just behind the bell tower had a small wisp of smoke rising from tiny holes forming on the surface. Circumventing Abigail from a safe distance, Maru approached the trunk to inspect it. She grinned with satisfaction. "So, it is you, Abigail!" the researcher breathed.
Maru hopped up to her feet, ecstatic by the discovery, and signaled to Alex that their mission was complete. Alex acknowledged Maru and strode over to the game, scooping up Abigail and throwing her over his shoulder. In her surprise, she dropped the sledgehammer, and the game master reclaimed the blunt instrument before Abigail could injure anyone.
"Put me down, you neanderthal!" Abigail roared, pounding her fists on Alex's back. Sam kept nearby but was not sure what was going on. "I won't accept defeat this easily, this game is rigged!"
"Duh, how else were we going to figure out whodunnit?" Alex came clean, rolling his eyes as he headed toward a more secluded spot behind Pierre's General Store so they could talk more freely. Sam and Maru trotted along at the jock's heels.
Abigail blinked and her arm frozen mid-punch as she craned her neck to look at Maru for an guidance. "What are you talking about?"
Emily spotted her boyfriend pacing in front of the grange displays, muttering under his breath. He looked so cute when he was grumpy like this, but Emily found it was best to check on him if the disgruntled rain cloud over his aura lasted more than a few minutes.
She placed a hand on his shoulders from behind, gripping at the muscle on either side of his neck and massaging them with her fingers. "What's wrong, Shane?"
Shane deflated as he relaxed and took in a breath of fresh air at her touch. He had tensed up without realizing it. "I have no idea how to judge grange displays!" the new mayor admitted in a low voice. "Marnie's eggs are bigger, but Pierre has more variety! And Willy's got some impressive fish, but Violet has one really big fish and a lot of other stuff, too." He huffed in annoyance. "And if either Aunt Marnie or Violet wins, it might look like I'm playing favorites!"
Emily coaxed her boyfriend away from the displays for a moment and turned him to face her. She brushed off a piece of straw that clung to his lapel and smiled. "If you don't know, there is no shame in asking for help, Shane," the sapphire-haired woman informed her significant other.
"Lewis refuses 'on principle' unless I step down," Shane muttered sullenly. "The old man still won't concede."
A giggle escaped Emily involuntarily at Shane's grouchy look. "Oh, I wasn't talking about Lewis, Mayor Shane," she told him cryptically. "I know someone else who can help us!" The barmaid squeezed her boyfriend's hand to soothe him before fading into the crowd of out-of-towners toward the Cindersap Forest.
The tent was larger on the inside than Leah expected, though the atmosphere was more daunting than she would have liked. The tapestries inside of the structure were patterned with skulls and disembodied red eyes, as if they were in a dark forest with unknown creatures peeking out at them, watching their every move. Five purple candles in the shape of stars were lit in a ring around the temporary enclosure and at the center of the circular tent stood a table with a hooded figure sat opposite the entrance.
"Good afternoon, girls," a woman's voice greeted them from beneath the shadows of the cloak. "Welcome to the tent of Madame Welwick!" The heavy sleeve of her blue cloak swept across the white tablecloth to reveal a crystal ball, shining defiantly against the darkness. "Have you come to hear news of your future?"
Leah joined the other two in a general murmur of confirmation but looked to each other to determine who would go first. The artist shrugged and claimed the only open chair with Haley and Violet taking the standing room behind her.
The seer held out a well-manicured hand and Leah took the hint that the woman would not begin until she had payment. Dropping the coins into the mysterious woman's open palm, Leah got comfortable in her chair. Welwick tucked the coins away in one of her many concealed pockets before caressing the air around her crystal ball, her fingers only just avoiding the smooth surface with each delicate movement.
From her seated position, Leah saw a faint red glow from beneath Madame Welwick's hood, identical to the eyes staring out at them from the interior cloth of the tent. The ginger was somewhat unnerved but remained in her chair.
"Ahhh… yes," Welwick began, inhaling deeply as if she caught a familiar scent that elicited a forgotten memory. "It's Elliott's birthday. He thought everyone forgot, but then you show up with a nice gift." An uncanny smirk appeared on her face in the light of the crystal ball. "What a good friend."
The orb at the center of the table went distinctly dimmed, but the oracle nodded. "Ooo… It's dark, and I see you and a certain young lady. She looks quite hopeful, but happy to be with you. Hmmm… now what's this young lady's name?" Welwick cackled as her hooded face focused on something behind Leah. "I believe it starts with an 'H.'"
A woman whose name starts with "H..." Someone behind Leah shifted their weight, rustling the upholstery of the chair unintentionally. I know a person who fits that description, the artist realized with amusement. At least the seer did not choose a more common letter like "S." Nearly half the unmarried men in Pelican Town had names that started with that letter, so you could not trust predictions with so little substance. People often filled in the blanks for fortune tellers, but Leah would not fall for it.
The glass sphere took on a lighter, greener hue and the painted red lips of Madame Welwick pulled back toward her ears. "It's you… in the forest," the seer remarked. "You spot some rare and delicious mushrooms hidden beneath a clump of grass. What a find!"
At last, the crystal ball's light dimmed and Welwick sat back in her plush armchair. "That is all I have for you today, Miss Leah." The woman's low voice addressed the remaining two. "Who is next, ladies?"
Leah rose from the chair and traded places with Haley, who volunteered herself. Violet made eye-contact and smiled at her before directing her attention back to the fortune teller.
Welwick once again leaned forward over the crystal ball, its light clearer than it had ever been for Leah's predictions. "I see you at the beach," the woman described the scene before her.
So that's why it's so bright, Leah guessed, enthralled by the whole process. Welwick continued. "There's an event taking place. You walk up to Alex and say something funny." Leah spied a sneer on Welwick's face. "Hmmm… It seems like you two are good friends." Because of the vague expression plastered on the visible portion of her face, the artist wondered if the seer was mocking Haley's failed confession or simply stating obvious facts. Then again, was she really buying into the fact that Welwick's abilities could be legitimate?
"Now I see you and Leah in a field of grass. You seem happy." Oh, hey! Leah celebrated internally. I didn't expect to be in someone else's future.
"Are we happy together or happy together?" Haley asked, but the fortune teller shushed the blonde.
Leah did not understand the question and did not think much of it when Welwick moved on to the next vision shown in the glass ball before her. "I see you in a forest on a sunny day… gazing through the lens of a camera." Huh, so she knows Haley is a shutterbug. She must have done a lot of research, but that seems like a lot of work for just 100 gold each.
"You've found your muse!" Welwick proclaimed with a dramatic hand gesture toward the trio. "You must act quickly before the moment passes you by."
When it was clear that the oracle would say no more, Haley stood up abruptly and yielded the chair to Violet.
"Thank you, but I have to go now," the curly-haired woman imparted to the group, bolting out of the tent without explanation. Violet and Leah exchanged confused looks, unsure of what caused Haley to leave so suddenly. Leah wanted to go after the blonde, but she hesitated. She could not leave Violet all by herself after they promised to hang out today.
But Violet nodded at Leah encouragingly. "It's okay, I think I can handle hearing my fortune," the farmer chuckled. The newcomer flicked her wrist to shoo the ginger out of the tent. "Go on before you lose her."
Leah smiled, admiring Violet's selflessness, and left the tent. She was immediately blinded by the daylight, but she called out after her friend. "Haley, wait! What's wrong?"
Shane anxiously awaited Emily's return, wary of Lewis loitering near the grange displays with his arms crossed expectantly. No way in hell am I giving in to the old man's demands, the new mayor asserted boldly. But I do need to judge these displays soon. The sun's going to set soon.
It was not much longer before the dark-haired man spotted a faint glow in the distance. As it got closer, Shane realized that it was Emily - but rather than her normal sunny disposition, he could have sworn she was glowing faintly.
Emily took Shane's hand and led him between two bushes behind the slingshot tent. Carefully unbuttoning the top of her blouse, Emily began to peal the fabric away from her body and the man rushed to cover her. "Emily, what are you doing?!" Shane questioned his lover in a hushed panic. "We can't do that kind of stuff here."
His girlfriend tittered, tickled by the misunderstanding. "No, silly! I'm letting my friend out to help us," Emily clarified, uncovering an orb of glowing light as it floated toward him. In the center of the light, Shane perceived a hazy humanoid figure.
"When you said you knew someone who could help…" The pieces were starting to fall together as the figure slowly came into better focus. The mayor of Pelican Town was slowly beginning to see their guest. In the soft ball of light, there was a miniature woman with orange, curly hair and a bluish-purple dress made of flower petals. On her tiny head she wore an ornate tiara with a matching bracelet and anklet on opposite limbs and out from between her shoulder blades sprouted a pair of iridescent wings. "You didn't mean an actual person, did you?" Shane finished his thought.
"The Cornflower Maiden is a person, Shane!" Emily scolded him, before apologizing to her fae friend immediately with a small curtsey. The human woman corrected her significant other gently. "She's just not a human being." Emily turned her focus back toward the fairy who shone with delight. The human woman offered her hand as a perch for the fairy, who accepted the offer of a resting place. "Her excellency has offered to help us decide on the best grange display, so long as she gets to keep an item of her choosing."
Shane considered the offer. "Well, sometimes Aunt Marnie gets offers to buy the cheese wheels, so I guess it's not unheard of…" he reasoned aloud, rubbing his stubbly chin. "I could always reimburse the person it belongs to." He eyed the fairy suspiciously. "But your payment has to be an item from one of the four the grange displays," Shane emphasized. Even Emily had warned him to be careful about promises made to the fae, though honestly, he was having trouble believing this at all.
Despite himself, he figured it was better to be safe than sorry, "This year's grange displays."
The fairy frowned but seemed intent on the agreement. "Now shake on it, Shane," Emily instructed the mayor as the fairy offered her miniature hand to the leader of Pelican Town. Shane extended his index finger so as not to appear so threatening to the winged creature. The so-called Cornflower Maiden perched herself on Emily's shoulder, tucking her small body behind a lock of hair.
"Go on, Shane," Emily coaxed her boyfriend. "The Cornflower Maiden will help you judge, and I'll be right beside you."
Shane, still somewhat convinced he would wake up at any moment and find this all to be part of a bizarre and vivid dream, poked his head out from the foliage to make sure no one was paying them any attention. Shane gave an "all clear" signal to Emily and the two re-joined the thinning crowd of Fair attendees.
As they approached the first display - Pierre's - Shane could hear the high-pitched shriek that he could only assume was their newest judge. Emily covered her mouth to suppress her reaction with the grocer hovering close in hopes of hearing their discussion.
"The Cornflower Maiden says that some of these crops are fake!" Emily informed Shane in a low voice. "He made sure to put the real ones in reach, but all those up near the top are rubber or plastic!"
Curious to put the fairy's words to the test, Shane outstretched his hands to attempt to inspect a pumpkin in the top right corner. Before he could grab it, however, Pierre interrupted. "My store carries the very finest quality products in the whole valley," he exclaimed with a nervous twitch. The grocer shoved a red cabbage and a bundle of kale into the mayor's arms. "Please, inspect my grange display closely and see for yourself!"
He's acting fishy… Shane noted, though to humor the four-eyed business owner, he pretended to admire the waxy leaves of kale and cabbage. "These are great," the former Joja Mart employee acknowledged and Pierre visibly relaxed. For a moment, Shane pretended to turn to walk away, but he sprang into action, snatching a plump pumpkin just out of normal reach before the general store owner could stop him. Pierre's eyes widened with horror as Shane ran his fingers over the gourd. "Shit, it is plastic!" he scoffed in disbelief.
Shane's ink-black eyes darted to the fairy seated on Emily's shoulder, crossing her arms in an "I told you so, stupid" sort of manner. Pierre was nowhere to be found once his secret was out and Mayor Shane was not about to chase him down over it.
The rest of the judging went uneventfully. The Cornflower Maiden admired Willy's fish, which she had likely not encountered on friendly terms before and the fairy even stole a bite from the giant wheel of cheese when she thought Shane was not looking, but above all else she fawned over Violet's grange display.
"I think she's chosen the winner," Emily uttered, observing the small person roll around like a cat on catnip atop a large flower in Violet's display case. She tittered quietly, trying to alert their guest that they saw her in such an undignified state. "I think she's chosen what she wants to keep, too."
Shane dipped his head and quickly made his good-bye to the fairy before going to gather all the grange display contestants to reveal the results. Though honestly, he did not expect Pierre to show his face again until the Fair was over.
Welwick's burning red eyes peering out from the hood of her cloak were intimidating, but the agrarian accepted this was all part of the air of legitimacy the seer wanted to portray to her customers. The pastel-haired woman took her seat after making sure that Leah had indeed left to go after Haley.
"It is good your friends left," the blue-clad oracle asserted agreeably. "Otherwise, I would not be able to greet you properly: Violet of the Valley, Descendant Daughter of the Earth Itself."
"You must know Talla," Violet laughed, rubbing her arm self-consciously. How many others knew about her supposed lineage? And did it really matter all the much other than letting her heal a few minor injuries and speed up plant growth a bit? "So, uh, how does this work?"
Welwick's open palm emerged from the billowy sleeve of her garments and Violet dropped the coins into the cupped hand, which disappeared before the clink of metal hit her senses.
"Hmmm…" the seer hummed, as if trying to literally attune herself to the world around her as the image in the crystal ball slowly took shape. "I see you lying on a cot… It looks like a hospital."
Oh, shit. Maybe I really should be more careful in the mines... Violet grimaced at the prediction. Okay, so I should only aim for five levels at a time when going solo, just in case. Welwick's narration continued. "The room is crowded with people to keep you company while you recover. What nice friends you have."
"Interesting…" the oracle snickered as the picture shifted into something new. "I see you and Sebastian - the Scion of Shadows - working together on your farm." Welwick glanced upward, her glowing red eyes resting on Violet's face for a moment. "You seem very pleased about something." Violet was curious about the language used by the fortune teller and did her best to remember it verbatim. She knew none of her questions would be answered based on the woman's reaction to Haley's request for clarification.
"The crystal ball has moved on…" the cloaked figure indicated. "Now I see you harvesting a plump, ripe melon," Welwick said with a wry smirk. "You're on a beautiful farm, bursting with life of all kinds!"
"That is all I can do for you, young one," the mysterious woman finished, leaning back in her overstuffed armchair. "Now, just keep in mind that the future isn't set in stone! Whatever I've told you today can still be changed if you set your heart on it."
Violet was pleasantly surprised. "Wow, no ominous, cryptic warnings from the lady who can see the future?" The wavy-haired woman grinned, happy that her fortunes were so straight-forward. If a second person was warning her about her habit of taking unnecessary risks in the mines, that was all the young woman needed to guilt herself into fewer risk-taking behaviors. "Thank you very much, Madame."
As Violet bobbed her head in appreciation, Welwick reached out to grab her wrist. "Wait just a moment." The seer beckoned her to sit back down. "I have a… personal question for you, my dear."
"Oh… kay…" Violet replied hesitantly, sinking back into her chair. For some reason the situation reminded her of being in the principal's office when she decided to play good cop.
"How is Valencia?" The hooded individual inquired gently. "It has been many years since she has come home."
Violet balked for a moment. "You know my mom?" As soon as she asked, the young woman felt silly. Of course, her mother grew up in the Valley. And while Welwick did not seem particularly old, perhaps they had crossed paths at some point.
Welwick nodded in confirmation. "Did she indeed marry Lucas?"
"They're divorced now, but yeah."
Violet spied the red lips of the woman curve downward in a frown. "I did warn her…" she grumbled under her breath. The seer stood up and sighed. "Well, that will be all, Daughter of the Earth," Welwick announced dismissively. "Off with you, now! I have other customers to attend."
The farmer slid off the seat obediently, but as she reached the tent flap to leave, Welwick stopped her once again. "Oh, and be wary of the Children of the Sky," the fortune teller yelled after her. "They will cause a great deal of trouble here one day, though I know not when that will be."
Puzzled, Violet rotated her head to ask who the hell "Children of the Sky" were, but the cloaked woman had inexplicably vanished.