"Ma… Matilda!"
The man with jet-black hair shivered in the unrelenting spring rain. His shabby raincoat did little to protect him from the raindrops whizzing down on his body like transparent bullets from the sky. Squinting his eyes to get a better view of the little girl just ahead, Ed called out to her once more in between hollow, wheezing pants.
"Matilda, come back! Your mama's gonna kill me if she finds out you're in there," Ed whined.
But to no avail. The lavender-haired girl turned back to the leather-skinned man with a leering smirk and her hand resting upon the thick oak door.
"Don't tell her then, stupid," she answered loftily. Ed groaned at the cheeky handful he was burdened to look after deep down in the goodness of his heart. Like a loyal mutt, he followed. Much to his chagrin, it was useless to argue with someone who had countless points above his own IQ.
A hardy push was all that was needed to persuade the door to swing open with a groaning protest. Once Ed reluctantly entered after the little girl and shut the door with an icy hand, it muffled out much of the static noise caused by the continuous pounding rain. Swirls of grey dust nonchalantly floated in the old library's atmosphere, oblivious to the two's presence. The man wrinkled his nose at the smell of old yellowed paper as he shuffled after the flouncing genius. Each step was followed by a tiny 'creak', the floorboards awake from the visitors' activities. It had been a while since the last time Matilda came here.
"How old do you think this place is? It's, uh, safe to be here, right? Since Ben sorta fixed it up a couple weeks back," Ed commented in a bit of awe. "Never knew the ol' church had a library behind its back door." The girl found an agreeable spot to sit on the floor and plucked out a book with a cover so covered with dust that you couldn't tell what color the cover originally was.
Matilda silently rolled her eyes, replying with, "It's safe enough… Ben doesn't know how old it is for sure, but it's definitely part of Kestrel's history or something. That's why he didn't want to have it sitting here, crumbling away."
"And why he doesn't want anyone inside here either, messing with the history," pointedly coughed Ed in a low voice.
"I'm always careful! And I didn't ask you to follow me around either."
"You think I'd just let a little kid wander around in an old building by herself? What if you get hurt?"
"I am not a little kid."
"You're ten."
Ed shook out drops of precipitation in exasperation. "What do I have to do? Drag you out of here myself?" He briefly imagined Matilda having a tantrum. An impossible reality.
"You could always kidnap me and put me into your child predator van. You look the part already," Matilda coolly retaliated. She didn't even look up from the book she was now carefully immersed in. Ed stamped his foot impatiently after flushing slightly at her sharp words.
"Don't say things like that!"
"Don't follow me around then."
"Oh my god, why are you so-!" The abrupt stop in his speech was a cue for Matilda to glance upwards. His mouth was agape, his eyes were wide with terror, and he was as white as a sheet, staring at a spot just next to her. With a quick bird-like movement, she turned her head and gasped sharply.
A young boy about Matilda's age sat cross-legged beside her, his eyes riveted at the page in the book in Matilda's hands. He had a clean cut look about him, with his newsboy cap perched at just the right angle on his slightly tousled hair, his collared shirt crisp, and his narrow knickers ending just past his knees to reveal his socks. If it wasn't for the fact that his entire figure was pearly white, he would have looked like quite the respectable young man to read an old book with.
A girly scream pierced the ancient library's atmosphere and Ed hustled out the back door and into the torrent of rain like he was being hunted down by a prostitute he owed his singles to. At the noise, the boy looked up and realized what had happened.
"Aw, applesauce!" Horrified that he was seen, he "scooted away" from Matilda with an inch between the floorboards and his feet, unable to get rid of the persistent floating he was doomed with for eternity.
At such a strange declaration, the girl stared at him so intently that the ghost boy fidgeted uncomfortably for a moment before the book's spine sailed through his nose. It landed solidly on the floor a few feet away from the two of them. "Ah, ten points since it went through your head," the girl piped up before scurrying away to hide behind a bookshelf.
The boy cried out with wide eyes in disbelief. "Are you goofy? What'd you do that for? It went straight through my beezer!" He rubbed the exact spot on his nose with a ghostly hand, although he was unable to feel anything. "Don't lam off now! I didn't mean to scare you, honest," he pleaded, floating in the direction where Matilda had run off. "Just don't throw any more of those books at my noodle," he added.
The girl tentatively peeked around the corner where the ghost was, staring at him suspiciously with her golden eyes. "Are you r-really a ghost?" Only her head was visible behind the shelves of old fiction novels.
The boy looked down at himself and shrugged his shoulders. "Ab-so-lute-ly," he confirmed. "But don't you razz me just 'cause I'm not a full-grown fella." He puffed out his small chest to show his apparent young manliness. Matilda finally stepped out from where she was partially hiding. A quizzical look adorned her otherwise usually scornful face.
"Don't what?" Upon closer examination, he most certainly was not wearing clothes from anywhere near this time. "Um, who are you?"She tilted her head to the right in curiosity. "What year are you from?"
He blinked in surprise at her inquiries, but was happy to know something the girl didn't.
"Travis," he grinned. "1926. That's when I got chilled off."
00000
A frantic banging thundered throughout the house. Upstairs, oblivious to the panicked pounding upon the front door, Ben breathed easily in his unforeseen nap upon his work desk. His head rested upon his limp arms, where countless documents were strewn across his desk, stacked neatly otherwise in organized folders marked with black ink. As an eighteen-year-old mayor, he was quite a busy man. Town meetings needed to be arranged, construction needed to be discussed, monetary budgets to be balanced, documents to be reviewed and edited and reviewed again until it was all just right… At last, the pounding upon his door slowly but surely awoke Ben from his unprecedented slumber. He frowned and slowly sat up, somewhat confused as to why he was still at his desk, before realizing that he must have fallen asleep. With a barely audible groan, he rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, one side of which was sticking upwards due to the odd position he was sleeping in. Looking down upon himself, Ben had also spilled cold coffee onto his light blue work shirt somewhere late last night and soaked a few important papers with the caffeinated drink. How utterly delightful. As a vague thought of what had woke him up floated through his still hazy mind, he was finally aware of the sound of someone rapidly knocking.
He forced himself up and out of his chair, stumbled out of his office, and trudged down the stairs to the front door, loosening a button or two in his shirt as he went. He was much too tired at this point to go and quickly make himself look presentable. Yanking open the entrance, the young man was startled to find Ed soaked to the bone and absolutely panicked.
"Ben! You gotta help me! I told Matilda not to go to the back of the church, but she did, and there was a ghost there, 'bout a bit bigger than her, and I don't wanna go back there by myself in case it haunts me or something, but I think you'd be able to handle it and get Matilda out for me. I told her to stay out of there, but she wouldn't listen, and now this happens and…! You gotta help me get her!" The older man desperately begged the young mayor with his eyes darting left and right, as if the ghost had followed him on his way here.
Ben was just not ready to deal with this madman right now.
"Please stop eating your candy," he answered quietly with a tired sigh, none too gently shutting the door in Ed's face.
00000
A solitary figure stood solemnly before the spring and gripped the umbrella resolutely. Despite the oncoming rain, the woman did not seem the least bothered that she was not appropriately dressed for the weather in a black blouse and an emerald green skirt, as if she was dressed for Sunday church service. She gazed at the water, rippling continuously from each little raindrop that splashed its surface, before kneeling down in the wet grass before the edge. Harriet carefully placed her offering of a few strawberries into the pond, watching the fruit bob in the water before slowly they sank towards the bottom.
"Oh, Harvest Goddess!" Harriet declared loudly. "I have brought you an offering of your favorite kind. Know that even if the rest of the villagers are ignorant of your presence, I, your faithful follower, have always believed in you. I ask you to forgive them. With such petty things standing in their way to acknowledge you, I will make sure of it that they start to believe in you. It is only you that they should think of and nothing else. I will make it my utmost personal mission.
I humbly wish you a happy birthday, oh Goddess."
The only response was the static noise from the rain.
"My little Matilda should be reading up on some of my pamphlets right now," Harriet mused delightfully to no one in particular. "There is proof of the Harvest Goddess. I'll see that she believes before it's too late."
00000
The sandy-colored dog whined with the handle of a leash in its jaws, scratching fretfully upon the corner of the wooden pine door. When its owner did not take notice, the faithful pet bounded across the room where Sophie was busy delicately painting a tiny wooden figurine of a squirrel. Her hands were smothered in streaks of white and light brown paint, the arms of her sweater rolled up and dots of paint scattered across her long dark brown skirt. Old newspapers covered her work table and partially covered the floor, where other figurines of woodland creatures patiently stood, waiting to be colored to life amongst a sea of curled wood shavings. Various ceramic potteries adorned the shelves and walls, crammed from one to another and from corner to corner. An empty white canvas leaned against the doorway surrounded by tin tubes of oil paint, most of them smudged on a corner from already being used.
Having been taught to trot around whatever was on the floor, the dog carefully made his way until he approached Sophie's feet. Dropping the leash from his mouth, he gave out a single attention-demanding bark and looked at his master expectantly for a reaction.
Sophie paused, glancing over at Sandy, where it picked up the leash once more and wagged its tail silently. With a soft chuckle, the artist carefully set down the wooden squirrel and her tiny paintbrush and patted her lap twice, a signal that it was alright for Sandy to bound upon her lap. And bound he did, barking once more to reconfirm that he wanted to be taken on a walk. Sophie patiently scratched the dog under his chin and breathed a sigh once she saw the streaks of water racing down her glass window.
"Not today, Sandy," she slowly stated, pronouncing each syllable with slight difficulty. "It's raining, see? Maybe tomorrow, when the rain stops." Disappointed at her answer, the dog nuzzled his master nonetheless and licked her chin, triggering a giggle from the short-haired, dark brunette. Gently pushing the dog off her lap, Sophie stood from her work table and began to make her way to the tea kettle on top of the stove.
"It's perfect weather for some hot mint tea. Wouldn't you agree?"
00000
In comfortable silence, the two cooks of Kestrel Inn dutifully peeled and diced a share of the season's incoming crops. Roxy stood rigidly over the sink, shaving off the skins of turnips and potatoes faster with her trusty kitchen knife than you could blink. Each flick of the wrist was for an intended purpose to expose some new area where vegetable skin remained. As the little pile of hers grew, she handed the peeled potatoes and turnips to Mitch, the bigger and much older man, who sliced and diced the unfortunate root vegetables with considerable power before tossing them into a gigantic stock pot of chicken broth beside him. His moustache and beard were seaweed green today, tied to make the shape of a cucumber just under his nose.
A small intake of breath and a clatter on the sink made Mitch turn around. Roxy was clutching her finger from which flowed crimson blood. It was dripping rapidly into the sink where her abandoned knife lay. The head cook swiftly stopped what he was doing and took Roxy aside, gently chastising her in his deep masculine voice.
"I told ya not to go too fast," he gruffly said, twisting the knob of the sink so that warm water flowed over the somewhat large cut on her index finger. Roxy was silent and thin-lipped. "Second time in five days now," Mitch reminded her, in which the strong redhead gave out an impatient little 'huff' in response. Readjusting her glasses with her free hand, Roxy murmured stubbornly, "I can still cut."
"No, ya ain't. Don't want ya to end up all chopped up," Mitch grumbled, fetching a small clean towel and a roll of cotton bandages. Bidding her to sit down on a stool, the man gently applied pressure with the towel to the wound until the blood stopped flowing. For a man with very large, hairy hands, he was not as intimidating as he looked. Mitch securely wrapped a strip of cotton around her finger and taped it.
"Rest for today. I'll make dinner."
With a scowl, Roxy silently complied and sulked out of the kitchen. Mitch shook his head at the girl and glanced over at the cabbages that needed to be diced for tonight's vegetable soup.
"Oh, you need some seeds? Sure, I got some," Nick yawned out, taking a break from feverishly playing his 3ES for the moment. "What do you need? I'll go get them from my room." Today his t-shirt sported a trio of triangles in a peculiar pattern, with 'TRIFORCE' emblazoned in golden letters against a black background. He laid the gaming device with utmost caution upon the round wooden table.
The blonde farmer mentally thought back to the list she had written earlier that morning. "Um, fifteen turnip packets and twenty potato packets for now. Hang on, add fifteen asparagus and fifteen cucumber packets to that too," Aly recited, proud of herself for remembering. Her umbrella stood next to the doorway to temporarily dry off.
"M'kay. Don't touch my game," Nick warned sleepily.
"What are you playing?"
"Legend of Melda: Twilight Prince." He gave an enthusiastic double thumbs up.
"Oh, Aly! How's Eli comin' along?" Mitch sidled on through the kitchen door upon hearing the blonde girl chat with the loafer Nick. Aly immediately frowned in worry.
"He'll be okay, right? I mean, thank god you were there with your herb stuff before I poisoned him for good, but… Does he really have to eat white grass powder for three whole days? Like, ew." She wrinkled her nose in disgust and shuddered.
Mitch nodded seriously. "Sad to say, 'tis the only way to flush all the toxins out for sure. Lad'll be fine after a while, but he'll have ta sleep next to the toilet and uh… 'excrete' the poison mushrooms all out." The man coughed at the emphasis. Roxy shared a similar look to the female farmer's horrified expression.
Before anything more could be said, Ed burst through the doors dripping wet from the rain and wheezing.
"M-M-Matilda's in trouble! She got captured by a ghost at the church library! I told her not to go there, but she wouldn't listen! I think it's gonna curse her or something!" Ed rambled. "I'm too scared to go myself! Mitch, Roxy! Come with me! I dunno what that thing is capable of!"
An awkward silence ensued before Nick piped up with, "Dude, seriously. Lay off the candy."
"You were making candy again in your room, weren't you? I thought something smelled funny upstairs," Roxy hotly accused with narrowed eyes and injured finger while Mitch simply sighed and slapped a large hand to his forehead.
"Why does everybody think I'm on drugs?" Ed wailed in exasperation.
00000
Perspiration covered Eli's brow as he crawled with all his might to the toilet. 'Slowly… Slowly…!' His body froze in absolute fear when a certain familiar pang in his abdomen worsened. His shaking knuckles tightened and he lay there on the floor still, begging for it not to happen now. After a few seconds, the pain subsided temporarily. The brown-haired, blue-eyed young man used this opportunity to further inch his way along the floor, careful not to upset his extremely sensitive stomach lest disaster strike again. The bathroom was in sight, and the door was ajar. The toilet was there, ready for him. If he could just make it…!
'Oh, no!' The pain came back, double what it was for, and this time, Eli knew he had no time to lose. Scrambling to his feet, the young farmer hastened his way to the toilet with a hand on his bottom. Three seconds. Two seconds. One second!
He embraced the toilet and groaned sadly to himself. It was too late. He crapped in his pants again.
The wooden kestrel figurine looked upon him from the shelf sympathetically with its beady eye, its wings just about to help it take flight.
11111
A/N: And so ends the introduction arc. All eleven characters of the introductory cast have been revealed.