Taking Root (Stardew Valley - Shane)

Chapter Ten

In the city, the only things that would get stuffed through your letterbox were bills, and bank statements, and fliers advertising the local subpar takeaway. But here, in the valley, people loved to write you letters. Actual handwritten letters that served as evidence of the writer's personality - the way they held their pen and how they packaged the note.

Of course, I didn't know many of my neighbours, and so far I could count the amount of mail I'd received on just the two of my dirt-streaked hands. But I was starting to know who the sender was before I had even reached the second sentence of the page. I always thought that Lewis had gotten a little wobbly with his declining age, but the neatness and formality of his writing would put any other politician to shame. Marnie's script was a little messy, but very curly and beautiful to look at, and the pages would radiate her warmth and joy. And Emily had written me a letter only one or two days after I had met her. The colourful words were scribbled in thick red ink, with a thin ribbon tied loosely around the manilla envelope in a bow - blue, naturally.

I was at Emily's humble abode now, clutching a creased carrier bag full of various ingredients from Pierre's corner shop. They cost me an arm and a leg. When I entered there, I didn't expect to be robbed - and not by any violent, weapon-bearing criminal - but by the cunning man behind the till.

"You will never guess what Alex has just told me, Em. Oh my god. I'm shocked to the core." Emily's sister spoke aloud, placing one of her pristinely-manicured hands over her mouth in shock as her phone hung limply from the other. She had been standing there for the past five minutes, leaning casually against one of the kitchen cabinets, her face lit up by the soft blue glow of her mobile screen.

"What?"
"So he says he was just chilling outside by the river, and he saw someone in the distance, walking across that old bridge near the library. Which was super weird, because, like, he normally doesn't see anyone around there at this time of day. That's why he goes down there, because after his workout he likes to go somewhere quiet and really think about life and stuff, you know?"

Emily rolled her eyes and laughed, "Can you get to the point?"
"God, I'm getting there, have a little patience." She responded with a huff, folding her arms across the front of her pink cotton blouse. "Well it was Leah."

"Who's Leah?" I chimed in, shuffling to stand closer to the two girls.
"She's just this girl who spends practically all of her time inside her cottage, or digging through the dirt in the forest like a little squirrel. Alex says she literally never hangs out near his house, so it was totally crazy to see her. He says she was obviously coming back from Clint's house."
"Clint's house? There's no way, Haley. Why would she be?" Emily laughed, shaking her head in disbelief.
"Looks like Clint isn't so lonely after all, huh. The little devil."
"You're truly delusional now." Emily moved closer to her sister and placed a hand against her forehead. "Clint and Leah. Are you ill? Are you coming down with something?"
"He sent me a picture of them together." Haley retorted, smacking the hand away from her face and waving her phone in front of her.
"What? Let me see!" Both Emily and I hunched forwards to inspect the tiny photo that Haley presented to us on her unsteady phone screen. I was just happy to add more faces to my mental-logbook, and I was pretty curious what this 'squirrel' girl looked like. "Haley. That's just a blurry photo of Leah with Clint taking the trash out in the background."

I guess this was what it was like living in a small town. Some days, news was so slow, you'd just make your own up. I'd never been somewhere so close-knit before. I'd only ever lived in two other homes - both of which were in the city, where strangers never stuck around long enough to reach any level of permanence. Sure, there always seemed to be the same characters dotted about on the morning train journey. A middle-aged businessman with his trusty laptop, parcelled up in a pin-stripe suit. Two teenage girls, sisters it seemed, with their curled blonde hair tangling together as one leaned her head against the other to snatch an extra few minutes of sleep. But when you stopped to actually look closer, their faces were always different. A change in eye colour, a birthmark here and there. Everybody was as fleeting as the blurred landscape that flew by outside of the carriage window.