Taking Root (Stardew Valley - Shane)

Chapter Fifteen

Over the next week, the strings that weaved my neighbour's lives with mine were pulled tighter and tighter. The weekend was spent playing pool with Sam to the atmospheric backdrop of Pam singing Queen songs on the Stardrop karaoke machine. On Tuesday, Demetrius spent the day on the farm, to resume our progress of chipping away at the cave entrance and doubling my collection of malformed geodes and lumps of unpolished coal I had no use for. And we actually cleared the cave, too, albeit at the expense of my torn up back and the burning muscles in my thighs. I slept for two straight days after that, only creeping out of the cabin to tend to the crops and to breathe in fresh air that didn't smell like tomato-flavoured Pot Noodle and dusty old box-sets of Gilmore Girls.

By the time it was Friday, I had eaten enough instant meals to change the biology of my inner stomach lining. And no offense to Alexis Bledel, but I had been staring at her face on my TV screen for too long as a poor substitute for actual human interaction. In three hours I would be meeting up with Emily, to follow the river from the town centre up into the direction of the mountains. I'd only ever taken the shortcut route from the back of my farm up to Robin and Demetrius' home that sat only a little higher than the rest of the valley, but apparently the way we would walk today was a steeper journey, and would take us further up into the heights.

As I rolled out of the gripping comfort of my bedsheets and into the dirt-stained boots that were waiting for me on the wooden porch, I pondered the farm chores for the day. Yesterday I had seen beautiful large white butterflies spinning and twisting, dancing through the air before perching on my rows of juvenile cabbages. I was sure they would lay their eggs, and soon there would be a hoard of plump, green caterpillars turning my vegetables into their 5-a-day. The thought should've filled me with dread- but I loved insects, and my grandpa had always drilled into my skull the importance of living a life that coexists with each and every animal around us. He would take me out into the fields, showing me the beetles that burrowed underneath upturned roots, and the burnet moths that sat together on heads of dandelions to warm their dappled wings under the yellow of the sun.

One time, he promised over the phone to share with me a great secret - and when I visited him next, he took me to a grand tree around the back of the cabin and lifted me up onto his sturdy shoulders. I came eye-level with a nest of twigs, woven so tightly it could hold water. It was only around three inches wide, and it was lined with soft grasses and scraps of foraged leaves. Three eggs were nestled inside, soft blue and palely freckled. I wanted so desperately to reach out and hold one, to cradle it in my little hands. But I refrained and wrapped my restless arms around my grandpa's head instead, as he told me all about goldfinches and the calling sounds they made.

Grandpa would never want me to hate the butterflies, or their fat, grubby children. And I knew he would never want me to use pesticides. So I did the only thing that came to my mind in that moment - slice up three pairs of my old tights and staple them together over the cabbage planter as some sort of budget bug shield.

I wiped at my forehead and peered down at the abomination. Okay, so I'm sure Grandpa didn't mean for me to do this, either, but it's like Gwen Stefani said - I'm just a girl.

"Hey- are you ready to go on the best hike with your best neighbour?" Emily called from my right as I finished checking over the rest of the crops. She was beaming, waving, dressed like a nine-year-old on a camping trip in 1987- oversized denim shorts, a hoodie tied effortlessly around her waist, her glossy blue hair pulled into two short pigtails and complete with a neon sun visor.
"Hey Emily- let me just nip to the toilet and then we can head off."

Just the walk from the farm into town was long enough to get your lungs going. I turned to look at Emily's ensemble again as we marched down the cobbled path near Pierre's, and noted she wasn't carrying any kind of bag. "You did bring something to eat, right?"