The Impossible Dream (Mundane Apocalypse)

To Perform an Act

            Puberty develops magic, as if it could not be worse already, and when Mark and I were about eleven or twelve, the soulmate bond restrengthened. Soon afterwards, the diagnoses and soon medicine acted like tar covering a currach's hull where the currach should really just be thrown away or something. After that, a new level of mind grew and did not believe in Elfhame's existence and disbelieved the things that had happened before.

Mark slowly remembered Elfhame. Nobody contradicted him about it and so the memories grew back healthy, but the magic dormanted as a matter of self-preservation. If we had not time traveled, the memories probably would not have returned.

Every summer, Eastern European orphanages close for the staffs' holidays, and they don't take turns—all their vacation time comes up at one time. The children live on the streets, attend Christian camps, or, through a program, stay with host families.

Mark and I talked through the soulmate bond and Mom and Dad assumed he was an online friend. Close enough. They hosted him most summers, on the condition that he did not encourage the idea that Elfhame existed. He didn't, but this year, he returned a few weeks later (by working and hitchhiking across Europe; either that or swimming the Bering Strait and walking through Canada, but for one thing, it's summer, and for another thing:

RUSSIA EATS TURNIPS!

So I'm pretty sure he just hitchhiked and worked, instead of getting a passport and visa.)

Naturally, when he showed up at the door, Mom and Dad let him stay. Mark remembered all the old skills from Elfhame and was out of practice, but they quickly returned, Dad had taught him how to use power tools, and he Mark found a construction worker job. Thankfully, people like cheap labor and not every employer for a job like that asks to see a foreigner's work visa.

Mark can build a wattle-and-daub house, pigpen, barn, and nesting dragon coop, rig an outboard motor on a cart-sized longship, fix the motor when it breaks, run copper piping from the hearth to the bedrooms and privy for heat, thatch a roof, make sturdy and pretty furniture, farm, and hunt. He picks up other manual skills quickly because he has a good background knowledge, pays attention, and works hard.

I still had a lot of remains, like how to cook some Roanoke food, how to knit, sew, make lye soap, household cleaners, keep bees, raise goats, rabbits, and pigs, milk the goats, slaughter the rabbits and pigs, grow a garden, and preserve food. People thought I picked it up naturally, but...No.

Good Tree, no.

Mark is very patient and long-suffering.

I kinda explode all over the house during summer, what with all the preserving, although because Mom and Dad's house is larger than Mark and my's house, it doesn't spread to every corner of the house.

It's like Laura Ingalls Wilder barfed.

But we eat all winter!

Over the days, Mark referenced fandoms that don't exist in Halidom, including Anna Bridscipe, Rob Skottle, Trenhalcild, September Lighthouse, Fro Adams, The Mill of the Dee, Three Sisters, and Hardy Few.

A bad thunderstorm passed through unexpectedly and while I shut up the chicken, a tree smashed the coop, hit the rabbit hutches, killed Flopsy (a doe rabbit who is a breeding rabbit and not food until she dies naturally), and scared the goats and pig. It was a bit annoying and inconvenient, but ultimately useful, and we had rabbit pie for supper.

Mark used his wand and a couple other tools to remove the tree and repair the coop and hutches enough to last the storm. I had covered them with a tarp. He piled the broken wood over the roof and stuck it together with magic, all covered with the tarp.