The Erthe Beyonde | Bulbagarden

“And flies when I pursue it”​

22ND SPRING
I usually go up to the mountains by way of the village, taking the lane past the Community Centre, but today I went North, through the woods behind Buckland. The air sharp with resin, an earthy spice from Robin’s fireplace smoke drifting up the valley.

Followed a track I’ve never seen before, up an outcrop on the edge of the pines. There was a tent pitched and someone sitting out in front of it. A stout fellow, rather grubby with a beard you could lose a badger in. His demeanour was nervous, wary, almost like a fox who isn’t sure whether to run or not.

“A stranger?” he said, and I quite liked the plainness of that: “Don’t mind me, I just live out here alone.”
“… Leofric,” I said.
“… Linus,” he said. And that was that.

I went back to the mine. I want to see what’s down there, and I don’t know why. This time I took the sword as well as the pick, and not just because it felt right. I have a feeling, a suspicion, there’s more than ore down there.

I’m writing this on Lvl 5. Water babbling, somewhere in the dark. No sign of anything aggressive. There’s a lot of abandoned equipment, boxes and crates. Rot had turned some of them soft as cardboard. When I broke them open (Walloped it with the pick) I found in some chunks of greenish copper orre. In another there were some chunks of purple gemstone. Deep, rich purple. Even uncut and unpolished they were beautiful. Something about the way they caught the light.

Speaking of the light. By rights it ought to be gloomy – there aren’t that many artificial lights – but throughout the level it’s soft grey light, like twilight. Maybe it’s just my eyes playing tricks.

-​

Strawberry picking this afternoon. I’m not sure how many more will ripen before the end of the season. Pest damage isn’t quite as severe as I’d feared. The birds have definitely been at some of them. Pierre’s paying 4s 8p/punnet. It’s really not a lot, but what can I do?

Took a slow walk to the pub this evening. I still feel out of place there. Everyone else seems to be on first name terms with the chef/proprietor. It’s not that people are rude, but there’s this feeling you get in local pubs when you’re not a local. Hung around till kicking-out time, just for a slight change of scenery. Saw one of the regulars staggering out towards Penny’s the trailer. I can’t remember if Emily ever told me her name but she’s there every night, often right at the bar.

That explains all those cans Penny was getting rid of.

23RD SPRING
Monsters. Monsters, in this day, in this age! Monsters are supposed to be relics of prehistory. Fossils, curios, stories!

It started with an off-handed comment from Pierre – Marlon had bought most of my strawberries. He said that as if the name would be obviously recognisable to me. I had to remind him that I don’t know most people in the valley.

“Oh, you might not have met him. The old fox doesn’t come into town much. He wears an eyepatch, you won’t miss him.”

He was right about that. The same man I’d met at the mine, leather-cloaked, moustachioed and eyepatched. I asked Pierre where he lives, at the time with the vague idea of perhaps cutting him out as the middle man.

The Guildhall is a large cabin up in the mountains, secluded, not far from the mine. And not at all easy to find. I’m not sure why I persisted. By anyone’s metric there were better uses of my time. I think I wanted to get some answers r.e: the thing that attacked me on Lvl 2.

There was something medieval about the Adventurer’s Guild. It wasn’t just the swords and axes and other killing cutlery lined up in racks. You walk into a hall two storeys high, hammerbeam roof, what looks like a firepit in the middle of the floor. Strange trophies decorate the back wall: odd wooden masks, heavy iron helmets, weird skeletons. Marlon watched me sidelong with his one good eye. His companion creaked slowly back and forth in a rocking chair in the corner. Gil had three limbs and six fingers – scars like something had tried to play noughts-and-crosses on his face.

My story was annoyingly anticlimactic.

“So you’ve had your first encounter with a green slime!” Gil cackled. Marlon just smiled.

The casual reaction was just incongruous. It’s not like I was mobbed by a bunch of crows!

“I did tell you there wasn’t just ore down there,” Marlon said. “Why do you suppose I gave you the sword?”

“You might as well have it back, then,” I said.

“There may well be greater treasure to find than copper ore,” Marlon said enigmatically.

-​

Decidedly windy. 14°C at noon. Cloudy by twilight.

“Dear Leofric,

Tomorrow we’re all getting together for the flower dance.

If you can find a partner, you might even participate in the dance yourself! There’s a little clearing beyond the forest west of the town were we hold the dance. Arrive between 9am and 2pm if you’re interested.

Mayor Lewis”

Who’s desperate enough to dance with the likes of me?

Saw Penny in the village this afternoon. She was talking with some old boy in a wheelchair. As I watched she wheeled him aside so she could retrieve a letter from the back of his mailbox. That didn’t seem to go down well.

I ended up getting drawn into it when Penny noticed I was there. I mumbled something about maybe asking first. Well, Penny apologised, looking rather downcast. I think he realised she meant well. Which she manifestly did. She may have been a bit presumptuous, a bit quick to assume.

Afterwards she commented that growing old must be hard. I suppose she’s right. I said I’d rather not think about it.

“I guess you’re right,” she said. “Why stress about something you can’t change?”

That’s not quite what I meant (I’d rather not think about things like pensions and accessibility). But you know, it felt genuine. Penny always seems to have a bit of a guard up.

24TH SPRING
Overcast, threatening rain. 17°C at noon.

I’ve been in two minds about the Flower Dance. After the Egg Festival I was reluctant to spend the day just hanging around. Like a wasp around jam. But then I hoped guessed that maybe Penny would be the wallflower of the festival. Then we could be wallflowers together.

The route through to the festival glade was a well-beaten path, following along the bank of the river. It looked like someone had regularly been clearing the route with chainsaws and billhooks.

Insofar as I could tell most of the village had turned up. There were a lot of anxious glances at the sky. The glade had been decorated with masses of flowers: marigolds, geraniums, swarms of busy lizzie. It was all, at first glance, charmingly bright. Except … Damnit Lewis. He didn’t tell me there was a dress code. Even Marlon! The man wears an eyepatch and a sword and he looks like he fits in! I’d turned up in granddad’s old cloak, not trusting the louring clouds, thrown back over my shoulders to keep it out of the way. Should have just gone home but I’d been seen arriving and it would have been weird to leave.

Shane was unusually cheerful. I don’t think I’d seen him laugh till now (Not that I at all blame him. He works at Joja Mart, after all). It was nice to see.

Leah said she was glad to see me – a little strange since she doesn’t see me that often. Strange to see her with elegantly brushed hair and no charcoal smudges on her cheeks. I complimented her hair, sincerely (It’s the least threatening compliment I know, that was the point). It was nice of her to make me feel welcome.

But Penny, oh Penny … Penny was a vision. Gorgeous in a white-blue dress with elegantly puffed sleeves, gorgeous with a shy little smile, gorgeous with the Spring sun and the Spring flowers in her hair. The dancing started, and I had no idea how to ask her to dance even if I knew how to dance.

What the hell am I doing?

25TH SPRING
The threatened rain broke in the small hours. Vile rain, falling in big gelatinous drops, the sort of rain that makes you feel sticky and overwarm no matter what you do. It was pretty vile weather to harvest in. That’ll be it for the strawberries. And, possibly, for the beans.

It occurs to me I haven’t planned ahead for Summer. I’ve got by entirely on guesswork this Spring. It’ll probably be mostly guesswork this Summer. I cleared a bit of land for want of a better idea. I probably ought to be more diligent with the weeds.

This is not a good plan
This is not a plan

Did planning ever get me anywhere? Really? You plan and plan and plan.

After stopping at the general store I made a couple of detours. Firstly to the Community Centre. The abandoned, dilapidated hall would perhaps be an eerie experience, with the rain pattering outside, had I not also had memories of the mines.

I had a handful of green beans to leave in the pantry. They weren’t the best of the crop – neither was the cauliflower or the potato or the parsnips I left hitherto. As to what I expected … in light of meeting Rasmodius, after the thing in the mines? I suppose at this point I just wanted to see what would happen.

Something of an anticlimax, in point of fact. I put the beans on a shelf, to no apparent effect (Wondering whether the rats would simply eat it). It didn’t seem sane to stand around watching. I chanced to look back at the door – and there was a junimo finding like mist, beans held in its wiggly noodle arms. Well, he was welcome to them. I turned to leave him to it and promptly tripped over something – a box of fertiliser, but the branding was odd. It was labelled ‘Spiid-gro’, for one thing.

“Er. Thank you,” I said, since they seem to be literate, after a fashion.

I headed down to the river after that. To the … mobile home. To the mobile home. This turned out to be a silly mistake since the rain decided to hammer down halfway there. My hair was dripping and my socks squelching by the time I arrived at Penny’s door, carrying a punnet of waterlogged strawberries. I almost gave up. For some reason I knocked on her door anyway.

Sigh. I know suave and erudite is not too much to hope for, but witty and charming at least seemed to be within reach. Not that Penny reacted to the ridiculousness of the sight. Aside from the offer of a towel and a radiator she didn’t reference it at all. I think the strawberries broke the ice. Or maybe it was having to tip the rainwater out of the strawberries and my boots. Oh well. After that it was actually a pretty good afternoon. One geeky quotation led to another (Oh, books!) and it was just the best conversation I can recall for … well, so long.

I particularly liked watching her eat the fruit I’d grown – given that this is the one crop I have any experience with.

“It must be nice to live in close proximity to so much fresh produce,” I remarked.
“Yeah …” she said as if she wasn’t quite convinced. “I guess you take it for granted. Wasn’t it exciting to live in the city?”

‘No, not really,’ I almost said. You’d expect me to say that (I.e: the truth), I suppose gratitude is relative. Yoba Below knows how I hated the city, but … maybe without Joja – no, I would have hated it anyway. But I can conceptualise why it might hold some allure for Penny in a grass-is-greener sort of way.

26TH SPRING
Is this really a mine?

Below Lvl 29 there are no lights. Even the queer sourceless twilight of the upper levels is absent. It takes several hours to delve this far. At this depth the weight of rock above head feels oppressive. Almost crushing. The dark, unyielding, smothering my torchlight. It’s colder here, but it’s a changeless cool that has nothing to do with the weather of the world.

Marlon called it a mine. And yet … there are chambers. Galleries. Subterranean rivers fringed with a glittering black strand. Faint tapping noises somewhere in the dark. The long-storied knockers, perhaps, of mine folklore. Once, I would have thought them nothing but a story. Now I’m not so sure. The line between natural and manmade twisting like a wounded serpent. On Lvl 26 my torchlight picked up grubs of ridiculous size clustering on the walls (A marvel of the caves, or something more sinister?). On Lvl 18 I met another slime – ambushed it this time, split it open with a mattock blow. Watched it deflate, expelling protoplasm, like a dying amoeba.

The presence of the pick is reassuring. Already it seems less heavy. Perhaps it’s just adrenaline.

Twisting, like a wounded serpent. On Lvl 30 I stumbled and fell into a chamber – a moment of cold black terror ended by my shoulder impacting the rock. A bruised shoulder was at least proof the pit was not bottomless.

My torch beam illuminated the musty remains of camp beds … grimy playing cards … an abandoned mug, the coffee fossilised into a tarry residue … a photo collage filmed with dust. People had lived here, thirty levels below the earth. I wondered how long the miners lived without sight of the sun.

Later, that evening, I told Leah about how I found the elevator. It was another chance sighting, a nastily familiar shade of steel blue caught in the light. Some sort of control box liveried with the JojaPower logo. Out of morbid curiosity I flipped the ON switch. No obvious effect, beside a green light. Following bundles of wires led me to the elevator. Dank, the electrics giving off an unnerving hum, but a functioning elevator nonetheless.

It’s making me laugh every time I think of it. They can’t help themselves, can they? And now I have easy access to the surface – on Joja’s shilling.

Ran into Linus on the way back, very nearly literally. I must have startled him – he startled me, lurking in the shadows like a feral cat. Perhaps that was because he was rummaging in the bins outside No.1.

“Do you think there’s something wrong with what I’m doing?”

Wrong? With taking what No.1’s thrown away? Who the hell cares?

27TH SPRING
17°C at noon. Patchy cloud, light breeze, the cottage walls warm to the touch.

The beans were ready to pick – I think this will be the last of them, barring a few stragglers.

Lvl 40 in the mine. As soon as the elevator doors opened I felt the blast of frigid air. Frost sparkled on the rock. Spring to Winter. You never know what to expect here.

I went back up to the surface.

28TH SPRING
From you I have been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him
Yet not the lays of birds, not the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,
They were but sweet, but figures of delight
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those
Yet seemed it winter still and you away
As with your shadow I did play.

17°C at noon, with intermittent sunshine.

Spent the day clearing ground, trying to plan fields around the mature trees. They’re just too much trouble to fell with this axe. It’s laborious work nonetheless. I’ve got about half an acre cleared now, I think. I wonder if it should be ploughed back into the earth. Damn those brambles. Yoba Below knows how old they are, but they are worse than barbed wire. Chopping them apart is the easy part. I’m going to need sturdier gloves, or something.

Thanks in large part to my hacking, the butterflies were out and fluttering. Peacocks and commas bursting out of the nettles. There’s an abundance of speckled wood (Pararge aegaria) in the woods (I had to look up that spelling. An ironically tricky one for a comparatively drab butterfly). Some of them loafing at the margins to bask in the sunshine. Pretty little things, in their own way. The peacocks are looking a bit tired and faded this late in the season.

Went down to the beach in the late afternoon to do some idle fishing. It’s probably a bit late in the season for herring, but the red mullet were biting reasonably well. Funny, really. Once upon a time I regarded fishing at pedantic, more penance than pensive. I see the point now. Fishing feels at least familiar, a quiet little moment.

The evening was pretty much all about planning the start of Summer. I bought the beers at the Stardrop – it seems only fair given that Andy’s helping me with his walk-behind. One pint in and he was full of advice for my burgeoning fledgling tiny freehold.

It’s another leap of faith, I suppose.

I’ve made it through Spring. Summer to come.