As the morning gloom filtered in through the windows, Vern found himself getting up early like normal and wandered downstairs into the cabin's main room. Nobody else had woken yet and he found it oddly peaceful. Mae hadn't turned up yet and he secretly hoped that she wouldn't. Something about the girl scared the living daylights out of him. Not to mention how she and Shae argued, it made Vern feel incredibly lucky not to have any siblings.
He opened the pantry and weighed out some flour and yeast from the sacks and found some oil in the very back. He placed these on the table and went to fetch some water which he measured into a metal pan. Gently heating in it his palm until the icy liquid became lukewarm. With the dough ready to rise, Vern covered it and decided to head outside for a brief walk while he waited.
Since the healing, as it had become known what's all, he seemed to be doing, waiting. He'd practice the barriers and was able to hold one over the cabin for at least two hours. It did amaze him that despite the Witchfathers barely conscious state the barrier over the halves never wavered for a second. Other things had changed, The Halves had become stained with the pungent stench of the funeral pyres, It was hard to imagine that the smell would ever fade from the ramshackle wooden building. Not only that but Thandre had become some kind of Idol to Ofrin's followers, people were worshipping him now. Offerings of food and clothing were being left outside the cabin on a near-daily basis. Vern would bring those in when he returned.
The Halves was always thronging with people, but in the earliest hours of the morning there was a wonderful stillness and Vern always felt like it was a brief moment of peace just for him. This morning though that peace was disturbed as he wandered aimlessly through the streets he nearly walked into a beautiful young woman with midnight hair pinned up and lips painted a vibrant red. Her eyes were decorated with gold and when he met her eyes as she looked up through her thick black lashes he realised who he was looking at and the sign she was collecting from the street. Vern was thankful that the blood rushing to his face was barely visible on his umber skin. The dark brown offering the perfect disguise for his embarrassment.
Mae glared at him and suddenly his blood ran cold and his life flashed before his eyes. It wasn't, with the exception of, the last four days or so all that eventful.
" If you tell Shae, you're dead." Mae offered no other information and she picked up the sign to Madame Vines house of women and hurried back inside. Vern wondered if perhaps she was going to kill him in his sleep, or perhaps poison his food. He couldn't put any of it past her. There was something about the encounter that felt deeply wrong. He just didn't know what. It might have just been that for a second he'd thought of Mae as the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.
He ran a hand through his midnight hair and decided that nobody would ever know about any of this. He kept walking on, and when he was coming back he saw Mae, make-up and gown gone walking with Gilly. This time he kept well out of the way, but he couldn't help but notice how her normally cold eyes twinkled she she looked up at the giant of a man next to her. He had dipped into a small cut-through and waited until they were long gone before rushing back to the cabin. He suddenly felt like he knew far more about Mae than he'd ever wanted to know and very possibly more than Shae knew. It was not a comfortable feeling.
He wasn't surprised that upon returning to the cabin the number of offerings had grown. He was pleasantly surprised as he bought them in to discover butter and honey. Neither were easily available within the halves due to the lack of bees, grass and cows. With tensions between them and the city so high it was remarkable that someone had sourced it. He thought of his bread and grinned. Fresh bread and butter, now thank was something to be happy about. Vern had been worrying a lot about the possibilities of a food shortage within the Halves. Sure everyone grew what they could in little window boxes and the few lucky ones with yards and flat roofs kept pigeons and chickens, but it wasn't an area that could easily produce its own food. If someone really wanted to kill the witches They'd just have to wait till they starved to death.
When he finished bringing in the offerings Thandre emerged from his room. The mans' chestnut hair was ruffled and he managed to somehow seem thinner and paler than before, something that Vern would have thought of as impossible. He watched as Thandre scanned his eyes over the table of goods.
" What on the whale is this lot?" His voice was full of sleep and he could barely suppress a yawn.
" Gifts for you," Vern answered simply. Thandre frowned. He'd only done a bit of healing, any half capable witch should be able to mend a bone. Then he remembered most of the witches in The Halves were never taught how to be capable. That was his job and he'd failed them.
He barely had time to teach Vern and Shae, let alone teach every witch in the halves the basics of healing. He was roughly aware that it had been two days since he was last up and about, meaning he now had less than two weeks to prepare Vern, Shae and the witches for the move. His heart sank but there weren't other options. Perhaps if he were lucky half the witches would come, but it needed to be more than that. Shae would do better if the barrier could be smaller. His head ached. and he went to find himself some water. Liquids first thinking later.
Vern started to use the goods to restock the pantry, which had a strange assortment of food it in, a lot of the herbs and ingredients Thandre owned were not things that would be found easily or at all within the area. There was something weird about the whole cabin, and about The Witchfather himself.
Feeling more hydrated and slightly less pained Thandre sat to joined Vern at the table as his apprentice knocked back the dough before leaving it to rise once more.
" What is it you're going to teach us today?" Vern asked hopefully. Thandre didn't even hesitate.
" Barriers." Thandre's answer left Vern feeling disappointed.
" That's all we've done..." Thandre silenced him with a withering look.
" That's all we have time for. Once we leave I'll teach you healing on the ships." Thandre frowned as if he'd remembered something incredibly important. Ships and docks. How long would those take to create, and how long would it take him to recover?
He would have to make the trip through the caverns to where the docks used to be. Repairing severely damaged things was considerably less straining than creating from thin air. It wouldn't have been a problem if he hadn't done the healing. He hoped there was something left to work with but he knew they hadn't been used since the forest was destroyed.
" Not enough time?" Vern questioned looking nervous. Like he was missing something huge.
" We have less than a couple of weeks before we have to leave. We have to go before the breath happens, we should arrive just before it starts but there's a lot of work to be done and as you could see from the healing I don't have completely unlimited power.
" Barriers are the most important thing to the settlements and Shae has 12 days to learn to keep a barrier constant for at least 5 weeks." Vern's mouth went dry. There was so little time to learn anything.
" Once your done, spread the word that I'm calling a meeting. Start with Agretina, she'll have the news around faster than you could think possible." Vern nodded. When he woke up today looked like it could be a good day but his stomach twisted. He could only hope Thandre's newfound popularity would be enough for this scheme to work.
With his bread now baking Vern ventured back out and worked his way through the twisting alley's until he found Old Aggie sitting in her rocking chair. Around her, a group had already formed he virtually had to push his way in to deliver the news. Old Aggie gave him a toothless grin and shooed off her crowd.
" You heard 'em. Tell e'ryone you see!" Vern nodded as a new group began to gather around the elderly woman in her rocking chair. He looked closely and realised that the chair was hovering a good inch off the ground. He'd never noticed before, but everyone had always found it strange that she had always found people to move her. He'd always assumed that she called on people in her army of descendants. He estimated nearly half The Halves could trace family connections back to Aggie. Marriges often had to be approved by the ancient matriarch because she was the only person who'd really kept accurate track.
Within an hour the entire population of The Halves was gathered around Thandre's cabin. Vern struggled to get back, with many of the crowd feeling irrate that someone was trying to push through to a better spot. The mood of this gathering was better than the last. People were grateful to Thandre now, He saved the living, healed the dying and made sure all the bodies were bought back undesecrated.
Eventually, he got up to the front of the cabin and Donnie nodded at him to come and stand at the front, facing the crowd. Somehow the wizard had become some kind of crowd control. Mae had already arrived and she looked exhausted. She's probably woken up to be here so Shae wouldn't suspect anything. She gave Vern a death glare then let her eyes skim the still growing mass of people.
When Thandre emerged, looking somewhat more alive than he had this morning, there was a cheer that rippled through the crowd until it became a deafening roar. It was obvious the man was trying not to look surprised by this sudden change in attitude. He wondered how long it was going to last when they heard what he had to say. He raised an arm and the crowd fell into awed silence.
" I've called you all here today to request volunteers to follow me across the cloud sea to a new land. A land just for us has come thanks to the whale!" His voice boomed with significantly more confidence than he'd shown Vern this morning. If he hadn't seen just how worried Thandre had looked just a couple of hours before he might have been cheering with the crowd.
" I plan to leave in twelve days, and I hope as many of you will come as possible. Those who stay will be left in the care of Shae, my apprentice as she holds the barrier. We are no longer safe here. As we all know we can't make our own food here, and it's only. amatter of time before the madness infecting the city spreads and disrupts those supplies." There was a murmer or worry through the crowd but Thandre could feel large patches of unwavering belief.
" If you want to come gather here at dawn in twelve days. My apprentice Vern and I shall guide you to the new land. Where we can start fresh, independent of Gilvern!"
There was a susuration in the crowd and Vern listened as carefully as he could. Thoughout the crowd people whispered and the witchfather having become a prophet for the creator. Although the general agreement seemed to be that he looked more like a prophet before he cut his hair, trimmed his beard and took a bath. Vern refrained from sighing and was glad, this was possibly the best reaction they could have hoped for, especially since a mere couple of days ago and a number of this crowd had been hurling rotting fruit at them.