Chương 48: Peasant

I woke in the library to the smell of damp paper and old leather gone soft with rot. And not a whiff of a Fifi book anywhere. Do Fifi books even have a smell of their own? My sense of smell seemed unusually sharp down here in hell, for whatever reason. It would be handy, I thought, to track down and find Fifi books by scent alone. Wait. No. That was a deeply stupid thought. I looked around. No Henriette. No boring skeleton fellow. I thought about my last talk with Cinderella, and sighed.

It had gone rather like the time Juliette warned me how dangerous everything was, and I hadn't listened. Only now I was the one fretting and fussing. But Cinderella was a great deal cleverer than me, and stronger too. And she had looked like she'd found some courage. She might just be fine. I supposed I'd have to accept that the world up there wasn't really mine anymore, and worry about hell instead. Now that I felt more or less whole again, I could turn my mind to it. To what I might do here, in the long run.

Things like... purpose. Goals. Eh. What had I even wanted, before? Something about becoming rich? A queen? Marrying? Helping Cinderella? Well. I'd never been much good at finding a purpose in life. For now, it would have to be plump helmet soup. Oh. And I needed to write out the reply letter I'd memorized from Henriette's mother. I looked around and found a sheet of paper and a cup of pencils on one of the tables, and I wrote it out. It wasn't short, and I probably mangled a line or two.

But the main point came through. I walked out of the library into the empty corridor. Where could I find that girl? Could I... maybe smell her out? I started sniffing, and caught a different strange smell instead. And the strange smell was getting closer. Then a red lizard woman came around the corner of the cave passage. I mean, it was a red lizard in a dress, a necklace, and earrings. For all I knew it could simply have been a deviant of a male red lizard.

"Oh, it's you!" the lizard said, in an excited voice, with a heavy English accent, pressing her lizard hands together.

"I'm so glad to finally meet you. I'm Eleanor. Oh, you've only just come up from earth, haven't you? You look surprised. Oh! You mustn't be frightened of me, despite how I look to you."

"I'm really not," I answered flatly.

"I just assumed English people went to a different hell."

"That English... what?" She tilted her lizard head to the side.

"Could you please move," I asked, politely.

"You're blocking Henriette's smell."

"Why, that..." She looked puzzled, but I'd already gone past her. Once the air was clear, yes, I had it again. Henriette's scent, faint, of murky roots and soap, mixed through with a thread of Marguerite's strong, sticky tentacle-smell. My new sense of smell was a peculiar thing, but useful all the same, so truly, I didn't mind it. I followed the scent out of the corridor and into the great open cavern, and there was Henriette, lying on her back atop Marguerite's shell, looking up and chattering away without pause.

Marguerite answered now and then in the voice of a young boy, a little bored but happy. Henriette's brother, most likely. I walked toward them. I still wasn't sure how I felt about Marguerite. I wasn't afraid of her, and I was thankful she'd take me in. But I didn't understand her in the least, and she had a habit of annoying me with her Cinderella mimicry.

"Drizella! You're up!" Henriette leaped off the shell onto one of Marguerite's tentacles and slid down it, which looked a rather dangerous thing to do. She ran to me and tugged awkwardly at my dress.

"Oh, thank you for telling me the Fifi story. You must go on with it today! I'm in agony. I couldn't stop thinking about what Fifi will do to that dreadful Baron..." I grimaced inwardly, remembering exactly what Fifi was going to do. Oh, what had I been thinking, telling this to a thirteen-year-old? I drew out the paper I'd written and handed it to her.

"Here," I said.

"A reply. From your mother." Henriette's hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes brimmed at once with tears.

"Truly? From Mother? Truly?"

"Yes," I said, and gave her a gentle smile. The letter was touching, really. Henriette's own letters had given enough detail for her mother to believe them completely. In her reply, she passed along news of Henriette's brother, and that she herself was with child, so Henriette would have a baby sister. The rest was all how dearly they loved and missed her, how she was always in their hearts, and so on.

Henriette wept as she read it, great shaking sobs, and when she finished she threw her arms around me and went on weeping, soaking my dress through. I was, by now, well used to having my dress soaked through by excessive weeping, courtesy of Cinderella.

"There, there," I said, patting her head. Then I felt a slimy tentacle settle on my shoulder.

"Why, you're simply wonderful," Marguerite said in Cinderella's voice.

"It wasn't... that hard," I said to her, in a low voice. Then, once the worst of the weeping had passed, I said to Henriette, "Can we go and eat now? I'm starving." Henriette nodded, wiping her eyes. She held the crumpled paper to her chest for a moment, then tucked it carefully away, like something precious.

"Come," she said, pulling at my hand.

"It's actually breakfast time. Today there'll be..."

"Plump helmet soup?" I supplied.

"Yes," Henriette admitted.

"That." But we weren't going to the kitchen. Instead, Henriette led me to a large cave room beside it. It had smooth stone walls, with six long wooden tables set in a row, ringed with chairs. Against one wall stood a side table holding the great mushroom cauldron and a stack of bowls and utensils.

In each corner of the room loomed a statue of what looked like some important person, or perhaps a demon, and stretches of the walls had been engraved with scenes: battles, mushroom harvests, and figures kneeling before what might have been a great shell with many legs. Inside I saw Armand, the annoying English lizard, and the mushroom-farmer girl. Charlotte, was it? The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Charlotte waved to us.

Henriette and I filled our bowls from the cauldron and joined the others.

"You're feeling better, I gather," said Armand.

"Yes," I said.

"I still feel a little weak and dizzy now and then, but it's much better." I took a sip of the soup, and it was... good. Yes. It was good. I liked to eat it. After we'd all finished, something strange happened. Henriette started gathering up our bowls and wooden spoons, and carried them out of the room. I walked after her.

"What... what are you doing?" I asked. She ducked into a small room near the kitchen, one with a little streamlet running through it and cleaning things laid out beside it.

"I'm on dish duty today," she explain.

"So it's up to me to clean everyone's dishes. Want to lend me a hand?"

"No," I said. Henriette shrugged and started scrubbing.

"When you say you're on dish duty today," I inquired, "does that mean that on other days..."

"Oh, yes. It rotates. Everyone takes a turn." I paled. That was right. I was living among peasants now. There were no servants here. In a sense, we were all servants. I swallowed. Myself included.

"Well, most of us," Henriette went on.

"It was decided that those with hard, tiring labor, the farmers, the miners, are excused. They're usually too worn out after a day's work."

"Ah... Drizella?" Henriette called, but I was already out of the room. I went back to the dining room and found Charlotte still chatting with Armand. I took her hand.

"I want to help!" I said.

"With the mushroom farm. Show me how."

"Oh, my," said Charlotte, with a surprised little smile.

"I don't hear that often. So you've a special interest in agriculture?"

"Yes," I said.

"I like agriculture."

"But Drizella, you're still unwell," said Armand.

"Though it's truly commendable, to see you so eager to contribute to our community."

"Yes," I said.

"I like to contribute to community."

"Well, I'm a little excited, I'll admit," Charlotte went on.

"No one here shows the slightest interest in farming. Come, I'd be glad to show you. We'll keep it slow to start." Keep it slow? Come now. It wasn't even proper farming. You only had to keep the ground wet and pick the mushrooms when they were ready. The truth was, watching Charlotte work, if nothing else, it looked rather relaxing. I would certainly do that, and not have to touch other people's leftover food.

I had never washed a single dish in my life, and I was fully committed to never doing it while I was dead, either. I followed Charlotte into the mushroom farm, and she began to explain.

"Today, the main work will be readying a new plot," she said, pacing it out, "about two feet by four. First we break up the ground with the pick, clear out any stones, and turn the soil until it's loose and even." She crouched and pressed her palm flat to the earth.

"You want it soft all the way through" I nodded.

"There's the fertilizing, as well. For that you need potash. We've some made up already, in the buckets there." She pointed.

"But when it runs low, we make more at the Ashery. We burn wood down to ash in the furnace, then work the ash into potash. The fertilizer has to be worked in before sowing, or it does the crop no good." I nodded again, not really understanding any of it.

"We keep the ground wet at all times, and the plot mucked and dunged," she continued.

"And always keep an eye out for Troglodytes. They love to sneak into the farm. There's more to it than that, but I think that covers the basics. I'll show you sowing and harvesting when the time comes. For now, let's just ready the plot."

"Now, watch me," Charlotte said. And she set on the ground viciously, her bare arms cording with muscle, stones flying this way and that, and in almost no time a small stretch of the plot lay broken and ready. Then she took up a hoe and dragged the loose soil flat and fine. I nodded. Truly impressed. Charlotte looked at me and waited. Oh. She meant for me to do it. Like, right now. I took the pick from her and began to copy what she'd done.

I swung it more or less at the ground, with no real force behind it, and chipped weakly at the surface.

"Not like that," said Charlotte. She put her hand over mine and corrected my grip, then nudged my back straighter and set my feet a little wider.

"There. Let your legs and your hips do the lifting, not just your arms. This way puts far less strain on your back, and it's a great deal less tiring." I blushed a little. Charlotte was a sturdy peasant girl, and she plainly knew this work well. I started again, the proper way, and the pick bit deeper.

"Good!" Charlotte said, nodding in satisfaction and giving me a thumbs up.

"Now you've got it." Yes. I could probably be a great peasant. I went on, and the ground slowly gave way, softening under the pick, turning from hard-packed earth into something dark and loose and crumbling. There was something satisfying in it. And, in truth, it was far less tiring than I'd feared. Besides, now that I wasn't trapped in a time loop, I could finally put on some muscle. It wasn't the most feminine pursuit, I knew.

But I was in hell, and my priorities might just be escaping demons and monsters first, and marrying later. Plunk. The pick struck rock. Oh. There was a big one buried here. It just... wouldn't... budge. I dug around it, and found it ran a good deal deeper than I'd thought. I worked the pick down one side, then the other, prying. There. At last it shifted. I dropped the pick and got both hands around the rock. Yes, it moved. I rocked it loose, just here, and... it was free.

Oh, it was a large one, and I'd freed it myself. It was very satisfying, in a way. The thing was easily a foot across. I tried to lift it and, to my own surprise, managed it. I hauled the rock up and hurled it onto the rock pile in the corner. That'll teach you, stupid rock, not to mess with me.

"You're stronger than you look," Charlotte noted, with a small, amused smile. I glanced around and saw more people gathered at the entrance of the farm. Were they all looking at me? My first thought was that they were laughing at me, a noblewoman stooping to peasant work. But no. I had to remember, I was a respectable peasant now. So what I was doing, this work, was considered a good thing. And indeed, as I bent back to it, I could hear them whispering.

"So... hardworking..."

"Bedridden just days ago, and look how diligent..."

"So eager to do her share..."

"Pierre, how is it you never lift a finger to help around here?" Yes, I thought. I'm so diligent. Then I spotted the dirt on my dress.

"Eww!" I yelped, plucking at the fabric.

"I'm all filthy now!"

"You ought to get yourself some working clothes," offered Charlotte.

"That way you keep your good things clean, and change back when the day's done."

"Disgusting," I muttered, looking over all the dirt, and hurried off to wash it out in the river room. More days passed. Once I'd been given working clothes and got into the habit of changing in and out of them, the dirt scarcely troubled me anymore. Which is more than I can say for the day I made potash at the ashery. By the time I was done I looked like a negro woman from the Afrique. I will never do that again. But I had to admit, my first guess, that this work was, in fact, relaxing, had turned out to be true.

I could do it for hours. The slow loosening of the soil, the small victories against the larger rocks, the quiet satisfaction of seeing more and more of the plot lie ready. The water buckets weren't heavy for me to haul up from the stream, either, and I liked to imagine myself growing stronger with all the hard labor. Of course, I didn't do it all day. Half a day, more like. Which was enough to be admired as a hardworking member of the community. Well. Enough that nobody ever mentioned the dish-cleaning duty to me.

The rest of the day, I had other things. I got to know the other cave folk, and despite their oddness, I learned to like them. But mostly I spent my time with Henriette. She showed me wonderful places. There was a great deal more to this underground world than just our own cave. There were vast halls with waterfalls, and a sunken shipwreck full of treasure, or, well, earthly things.

There were forests of tree-tall mushrooms, their caps wide as roofs, and glittering caverns where the walls themselves seemed to give off a faint light. This was, apparently, something neither I nor especially Henriette was supposed to be doing, and we were often shouted at by Armand, chased by monsters, and sometimes both at the same day. But it was still a great deal of fun. We also spent time in the library. I found a deck of cards there, and I taught Quick-Fast to Henriette and to the talking skeleton, Henry.

We had a fine time playing. I told the Fifi story to Henriette, too, which she said was the very best part of her day. And I even got to taste mole-stew, which was, miraculously, not a plump helmet soup. In the living world, Drizella didn't do much. She was a proper object, and she didn't care to. Her life was below, in the underground hell, and that was fine.

The only times she gathered herself, and tried as hard as she could to be present, were at the start of a cycle, when she met Cinderella, and at the end of one, when she heard Cinderella's tales of all her adventures. Cinderella did a great deal these days. She worked with Thomas Thomas, did her time looper things, dangerous things. But Drizella couldn't help noticing that Cinderella didn't tell her everything. She skipped the parts that were likely the most dangerous, so as not to worry her. Well.

As long as she saw her at the end of each cycle, Drizella knew she'd at least come through it alive, so things couldn't be all that bad. It was morning now, the start of a cycle. Drizella lay there trying to reckon how many cycles were left in the loop. Ten? Twenty? It was awfully hard for her to keep count. But then the door opened, and instead of just Cinderella, James came in with her.

"Good morning, Drizella," Cinderella said brightly.

"It's finally here. The last cycle."