6. Off to Buy Groceries
The morning after I took the job, I sliced the potatoes smaller than I had yesterday.
It wasn't a dramatic transformation. A single night's sleep hadn't sharpened my cooking skills, nor had some new recipe come to me in a dream. Still, there was no reason my guest should have to go hunting for water the moment a hot potato touched her tongue, the way I had.
I also remembered that the dried meat gave off salt as it cooked. This time, I decided to wait and season the soup only after it was finished.
Calling it an innovation drawn from my past-life knowledge would have been flattering—it was a humble little fix, at best. But at the very least, I wouldn't be repeating yesterday's mistake today.
I swallowed a yawn as I stirred the pot. The bed itself hadn't been bad, but I hadn't slept soundly. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that hand drifting toward the knife hilt, and whenever footsteps sounded outside, I found myself listening hard, wondering if the man had come back.
Fortunately, no one knocked on the door all night.
I tasted the soup one last time and took down two bowls. Just then, footsteps came down the stairs.
It was Ara. She wore the same clothes as yesterday, but without the cloak, and the bundle she always carried was nowhere in sight. Instead, she was smoothing down her tangled red hair with her fingers.
Not wanting to stare, I lowered my eyes to the bowls. I couldn't tell whether the strands sticking out beside her fox ears were always like that, or whether it was just sleep.
"Did you sleep well?"
"Yeah. You?"
"I slept."
It wasn't a lie. She hadn't asked whether I'd slept well, after all.
Ara went to the seat by the wall where she'd sat yesterday. Checking the door before pulling out her chair was as habitual as ever, but once she was seated, her eyes went straight to the kitchen.
"Soup again today?"
"Yes. The ingredients are much the same."
I set the bowl down in front of her and added, "I cut the potatoes small this time."
Ara peered into the bowl. She nudged a piece of potato with her spoon, glanced up at me for a moment, then looked back down.
"You remembered."
"Your mouth nearly got scalded yesterday. It stuck with me."
Ara blew on the soup once and took a mouthful. This time there was no need to halve the potatoes with her spoon first. When I saw her give a small nod after a few chews, I finally sat down across from her.
"This is easier to eat."
It wasn't praise for the flavor, but it wasn't a complaint either. For now, this was enough. At least no one was telling me I'd gotten worse in the span of a single day.
After the meal, I went into the storeroom to take stock of what was left. There was a bit more flour and potato to work through, but only a few onions remained, and the dried meat wasn't plentiful either. Above all, I couldn't keep boiling soup out of these same things forever.
If Ara decided to stay another four days, then by the fourth, the potatoes might well drive the guest out in my stead.
I wrote down what I needed on a scrap of paper and set the inn's funds aside separately. As the owner had instructed, all I had to do was record my purchases and spending in the ledger. I kept my own money in a different pocket so the two wouldn't mix.
Before any of that, though, I decided to wash and change my clothes.
Yesterday's shirt still carried the dust and water stains from the cleaning. If I went shopping for ingredients looking like that, I half expected to be told to wash my hands before touching anything.
I drew water, washed myself down, and even scrubbed my hair. After toweling off, I stood in front of the mirror to find my black hair sticking up every which way where the pillow had pressed it flat.
I dampened my fingers and swept my bangs back. The pieces that fell forward again I smoothed down with a comb, then tied the rest back with a cord so it stayed off my face. Cutting it could wait until I had a little more money, I decided.
I turned my face left and right before the mirror.
Even with nothing done but a wash and a tidy, I looked a good deal better. With my brow and forehead showing, my whole expression seemed cleaner than before. So the problem had never been an ugly face. The problem had been having to dig that face out from under dirt and hair.
I pulled the least worn-out shirt from my bundle, put it on, and turned the collar down properly. The inside of the sleeves still held crease marks, but the clothes themselves had been washed clean.
Dressed like this, I figured no one would fault me for work that dealt with people, and I stepped out of the room.
Ara was sitting at the table drinking water. When I came out, she turned her head, cup in hand—and stopped mid-motion.
I looked down at my shirt. The buttons were fastened correctly.
"Is something the matter?"
"...Your hair."
"Did I tie it too tightly?"
When I raised a hand to touch my hair, Ara shook her head. Her ears tilted back a little, and I heard her set the cup down on the table.
"No. It's just... I can see your face now."
"I must have looked awfully stuffy before. It was about time for a cut anyway."
I smiled, smoothing the hair at the back of my neck. Instead of answering, Ara looked at me once more, then dropped her gaze to her water.
"Where are you going?"
"To the market, for ingredients. I can't keep serving you the same food every day."
Ara's hand slipped off the cup. I looked toward the door and went on,
"I won't wander far. I'll buy what we need and come straight back."
"That guy from yesterday might still be out there."
"That's why I plan to check the street before I leave. Do you have somewhere you need to be as well, Miss Ara?"
Ara thought for a moment, then shook her head.
"I'll stay in my room."
"Then I'll keep the door locked while I'm gone. If anyone comes, there's no need to receive them."
A single lock wouldn't solve every problem. Even so, I couldn't let a stranger walk in, unaware I was even out, and end up face-to-face with Ara. I would close the windows too, I decided, and hang a paper on the door saying the inn wasn't open until I returned.
"I'll be back before lunch. Is there anything you'd like me to pick up?"
Ara looked at the list in my hand. She seemed to mull it over for quite a while, then quietly shook her head.
"Nothing."
"Understood."
I was gathering the empty basket to leave when Ara called out again.
"Grain. You said before lunch, right?"
"Yes. I'll be back by then at the latest."
Ara nodded. Before stepping out, I swept my eyes over both sides of the street. The shopkeeper across the way was opening his doors, and farther down, people were unloading cargo. The man from yesterday was nowhere to be seen.
That didn't mean he was gone, but I had to go regardless. I locked the door, pocketed the key, and set off toward the market.
Unlike the past few days of tramping around in search of work, today the shops along the road actually caught my eye. These were storefronts I'd only ever scanned while wondering whether they might be hiring.
Now that I had a job, walking the same street felt different somehow. Aside from the fact that most of the money in my pocket wasn't mine, I could carry myself with a certain confidence.
At the market entrance, I found a shop with vegetables piled high. I stopped in front of the basket of onions and asked the price.
"How much for these?"
The woman trimming the greens looked up. Her mouth, already opening to answer, paused for a beat, and only after setting down the leaves in her hand did she give me the price.
"How many do you need?"
"This much should do for now."
When I showed her the basket I'd brought, she nodded. But even as she filled it with onions, her eyes kept drifting to my face. I studied her in return, wondering if she was someone I'd met before, but hers was a face I'd never seen.
"You live around here? Never seen you before, young man."
"I haven't been in the city long."
"Ah, that explains it."
She never explained what it explained. Apparently I gave off a strong country air, I thought, and unfolded my list.
Onions and carrots went into the basket, and at the next shop over I asked the price of eggs. The young woman tidying goods there froze for a moment, egg in hand, when I spoke to her.
"You want the price for a single egg?"
"Yes. I'm planning to buy a few."
"Oh. Of course. One moment."
Halfway through quoting the price, she asked again how many I wanted. Only when I held up the number on my fingers did she finally smile and lay the eggs into the straw. From next door came the sound of the vegetable seller stifling a laugh.
I was turning to leave with my purchases when the young woman called after me.
"Will you come again tomorrow?"
I looked down at my basket. For everything I'd bought today to be gone by tomorrow, I would need quite a lot more guests.
"If we run out, I'll come back."
"...Right. Buy from here next time too."
This was a shop that knew how to hold on to its customers. I nodded, then glanced around for the salt I still hadn't managed to buy.
The vegetable seller beckoned to me.
"If you need salt, I have some right here. You bought your onions from me, so I'll measure out a bit for you."
"Thank you. Though, if I may, might I ask you one thing?"
I pointed to a bundle of dried herbs hanging at one side of the shop. Up close, it gave off a familiar scent whose name I couldn't place.
"Is that something you put in food?"
"It is. A little bit in the pot when you're boiling meat does wonders."
Thinking back on yesterday's soup, I described what I'd put into it. As she listened, the woman pointed at the onions in front of me.
"You threw those into the water from the very start?"
"Yes."
"If you have oil, sauté them a little first, then pour the water in. Dried meat can run salty, so hold the salt until the end and taste."
"That part I learned yesterday."
The woman laughed. I flipped my list over and jotted down a few brief notes, asking her to repeat the herb's name, and decided to buy just a little to experiment with.
When I could have simply asked like this, I had started out agonizing over whether any dish from my past life could be recreated here. The distance between a dish whose name I knew and a dish I could actually cook was farther than I'd imagined.
"A young man like you, cooking for yourself?"
"I work at an inn. It's food I'll be serving to guests, so I'm trying to learn a bit."
"An inn? What a waste."
My hand stopped mid-count on the coins.
"In what way?"
"I mean you'd do well at work that deals with people."
"I do deal with the guests, though."
At that, the woman laughed again. I didn't think I'd said anything wrong, yet the conversation kept slipping quietly out of gear.
"Then I suppose I'll be seeing you often. If you buy heavy things in bulk, I could even bring them round for you."
"You deliver as well?"
"If it's close to the market. Which inn is it?"
I pointed in the direction of the inn.
"It's a little ways from the main streets. Beside the carriage road that heads out of town."
The woman nodded as she folded the paper packet in her hand. I added a description of the shop across the road and the buildings around it. When I mentioned that the lettering on the sign had faded, her hand, mid-scoop of salt, went still.
"Wait. That's the place that's been looking for a caretaker, isn't it?"
"Yes. I started working there yesterday."
The woman looked at my face again.
This time it was different from before. The laugh that had lingered at the corners of her eyes only moments ago was gone, and her gaze ran over my clothes, my hands, as though checking for something.
I readjusted my grip on the basket handle.
"Is it too far for deliveries, perhaps? If so, I'm happy to come pick things up myself."
The woman didn't answer. The young woman next door had, at some point, stopped sorting her eggs as well.
At the end of that strange silence, the vegetable seller asked,
"Did you sleep there, lad?"