Chapter Text
Isn't it lovely
To not feel alone when no one's around?
It makes me happy
To feel at home, dying alone
*
The journal lied open on the bed. Its pages were made of soft, creamy paper, that special type which was so pleasant to write on, and on its cover there were dozens of glitter-gel butterflies; pink, blue and yellow. It was a gift from her father; if you’d open it on the title page, you would undoubtedly see the dedication:
Marcie, I know you have a lot of thoughts in your head. You will feel better when you organize them.
Always loving you dearly,
Dad
Below, there were some crucial information. The blanks were filled by a clumsy hand.
Name: Marceline Vance
Surname: Vance
Age: 13
Address: dad repeats to never give that to strangers. mind your own business, book
She never wrote in it, as a child. She found the idea of keeping a diary stupid and careless, and she thought the butterflies on the cover were too childish. But she kept the journal, just as she kept her grandpa's letter, stuck between the pages and forgotten for over a decade. She only began writing on her second year of university, when the semester had gotten almost too hard to handle. She hated to admit it, but her dad was right: it helped to calm the thoughts always swirling inside her mind.
The pages were currently open on the entry from the very beginning of spring, the 21st of March. It was still written by a clumsy hand, but the letters were more refined.
I never forgot the letter my grandpa had left me. It often appeared in my mind; as I was waking up at five in the morning, my room still dark, to prepare myself for another day of lectures and night shifts; as I was returning home, surrounded by the noise of the city (I used to love it; what happened?) and breathing in its everlasting smog; as I chugged down another bottle of a sickeningly sweet energetic drink, knowing I would be falling asleep over my notes, otherwise. I’ve developed a habit of carrying the letter around with me , recently , like some sort of an amulet. I’ve never opened it, though. Not until yesterday.
Before my bus to Stardew Valley took off, I had smoked my last cigarette. I intend it to be the last, at least. A symbolic goodbye to my old life.
The journey itself felt liberating; there is nothing like seeing the gray pavement of the city give way to the green forest of pine trees and the vast fields of the countryside.
It’s visible at a glance how healthier the air is here, in Pelican Town. When I stepped out of the bus, there was only dirt underneath my feet, and all that was surrounding me were trees and grass . Not a sight of pavement; it’s like I found myself in a completely different world.
There was Robin (the local carpenter, as she introduced herself) and mayor Lewis (the same one my grandfather had mentioned in his letter, I expect) to greet me and show me the way to my farm. Lewis has been very kind towards me, even gifting me some seeds (“To get you started,” he said). He seems to have high hopes of me; I wonder how upset will he be once I fall short of his expectations. He does seem like the kind of person who’s constantly got a stick up their ass.
The farm is in a much worse state than I expected, and 'crusty' feels like a right word for the shack I will have to call home from now on. I quite like it, though. It's got its own charm. I feel like a medieval witch, hiding in her hut in some faraway forest.
(I'm romanticizing. The bedsheets have been eaten by moths, the fridge had been disposed of few years ago and the windows are draughty. I will really need to speak to Robin, soon.)
I cleaned the farm up a bit to make a decent place for my garden, currently consisting only of parsnips. I’m afraid I will need to spend all of my last savings on new seeds.
As an overall, I think it was a productive day. It felt like one, at least; I am practically falling asleep over my journal right now. Tomorrow, I will have to
It was unknown what the girl would have to do tomorrow. She fell asleep, her hand (the nails were covered in black polish and dirt) still holding the pen, and her black hair (the roots were already starting to show; she will need to dye them again, soon) were sprawled all over the pillow. Tomorrow morning she would awake with a terrible pain in her neck and sand underneath her eyelids, but it didn’t matter. She would get the work done, anyway; she knew she had to.
*
Marceline had to admit she almost didn’t remember her grandfather.
She remembered visiting him occasionally. She remembered watching cartoons on that old, grainy TV with only a few channels to choose from, she remembered the brown corduroys he had been wearing, she remembered he used to tell her stories about his farm animals - but it’s all blurry. She wasn’t able to recall, for instant, the sound of his laughter or what his face had looked like before he fell ill. Those were the things one was supposed to remember about a loved one, surely, instead of those trivial, meaningless moments.
Only few things were entirely vivid in her memory: the taste of the cottage cheese and honey sandwiches he used to make her, the small pomegranate tree she loved to sit under and his butterfly encyclopedia.
She loved that book. Although she wasn't very good at reading back then (she used to ask her grandpa, but his eyes were getting tired easily), she enjoyed looking at the pictures of all kinds of colorful wings. Whenever she saw a butterfly flying around the farm, she would run for the book and try to find the matching picture. She remembered it had made her so happy; or maybe it was just the nostalgia speaking.
She found the pomegranate tree still alive and healthy in the upper-left corner of the farm, right next to the old stone shrine. She sat leaned against its trunk, reading the short note grandpa had left her over and over again, and felt dread gradually spreading over her chest. For this short moment, she allowed herself to feel like a child again: alone, afraid and unknowing what to do.
*
March 22nd
I am ultimately broke. If anyone were to ask me, I could say truthfully that I don’t have a single dollar to my name. The local store turns out to be quite expensive, but I would rather bankrupt myself there than to ever set a foot in a Joja supermarket. Because, of course, even in this faraway shithole, Joja is still haunting me, standing in its full glory at the other side of the river. It’s an inescapable nightmare.
Lewis advised me to introduce myself to the townspeople. It turns out to be far less demanding than I expected. Everywhere I go, I run into someone, and they are the ones who initiate the conversation. 'You're the new farmer, right?', they ask me, and all I have to do is nod, smile politely and tell them my name. I never really bothered myself with the ‘good first impressions’, but this town surely doesn’t count more than fifty people. I wouldn’t want to ruin my reputation on my second day here. I’m still going to, probably, but I can at least try to postpone that.
There are few people whose names I know I won't have any trouble remembering. Blue-haired Emily, for example, whom I caught deep in conversation with a bee that's set itself on her windowsill geraniums. "Helpful little creatures, aren't they?" she told me with a bright smile when I came over to say ‘hi’. I’m not sure yet whether we'll become friends, but will I have trouble memorizing her name? Definitely not.
And there is Sam, the blonde boy with that David-Bowie-kind-of-mullet. Halfway through my carefully crafted and polite introduction he unceremoniously tugged a strand of hair behind my ear to, as I am guessing, take a closer look at my piercings .
"Cool,” he said, a wide grin on his face. “I’m Sam.”
I wonder whether he plays guitar. He looks like someone who’s tried to play Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Matters’ from YouTube tutorials at least once.
There is Abigail, too, with her gorgeous hair. It’s a perfect, cool shade of purple, one I was always striving for in high school (with no success) before I gave up and dyed my hair black. I think I might be a bit jealous .
March 23 rd
I think it finally hit me, tonight - the harsh reality of what I have done.
I got lost in the forest below my farm. Once I got tired of circling pointlessly around the trees, exhausted and annoyed, I laid down on the grass, like a child throwing a tantrum in a supermarket, and began simply staring at the sky. And, dear God, the night sky here is beautiful. I don’t remember the last time I saw the stars so clearly; not during the last few years of my life, surely. So I laid there on the ground, staring up and breathing in the smell of pine trees, and cried, because for the first time in my life, I felt free.
It must’ve been a strange view for Leah - she looked baffled when she found me. I tried to explain to her that I wasn’t crying because I was lost - that, on the contrary, I don’t really mind being lost - as she was walking me back to my farm. I think she understood.
For the first time in my life I finally have something I can call entirely my own; something I could even be proud of, one day. Here, on this wild and overgrown piece of land, I am independent. Whatever happens here will be achieved only by my hard work. It’s a thought just as comforting as it is distressing.