Chapter Text
There were few things that Maru thought she was good at.
One of them, perhaps the thing that most of the residents of Pelican Town knew her for, was quite obviously her proficiency in mathematics and science. (That one was a given; growing up with Demetrius as her father most definitely altered the course of her life before it had even begun.)
Along with all of the carpentry knowledge she’d garnered spending summers helping Robin with house maintenance, it was only a matter of time before she’d managed to build something of her own. Established her own legacy, of sorts, if one was kind enough to consider it in that way. She excelled in it, her little robots and her systems, and she knew it.
Other than that, there was very little she’d consider herself actually good at.
There was a lot she enjoyed doing– reading, board games with Penny, cooking with Penny also, occasionally video games with Abigail– but not very much else. Always, though, she regretted this: surely there was more for her to do that simply this, her numbers and figures and wires.
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And that led her…to this.
“Relax, Mom,” Maru laughs, wheezing slightly. “I’m not even going to be that far. I will literally be walking distance from the house at all times. There’s even a walking trail that leads back home.”
Robin sighs and finally lets go of her. Maru always loved her mom’s hugs, but still, the many years of woodworking meant that she was incredibly strong. Sometimes they felt more like they intended to break her ribs. “Oh, I know…but it just feels so sad to me. You’re grown up. You’re moving out.”
“Barely. Just…think of it as another experiment, maybe. Like the time Dad slept in the cave entrance for, like, a week to investigate the fungi growing on the walls. In comparison, this is pretty normal.”
It was true. Demetrius was as dedicated to his craft as any man, and Robin laughs at the memory. “Ha, you’re right. At least I know you’d come and visit home with something more than some tubes of samples and a cold.”
Maru smiles, and opens the last of the boxes, pulling out pillows and throwing them onto the old, dusty bed. It clearly hasn’t been slept in for years– she almost thinks she sees dust billow out of the mattress.
In truth, the old cottage that sat near the unused bus stop had been just about abandoned for years, long enough that Maru barely remembered a time that it hadn’t been. Muddled in her memory is a grandfather, a father, and two young children, summers that flew by carefree.
Now she barely knows who they were, but will be living in the bones of the place they called home, once upon a time. It’s both unsettling and intriguing to her, in a way. Living in a piece of history. Keeping the old memories alive, maybe.
Robin had fixed the house up, to the best of her ability, and Lewis had been somewhat overjoyed about the prospect of someone finally revitalising the farmland that had lay dormant for so long.
“Ah, if only you remembered how it was back in its heyday!” He’d laughed, when he’d been handing her the keys to the place. “Crops as far as the eye could see– it was simply beautiful. I’m truly grateful to you for bringing it back to life, Maru. Old Harun’s grandchildren– are you familiar with them? They spent summers here as children, they’re about your age– they live in the city, see. Couldn’t find time to come back and live here. It’s fantastic that you’re keeping the old man’s legacy alive.”
Maru suspected that he was more excited at the prospect of the economic boost that the farm would bring to the town, but nonetheless, the thought was admittedly quite nice.
“You sure you’re going to be okay down here?” Robin asks finally, as the last box is emptied, and folded in the corner with the others. “I just…you’ve never actually had to run a farm before. We never had a garden, or anything, and your father is much more of a mushrooms nerd than a crops nerd. Will you be alright here?”
She nods, hands on her hips, surveying the house. It’s…well, it’s rather small. One could call it cozy, but Maru has always been a fan of space. Thank Yoba for the immense outdoor space that this property came with; it might have driven her crazy otherwise. “Farming seems easy. I’ll be fine, Mom, I promise.”
Her mother smiles. “Well, at least you’ll have Sebby down here with you soon enough. He’s always needed a little bit of fresh air, don’t you think? Being down in his basement all day isn’t healthy– living out here will be good for him.”
Ah. Right. Sebastian.
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Maru does not hate her half-brother.
Of course she doesn’t. Somewhere in her memory– far, far in her memory– she remembers good times with him, even. There were moments where they were more siblings than they were strangers. Few and far in-between, but it still happened, as long ago as it was. There was a version of Sebastian that Maru not only loved, but was familiar with.
That was a long time ago, though. She had seen about as much of him in the past fifteen years as she had when she was an infant.
And now, in what could only truly be described as a bittersweet twist in fate, Robin had somehow managed to coax him into staying with her on the farm. As company, she said, which was more ironic than anything: Maru never saw him at home, because he listened to her footsteps and only came out when it was quiet.
On one hand: Sebastian wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.
On another: Maru wanted, selfishly, to be close with him again.
There was truly no winning. She knew he would hate it here, simply because it was where she was. Maru was not stupid, or blind, or naive. She knew.
Still– she didn’t object, at all. Because she was selfish, too, and maybe a little bit hopeful. Her brother was going to be staying with her. Her brother was a man she barely knew, and knew her as nothing more than a stranger.
It’s a thought she pushes down for later. There’s no use getting upset over the inevitable– it would happen, and she’d deal with it. That’s simply how it went. Do, rinse, dry, repeat.
An endless cycle. If she squints, it feels a little like the circuits she designs for her robots. They have their programming, and so does she.
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Robin heads back home some time later, leaving Maru with her thoughts and a slightly threatening set of old tools. Well…while she’s still alone, she might as well begin farming.
Mayor Lewis had left behind a few packets of parsnip seeds with the keys to the house, and she takes them and heads outside. The clearing– or what used to be a clearing– is cluttered with old logs, thick grass, and heavy, moss-grown stones. Her mother had gifted her a few old tools. Surely it shouldn’t be too hard to clear out just a small path, just enough for the parsnips.
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She’s wrong, because of course she is. It’s hell. The spring sun has never felt so hot, but by Yoba, it burns.
It takes a long while for her to finally regain the strength to actually use the hoe to till a small area for the handful of seeds, and even longer for her to be bothered actually planting and watering them. She was right, it’s easy (if she lies to herself enough, anyway), but simply…extremely physically draining.
By the end, Maru has fifteen parsnip seeds safely planted and watered. It looks…like not much at all.
Yoba, she needs to find some way to automate the process. It’s barely half past three and she already feels dead tired and ready to go to bed. Half-formed blueprints form in her head as she attempts to clear out a bigger area. Thank the stars for the small space near the back of the house– she could probably move some of her scrap metal here. Start on something new. She always did like a challenge.
Farm work is easy, Maru thinks to herself, like a sullen mantra. Farming is easy. I’ll be fine.
She’s nothing if not confident and maybe even a tad overambitious. There were dreams, and there was reality, and Maru was determined to make the two indistinguishable. She was searching for something that leaned away from hobby and more towards a proficiency, something else that could go onto the frankly depressing resume that described her life.
She would become a farmer. She would become a farmer. It was going to happen, whether she liked it or not.
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She’s inside, given up on farm tasks for the day and fresh from the shower, when the doorbell– which really is just a small bell hanging on the outside of the doorframe– rings.
“Oh– Penny!” Maru grins as the door swings open, revealing none other than her best friend standing on the porch. “Hi there. Welcome to my new and humble abode.” She steps back to let her inside, grimacing when she remembers the bucket in the corner, collecting last night’s rainwater from the hole in the roof. “Ah…Mom hasn’t been able to patch that up, yet. The house is kind of old.” Old was, perhaps, an understatement. Maru thought that the house might have been older than George, and nobody knew how old George was– not even Alex, and they were related.
“I think it’s cozy,” she hums, as the two of them settle onto the old couch in the corner of the room. “So…how have you been?”
It’s easy to settle into their usual rhythm. Maru enjoys patterns and algorithms and organised recurrence, and being friends with Penny ticked many of those boxes, if not all. Penny was like her, but moreso inclined to writing and reading. While she enjoyed reading almost as much as her best friend, Maru much preferred her numbers.
“I’m excited to see what you’ll do with the place,” Penny says softly. (Although, ‘softly’ mightn’t be used to describe it. The cadence of Penny’s voice had begun and remained about as quiet as it needed to be for someone to hear.) “I can barely remember a time when it wasn’t all overgrown.”
“Yeah, neither do I. It’ll be pretty easy, I think. Farming is no problem at all!”
She neglects, purposefully, to tell Penny about the past few hours of torturous physical exertion. It’s one thing for her to be confident, but another for her to keep Penny’s approval. Of course, Penny’s opinion of her wouldn’t change over her ability to keep a farm– she’s far too sweet and far too gentle to ever think badly of anyone– but Maru doesn’t want to take her chances.
(That, too, is a thought that she gratuitously puts away for another day.)
Her gaze unavoidably meets the room door across from her own. Maru had only been in there twice– once to dust it, and again to deposit a few extra boxes inside that Robin hadn’t. She didn’t open any of them, instead leaving them in the dark. They’d be opened tomorrow, probably, and she wouldn’t see.
A lump forms in her throat– not painful, but uncomfortable and so very present– and Penny notices. Of course she does. As quietly and invisibly as she prefers her existence, Penny is more perceptive than most, especially when it comes to her.
“Hey,” she says, turning Maru’s attention back to her. “Maru? Are you alright?”
She wants to say yes. She almost does, but Penny’s expression is so open and gentle that it’s just about impossible to lie to her, as it always has been, ever since they were young.
“…Mom’s planning on getting Sebastian to stay down here,” Maru murmurs quietly, toying with a stray thread from the corner of her shirt. “I’ve set up a room and everything for him. It’s…well. It’s going to be interesting. You know how it is with him.”
The truth is, Penny didn’t. Maru didn’t. Hell, even their own mother didn’t know ‘how it was’ with Sebastian. He was about as elusive and mysterious as the local shadow people, and most of the villagers didn’t even believe they existed. She didn’t want to feel resentful towards him, and couldn’t, anyway– she barely knew enough of him to resent.
“Oh, Maru,” Penny reaches over to place a tentative hand over her own. “I’m…sorry.”
She laughs. “Oh, don’t be. It’ll be okay. This…will probably be the most I’ve seen of him in fifteen years.” She couldn’t have been older than five or six since the last time she really remembers him. “Probably a good chance to…catch up, maybe.”
The waver in her voice betrays her more than anything. She ignores it, as she usually does. Better to live in the silence of life’s transgressions than to seek out any more.
“Oh, but never mind that,” she laughs, and for now, the thick moment is forgotten. Penny opens her mouth to protest, until Maru holds her hand palm-up and she accepts it quietly. “Come on outside. I can show you the things I planted earlier. They’re going to be the town’s best parsnips, I can guarantee it!”
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Penny leaves sometime in the evening. The sun is about to dip under the horizon, and she has to get home before sundown. It reminds her of after-school playdates, and Maru’s gaze follows her until she disappears into the distance.
All too suddenly, she’s hit with the quiet. It’s not silent– it never is, not anywhere in Pelican Town, no matter how small it is– but it’s quiet enough that it really strikes her that she’s alone out here. Usually, even in the quiet night hours, one of her parents would be awake and milling about. Dad in the lab, or Mom tinkering around somewhere in the house. Out here, she can’t hear anything but the buzzing of outside life. It’s…both peaceful and terrifying, in a way.
(In a bittersweet sense, that won’t change when Sebastian gets here. He’s quiet enough by himself, but with her? She’ll be lucky to even see him at all.)
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That night, as the shadows crawl alone in the quiet house, she idly remembers a moment from so long ago. The moonlight streaming through the old windows gives way to a midnight memory– something she hasn’t thought of in so long.
It eludes her as to why it decides to show itself now– she’s never really believed in the occult, Emily does more than enough of that for everyone already– but it does, almost as clear as the first time it happened.
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“Mommy,” a young Maru whines from her mother’s lap. It’s a dark winter night, and the town– blurred and barely recognisable in the muddle of her memory– gathers on the old, wooden docks, awaiting the Moonlight Jellies. “I don’t want to live here anymore. I want to live up there.”
Robin’s gaze follows Maru’s outstretched finger, and her eyes reflect the night sky. “Up there?”
“Yes. With all of the stars!” She bounces excitedly, the thought of it so irrefutably fascinating to such a young mind. Grown enough to have witnessed her mother’s world of carpentry and her father’s world of biology and chemistry, but not quite enough to find her own, she was at the age where nothing seemed to truly fit. But the stars; by Yoba, the stars! They shone bright every single night without fail, without care, again and again. They had their routine, they had their job, and they were beautiful.
It was obvious, to her, that the ideal life would have been one spent up in space. Near this time was when Maru had received a large book for her fifth birthday, almost the same size as her: Astronomy: A Study of the Stars. Not quite a conventional gift for a young child, but her father was nothing if not slightly eccentric. And, besides, she adored it.
While the other children of Pelican Town spent their days under the sparkling sun, Maru spent hers studying the book, eyes squinted beneath heavy-duty glasses to make out words barely coherent to a youth of her age. It was simply so beautiful to her, the notion of space and the stars that twinkled within its cosmos, and Maru yearned for nothing more than to be able to join the astral bodies up there. It felt like her calling– or as close to a calling that a five-year-old could truly perceive.
“Why would you want to do that?” Robin asks gently, adjusting the young child in her lap. “Wouldn’t you want to stay here, with us?”
Maru frowns, and thinks for a moment. The world here was…for the lack of a better word, bleak. She liked it enough– there were books and telescopes and the beginner’s robotics kit that her mother had gotten her but had, as of now, remained unopened– but it wasn’t as exciting as life up in the stars would surely have been.
She doesn’t say anything more. A few moments later, Mayor Lewis lights the torch and the jellyfish float towards the docks, and begin to glow bright against the dark ocean.
(If Maru squints just a little bit, they look just like the stars she wanted so badly to be with.)