It was the fourth morning on Gold Creek. Oddly, the air tempts a warm set, and the dawn is as bright as before the prince arrived. Those who walked outside wondered if their senses were numb, but they weren't. Sands are amassing as yesterday, only the snow had never fallen, and it was the hot air that made the day.
It didn't take long for the cleric to wake up and glaze through the window to see the sun again after two days of glum and pain. A smile puts his face straight until he realises the librarian is nowhere on the bed with her Tin Man.
"Eve???" He yelled from the upper floor. Awaken from his slumber, his friend was nowhere.
Down in the dark, with dust and moisture, the librarian sat in doubt through the view of the window at the dining table. Many would have cherished and laughed for the bright day, but the cold eyes stared with a thin pupil at the world she had feared to crumble. But the day isn't happening—the clouds are not going to make the world shiver.
Cyrus ran off to the first floor, searching for her. A trail led him to believe at the dining table first.
"Eve!! Eve, where are you?" He yelled.
"Eve!! Eve!"
The cleric appears from the dark, shaken and appalled. The time of his life returned in his eyes like the birds in the spring, returning from the south after a harsh winter to be warmed again in the sun. Blinded by the hopeful world again, the cleric couldn't even glance at the librarian the same.
"I'm here." She said. Cyrus draws his shaken face off at the sight of her.
"How long have you been sleeping? It's eight already..."
"Yeah? I've made this soup for you!" Charger presents.
Meanwhile, she sat like no day ever, deciphering the book she had read at night about the mysterious tunnel at sight with the Tin Man by her side. The benevolent metal spirit prepared her a soup of his own in a scrapped metal and sink water, which had put her appetite out.
"No, thanks. Did you see what's happening outside?" Cyrus takes a seat.
"Yes. That's why I'm here..." She said.
The window pane ascends with a view—a morning like no autumn. The sun sets higher in the morning, and the outside is like another August on Frayfoil. The taste of blazing summer felt nostalgic for the librarian, who could only remember when the mountain in East Wood wasn't a temperate summit all day. Hence, she becomes doubtful of the weather.
"Look at the sun! It's shimmering again!" Cyrus
"Yippee! No more storm! No more!" Charger leaps with an empty stew pot on his head.
"It's over. The storm's over." Eve mumbled feebly.
"But why do I feel like it shouldn't be?"
The librarian longs for another minute, working simultaneously on the book and the weather, whereas the cleric and the Tin Man chatter lively at the sunlight reflecting through the panel. But the librarian has only a shade of a chimney overshadowing her a few inches away from the two, basking her with doubt and disbelief.
"Looks like we don't even had to boat away from this town!"
"No! We will! No exception!" Eve yelled.
"W-whoa! I'm just joking, Eve...I mean, not like I could withdraw anything right now." Cyrus looks at her with a repulsion.
The sound of their excitement only irritates her. The truth is outside, too easy to understand as a lie to her gaze. How can weather so hot appear out of nowhere when the premise is that the sky should be returned before its doom? The librarian kept this thought throughout the cleric and the Tin Man's little festivity.
"Don't we supposed to enjoy the view a little bit?" Cyrus cherishes.
"I don't like this. I don't like this at all." She uttered in panic.
"This shouldn't happen. None of this should..."
After that, the table went silent, and the three focused on what was more important than ever. The cleric prepares himself in the middle, with the Tin Man on the side and the librarian facing his metal skin. They began to devise what to do next for the leave, starting from where they should traverse.
Cyrus sat on the side table, taking attention from the two on his plan.
"Alright, so I think of a few possibilities for us to slip through the port."
The cleric was troubled—Troubled for the first time since this morning. His plan seemed unprepared and intricate for a simple pass, sparing the librarian time for herself by the window. Sun comforts still in the sky, but not the one beside her.
"We could bribe the Tophats with a few dimes. That is if they are intrigued with a few pouches." Cyrus pulls out his pouch of accumulated 22 silvers from him and Eve.
"Yeah, that's terrible. Don't you see the economy here? 8 of mine is not enough to buy anything tomorrow." Eve scowled.
"I only have a few iron. Not today, I guess..." Charger offered.
The cleric is still uttering, but the librarian only hears the buzz from the outside. Crickets and Cicadas start singing on the street, whereas they should only during the summer. People wander the street with its warmth, but only those brave enough against the Tophats.
*Thought*"The air is warm. Too warm for summer. Nobody could have been waiting."
"We could make a distraction, luring the Tophats away from the gate so we can go in unpermitted."
"Surveillance system is tight lately, especially since Waylon added something to the town called 'camera' to keep us all watched," she shook her head slowly.
Wailstone was not the town she had ever thought of on her list of visits, despite being close to her hometown, Frayfoil. It is as a ghost as it is but not as empty as a husk like she thought. Seeing it far from the window made her nearly forget about the others until the desperate voice came crawling through the cleric's throat.
"Then I suppose we should look for an alley and...wait, all alleys are nowhere close to the town." Cyrus opens his last resort—a map.
"Exactly. A stupid idea to hope that you could head on the coast by an alley in here. Especially with those surveillances around."
Cyrus pauses, "*Sigh*Then what are you suggesting, friend?"
Hearing the cleric's floundering at the table raises her spirit already. In the morning, the librarian holds the answer on the table impatiently, with fingers tapping on the wood while the cleric heads down, searching for her. Nothing brings a smile to her face when she sees him hopeless, trying to dig for his own solution. But the real dig was already before him all the time.
Eve slammed a book onto the table.
"We go for an underground. A tunnel towards the truth." She smirks.
He who left this book had also left the librarian a passage under the town for her and her companions to travel like a mole digging their way onto the surface unnoticed. When the cleric sat with his mind at ease and the Tin Man's heart polished, she offered the page to him with a tease of her wisdom from reading a book.
Cyrus read the page.
"Uhm...my condolences for the brother...I see you've gathered somewhat info about this place...but I'll mourn when I have my mourning flower here."
"No, I mean—read the note below." Eve pokes the book.
"Oh—a tunnel? Under a yellow house...r-really?"
The change at the table was predictable when the cleric turned his face up as if reaching for the book like a sun. Though he seemed content with the answer, the hole stayed. The passage was evident, but the trail was vague. All the librarian could decipher from the pages was its existence somewhere in a yellow house in this town. But even yellow was still too simple.
[Sun]
"You still had a spark to surprise this guy, eh? Can't believe I just known you for a year...." He jokes.
"You and I are not even that old nor have we parted a few years. Even if I was a hag, I still had you walking out of that church," She motivates.
A laugh fills the air for the two. Although Cyrus was the one laughing more.
[Moon]
"Definitely. Still the Eve I know." He muttered neutrally.
"Sometimes you just have to follow your intuition before you trust the process." She comforts him.
Cyrus was enlightened. Or at least that's what his face said when it turned slightly delighted.
[Storm]
"Maybe I should walk more from my Sunday class just to see where your naivety flows. Is there a reason for you to always be curious?" He envies.
"Sometimes, you just can't look at the sun everyday and believes in it. You had to dig and ask yourself the question, Cyrus..."
"Would you ask yourself if the two of us are going to be something new today? Something...extreme?" She phrases.
His envy remains, but something changes in him from humiliation into somewhat a feeling.
The outside is a harsh place to wander, but they had it better in daylight than midnight. Street is much safer when the people are awake, and the Tophats are powerless against the crowd. But walking out alone in a coat would be too catchy for the Tophats. Hence, the librarian makes a difficult sacrifice.
"Wait, we can't go like this. These people can tell us from the clean buttons," Eve stops the two from the door.
"Well, I suppose wearing too elegant in this town would be too impolite as a priest. But even the texture of our clothes is still way too classy for them. Surely we can't go naked, right?" Cyrus rubs his nylon stole.
Eve silences, already knowing the answer when she sees the scissors hanging by the cabinet.
When the sun set straight by a quarter a day, the three blended into the crowd like citizens of Wailstone, draped in a savage's attire like many who they passed with. Jeans and coats were ripped, skins were exposed, and mud stains lingered on their neck and barefooted legs. They looked just like the people they were walking—hopeless and destitute.
"Hello, sir. Fancy the clothes, eh?" Cyrus waves.
"Huh? Get lost, kid," The man slipped.
"New accent, I guess?" Cyrus thumbs back.
Their disguise worked well, and no one had even batted an eye for three children on the street. Silence is as loud as the library's corner, like a blight that spreads across the town beyond a remedy. The edge of the creek is getting closer to their hands, and only a few feet left they must travel.
"Hello, ma'am! What a day here?" Cyrus waves again.
"Kid, do me a favor and keep your tongue off of me," The coal worker was harsh.
"Aww..." Cyrus frowned.
The fear is thinning, but the ignorance is too tense. The sun was too hot, and the librarian's head had been burst ablaze. Not even the clouds in the sky and the people cherish a slight taste of summer as if it were such a rarity.
"We're free! We're finally feeling the sun once more!"
"Yeah! No more rain! No more!"
"But what changed for us Wailstone? Now Tophats are not leaving..."
"Don't worry, brother. They'll be someday."
The town marched happily, blindly following the sun where their hats were gone. Dozens of happy people lined for a trail, and the street was as crowded as Great Stone, throwing all their pretentious belongings as a sacrifice. She felt challenged to doubt, watching as the light bred fools onto the ground.
People gathered in a circle, throwing all their amulets and books onto the fire. It makes them happy.
"What the...why are they doing that?" Charger wondered.
"That? Well, it's a tradition for Gold Creek people. Whenever we had averted a crisis, we burn all the stress-inducing object to celebrate the rest of the day..." Cyrus explains.
"It's like bathing in a lake naked from head to toe after climbing a mountain for 12 days. Don't want to get the stress out for people."
"Woo! No more storms! No burden for today!"
"Woo!"
"That's stupid! We could've had those books by now!" Charger commented.
"Right, Eve?" Charger looks back but finds her away.
The librarian is as distant as a coastal view. With her doubt sharpened, she grabbed one bottle of water and cast a sprinkle like a drizzle. A short but a spread of droplets dispersed in all directions, facing the sun directly from above and witnessed by the librarian simultaneously below.
"Eve? What are you doing?" Charger grabbed fiercely at her shoulder through his sewn patches of her coat.
"Eve, that's our ration of water! You can't just—" Cyrus approaches her.
"It's vaporising so quick," Eve mumbled in a stun.
Her doubt was proven correct. The water vanishes into the air like nothing, as if it feeds onto them so fiercely. She proves this again by throwing a river from one bottle into the coastal cliff, only to watch the mist rising and the water flowing inversely. Such a sun couldn't be this terribly hot.
"It vaporises! It vaporises like water! It shouldn't do that! Cyrus, what is that?"
"Uhm...I don't know...vapours?" Cyrus scratches his head.
"Yes! But it shouldn't do that! It shouldn't!" She raises her arms.
The librarian spread all her thoughts to the cleric, acknowledging the lies she doubts. But little did she realise the air warming as she recited. Just as she was pulled into this thought, the town began to feel an unusual ease of air from the sky. Clouds are emerging from the sky out of nowhere, cooling the street with a calm breeze and blow.
"What do you mean?" Cyrus stands perplexed.
"The sun shouldn't vaporise water easily! Especially in autumn with weather like this! Do you know what that means?" Eve swings her bottle, leaking all the water through the street.
"Hey, mind the water! It's rare!"
"That we're heating the Earth too much?"
"This isn't the sunlight, Cyrus! This is a heatwave!"
Something huge was coming from the sky, and the town had its eyes wide open for the change. Clouds which were not supposed to be in the sky appeared from thin air against the winds, and the sun hid in the darkness. The seemingly peaceful distrust follows a harmony of another fate.
Crowds stare in horror as they watch the sky in a line. Even the Tophats.
"Hey, why's the town windy all of a sudden?"
"Is it just me or it was just sunny before?"
"Where did that clouds coming from?"
Town is as husk as a ghost again. Fire ceases as their skin is softened by a terrible gust of lifeless blow. What is the mist that falls from their heads? It was cold and breezing, and it seemed to freeze. They couldn't enjoy their day without a warm breeze.
The Tophats are bullying a family on an open street for money.
"Sorry, Mr. Wales. You have a payment due, and you owe us now."
"But you said you're leaving this town! What's the point of taxing, anyway? We're all died here!"
"Well, the thing is, the sun is shining, and Waylon is still on the tower until midnight. So, we would like a finger to pay. Knives out, boys!"
"No, please! Just leave us alone!"
Not just the civilians but also the Tophats, who were a scoundrel on their begging days. When the first wind touches the tip of their shoulder, the Tophats let loose their grip on the town, for that pouch of silver no longer matters as their lives. The clouds began to tear, but it was whiter than rain. It was, in fact, a snow.
"Uhm, sir? Maybe you would like to consider that leave again..." The man taps the Tophat gang's shoulder, pointing at the sky.
"What are you talking...about?"
The man pauses, walking away from the house as he sees the clouds darkening. Perhaps he finally changed his mind about that money.
"Well, keep that money check. Knives in, boys!!" They fled.
Restless for an answer, the librarian finally had one. The first snowdrop fell onto her shoulder—a shiver down her spine and a twitch in her fingers. Her eyes were shaken with disbelief, a winter so heavy in the days of grief. A questioning doubt turns into amazement while fears shriek behind her ears.
"This is why I think we're not in paradise, Cyrus! We're just on the first phase! Nothing else is changing now!"
"I...I think you're right."
"Great! I'm glad you understand! So does that mean we could take this trip seriously and leave this town now? No more holding?"
"No, I think you're right. But are we on the second phase now?" Cyrus rotates her half a circle to the coast.
The hailstorm awakens, and the ocean freezes in its path. The fourth prophecy is one's prediction, and a thunder follows in a heavy grunt. The librarian smiles with an evil smirk, for her doubt has finally ceased, and others have seen the truth. The truth comforts her mind, but it lived shortly a comfort, for she was standing in its judgement, ready to be the prey of an omen.
"Oh..." Eve mumbled.
"Told ya! Ha! What do you say now? Huh? Doubt the intellect
"Really?"
"Woo, Eve! You're a brilliant librarian! Woo!" Charger raises his clothes for praise.
"See? Even he knows, Cyrus." She smirks.