NOVEL NEXT 1. Aloe
Sunlight purified the dunes.
The scorching desert sun loomed over Aloe’s back. Every step against the shifting sands was hard-fought, her boots sliding into the ground with every wrong movement, no matter how slight it may be.
Traveling the dunes was a skill few people had, and Aloe wasn’t one of them. She had more than enough water and food in her backpack just in case, and her garb covered every inch of her skin so as to not let the sun rob her stamina away, but even then, she felt like she hadn’t prepared enough for the trek.
“Why... am I... even... doing... this...” Aloe’s voice was rough and slow, the signs of a tired person in the first stages of dehydration. It would be easy to drink the water in her backpack, but it would be difficult to save it up for later. “Ugh...”
Upon the homogenous sameness of the desert, only a few rock formations breaking the dunes, Aloe’s mind wandered to the reason she had come to the middle of the desert.
It had happened a week ago, Aloe’s mother came to see her with tears flowing down her eyes. The calm woman didn’t normally show much emotion, so a single tear was enough to raise all alarms in Aloe’s mind.
“Mother? What’s wrong?” Aloe put aside her quill back on the tincture.
“Your grandfather, Aloe. Your grandfather.” She wailed with great lament. Her mother fell on top of what had been her father's favorite cushion sofa. The daughter rushed to the assistance of her mother.
“What has happened?” Aloe asked even if she could make herself an idea.
“He... he has passed away...” Her mother locked Aloe in an embrace, shoving her face in Aloe’s chest as she cried anew.
It was to be expected. Only a month ago Aloe’s grandfather came back home from his greenhouse hidden in the desert to try to recover from his sickness. Karaim, her grandfather, wasn’t exactly ancient, but at the age of sixty-five, it was obvious that he didn’t have much time left. The man lived alone in the middle of nowhere, always attending to his plants. It was a miracle that he was able to live as long as he did in his condition.
Heat and loneliness were the banes of the elderly.
Aloe didn’t know what to do in this situation. Her mother, Shahrazad, was a strong-willed and uptight person. She knew how to handle her emotions; Aloe would go as far as to call her mother proficient in it as she had never seen Shahrazad raise her voice. But then again, this was the first time she saw her mother cry.
She caressed her mother’s hair. Unlike Shahrazad, Aloe wasn’t afflicted much by the death of Karaim. Yes, he was her grandfather, but the man was mostly a hermit that had little to no interaction with his family. But for Shahrazad though... Karaim was her father.
The situation was a bit uncomfortable; it was as if their roles had been switched out, and now she was the adult in the room, but nonetheless, Aloe did her best to soothe her mother’s mourn.
The banker’s apprentice spent a solid quarter of an hour before her mother finally rose her head and undid the embrace. Aloe hadn’t noticed Shahrazad had been holding her extremely tightly until her arms were away.
“First your father and then your grandfather... Will we ever know some respite?” The mature woman wiped the tears out of her visage with her dark sleeve.
Aloe had lost her father at a somewhat young age. Back then she didn’t understand death very well, and she didn’t see her mother cry. It was now that she realized that Shahrazad had been holding out her tears in front of her young daughter up until now, it took the death of her father to cry her husband’s. Aloe wasn’t young anymore, not officially an adult yet, but now at her seventeen years and closing eighteen, she had learned her share about death.
Yet it felt so alien to her.
Her father had been a banker in a minor position at the local emir’s court. As a banker, he had made quite a substantial amount of money, even for his family to hold out economically beyond his departure. That didn’t mean they weren’t struggling with money. Shahrazad held the position of a minor scribe at said emir’s court. Whilst not as much well-paid as her father’s job, it was still far better than some of the… other ones.
Aloe hoped that once she claimed a position as a banker, hopefully as high as her father’s, or maybe even higher, she and her mother would be able to live as ostentatiously as before, instead of quasi-near poverty.
Now I have to worry about managing a funeral. Aloe thought. I doubt Mother is able to hold herself together now. We may have to cut some losses in our budget for this year.
As she disposed to guide her mother back to her chambers to rest, Shahrazad stopped her.
“Your grandfather didn’t write a will.” She whispered. “He made me write it on his deathbed.”
“He didn’t have much, to begin with, did he?”
Shahrazad swayed with her head.
“The greenhouse.” Her mother said. “A greenhouse in the desert is a thing only princes may afford. Even the richest merchants would be reticent of such waste.”
“What happens with the greenhouse then?” Aloe asked.
“He gave it to you, my daughter.”
“Come again?” Her stone façade broke into pieces as she thought she heard wrong.
It was impossible to think the grandfather she had seldom interacted with gave her such an expensive property as a greenhouse.
“Are you sure? Didn’t you hear it wrong, Mother?” Aloe refuted. “In any case, he must have given the greenhouse to you. His daughter.”
“I am not wrong, Aloe,” Shahrazad said calmly. “Your grandfather gifted his greenhouse to you with his last breath, and I’m not against the decision.”
“I don’t care about that; you are his daughter!” The apprentice reiterated.
“It’s illegal to refute and or overwrite a man’s written dying wish on their property.” Her mother stated with a tone worthy of her position as an emir’s scribe. “I’m not in conditions to visit it, but perhaps you could.”
And that’s how she ended up in the desert, almost a day’s worth of walking away from civilization. Aloe couldn’t even understand how her grandfather had made the journey to Sadina with his deteriorating health. She felt as if she was dying as the desert constantly drained her of her energies.
Even if Ydaz was mostly desert, she was a city girl. She had walked on the sands but never truly explored them. And it showed.
“I... should... have... rented a... dune dweller...” Aloe mussitated to distract herself.
She knew it was impossible to do so. Aloe and her mother were tight on money after paying the expenses for her grandfather’s funeral, renting a dune dweller for even a few days would put them on red numbers.
The sole reason for her expedition was money. She intended to loot her rightfully owned greenhouse out of any sellable resources. Karaim must have had seeds and medicines lying around, those would sell for a hefty coin. With luck, there would be secret money stashes. Aloe also intended to sell the greenhouses, but it would take her far more time to find any buyers. Any rich buyer would want a greenhouse on their property rather than in the middle of the desert, but there was probably someone out there, maybe another old person who wanted to rest for the rest of their lives, to buy the greenhouse.
Did it hurt her to sell her grandfather’s legacy?
No, not really. Aloe didn’t know the man well and her family needed to survive until she got a job. Her only worry now was if she had taken a wrong turn at some rock and missed her path. Getting lost in the desert could be detrimental at best. Lethal at worst.
The sun bathed Aloe’s garbs without mercy. Even if her skin was free of the scorching light, she could still feel the heat weighing down on her body like a burden.
As the hours fled, Aloe got more and more scared. The desert was lethal during the day, but that didn’t make it safe during the night. Monsters came out in the night, and she didn’t mean in the sense a parent might use to scare their children into sleeping. Low temperatures could be as lethal as high ones, but she had brought a tent just in case.
She hoped she didn’t need to use it.
Though as the sun began to set, Aloe feared she might have to set camp. That was... suboptimal, for a lack of better words. But fortunately for her, the dim light of twilight proved a blessing for her. On the horizon, she could see a bunch of tall figures. Thin, unlike the rocks of the desert.
“Trees!” Aloe shouted in exhilaration upon the sighting of palm trees. “There must be an oasis nearby!”
All the fatigue in her body and the pain in her feet were banished at the idea of an oasis. Even if it weren’t her grandfather’s greenhouse oasis, it would still be a far better place to set camp than in the middle of the dunes.
Aloe ran with reinvigorated energies, sprinting like a madwoman across the dunes. That was a bad idea, as she almost lost her balance and rolled out of the dune’s face, but she was quick enough on her feet to avoid that from happening. It would be pathetic to die because she broke her neck rolling down a hill.
And as she rose her face, she was greeted by a magnificent sight.
Amongst the dunes, there was an oasis overflowing with life. But even better, slightly drowned by the sands, a sturdy and short building made its apparition. A bigger one to the side made of glass, and free from most of the sand that covered the other, blinded her as the sun shone back at her.
She didn’t have a great memory, but the images of her infancy flashed before her eyes. And quite literally at that.
“The greenhouse!” Aloe rushed to the half-submerged building, now with the presence of mind to not slip on the sand.
Aloe walked across the oasis; her boots were met by ground more solid than the sands. Even if her leather boots were thick, she could swear she felt the lush blades of grass caressing her.
With a shy push, she swung the door of the house next to the greenhouse open. It was unlocked.
“Damn, it’s too dark!” Aloe shouted in annoyance and left her backpack on the ground to take out an oil lamp. She patted herself on the shoulder to thank herself for her foresight.
The oil lamp’s light shone dimly. It was a scribe’s light that her mother had given her, it was meant to last a long time rather than give off significant light. It was more than enough as Aloe made her way to the house’s windows to open them, letting the twilight’s light in. It wasn’t much either, but the small sources of light accumulated to give her a better look at the abandoned house.
Aloe took a step back as she noticed the sorry state of the house, it almost looked...
“Ransacked?” She rose her guard, though the house looked empty. And for a long time at that.
What gave her the clue that her grandfather’s greenhouse had been looted were the open door (obviously), the mess on the ground (though that could have been made by her grandfather), and the clean spots in the ground. The house was mostly covered with a shallow coat of dust and sand, but three spots in the ground had a lighter color. The round shape of the spots reminded her of big storing jars. And, indeed, there were more around the house.
“How weird...”
The banker’s apprentice inspected her grandfather's, or rather, her own house to see what the looters may have taken away, but everything else looked in order. They didn’t take the many labeled pots with seeds and medicine, and there was even a coin purse with three miserable drupnars in the desk, but no matter how little that was, Aloe doubted thieves would just leave visible coins behind.
Whoever had entered the house, they had only stolen those three jars and nothing else.
After having fully inspected the main house and skimmed through the greenhouse from the exterior (the door was locked and no one had forced their entry), she found no hidden bandits or ambushes and allowed herself to rest.
Her backpack was already laying on the entrance, but now she took her desert garb to let out her fair skin and her ebony curly hair. She shook her head around to feel the air finally grazing her hair. It wasn’t exactly comfortable having your head covered for the whole day under heavy clothing.
Aloe decided to leave the looting, ehem, seizing of valuable assets for tomorrow morning. She was incredibly tired and felt like she would fall asleep at a moment’s notice.
But before she went to ready her late grandfather’s bed, her eyes were drawn to the desk where she had left her oil lamp. In the middle of the wooden desk, there lay a single book with a title written by her grandfather’s hand on the cover. It read:
“Cultivation technique?” Aloe read aloud.