Three years had gone by, a steady count in her head. Another successful year living in the town of Dewhurst. The nomad life had grown exhausting, and so Aralyn Odea chose to stay for good this time.
She was doing her morning chores. What a mundane thing to do, but she loved it. The kind of chores that left her feeling satisfied at the end of each day—and the days to come. She swept, mopped, and dusted every corner and nook of her home, leaving no bug a chance to stay for a quick R'n'R.
"Aralyn! Sweetie, you in there?"
A voice greeted her with a knock on the door. Aralyn straightened up, half-protesting as she trudged toward it. She grabbed a scarf from a chair and wrapped it around her neck before opening the door.
A woman in her mid-fifties stood there, carrying a tray of cupcakes and sweet bread, a kind smile etched across her face.
"There you are! Here, I made a little too much for my grandkids," she said happily, offering the tray.
Aralyn smiled faintly and took it with a small thank you.
"How's the garden? Oh, I wish I could see it."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Colin. They aren't ripe for the eyes yet."
Mrs. Colin smiled again. Hearing Aralyn speak was one of the many reasons she came by, while Aralyn herself was quietly hoping the woman would leave by now. Stepping back inside was her way of saying you're done here, you may go, but it seemed Mrs. Colin wasn't ready to back away so easily.
"Do they? Huh. Strange thing to say, but I suppose it works. I'll use that for my grandkids and their lack of ambition in finishing their chores," she clucked her tongue, remembering the antics of the children back home.
"Yeah, sure," Aralyn answered half-heartedly, her grip on the tray tightening slightly.
"Are you alright, dear? You wear that scarf almost every day. Turtlenecks too whenever you're in town."
Though the concern in her voice was evident, Aralyn suddenly felt suffocated. This was the first time in three years Mrs. Colin had asked her that question.
Her fingers trembled slightly against the edge of the tray as she forced herself to answer.
"I just like wearing it," she said with an even tone and a casual shrug.
Mrs. Colin looked suspicious for a moment, then smiled and shook her head.
"If you say so. Kids these days and their fashion sense," she said lightly. "Make sure to store it, dear, if you're not going to eat it. I better go now. See you soon, Aralyn."
Mrs. Colin waved over her shoulder as she left.
Aralyn waited until the woman was a good ten feet away before shutting the door. The smell of cupcakes and sweet bread made her mouth water. She walked to the kitchen to store the tray—but not before taking a cupcake and biting into it.
A slow smile appeared on her face.
Mrs. Colin was just trying to make her comfortable. Even after three years, she never stopped trying. There was always a tray of food with her, or something new she had been knitting.
The cupcake was surprisingly good, but that wasn't surprising anymore. Mrs. Colin had always been known as the town's best cook.
Once, she had arrived carrying a turkey nearly the size of a child. The idea had seemed absurd. What stranger roasted a whole turkey just to welcome someone to town? To Aralyn, that screamed fishy. No one in their right mind would do something that nice. Still… that turkey had been incredible. She finished it carefully, of course.
A few other townspeople had welcomed her too: Theodore Hayes, a grumpy old man who handed her a bowl of peanuts and walked away; Margarete Lee, the teacher, with a chicken pie (the worst thing Aralyn had ever tasted) and Lauren Delaney, a black woman, shy and soft-spoken, who made cookies and cream cookies.
Those were gifts she could accept. But a whole turkey?
Her plan of solitude had worked at first. She kept her distance from the townsfolk, and eventually the people began keeping their distance from her too, as if she were some kind of plague.
Parents often told their children to socialize if they didn't want to end up like her.
That had been the plan. But Mrs. Colin never let her go. The woman kept coming back.
Aralyn found it odd that the town's quiet dislike for her never seemed to influence Mrs. Colin. Was the old woman trying to get herself noticed or something?
She had tried the hardest method: shutting her out completely.
It hadn't worked.
Aralyn stayed indoors for three weeks, hoping her unfriendly nature would make the woman give up and assume she was an ungrateful, bitchy neighbor. But Mrs. Colin kept coming on certain days, knocking on the door. After a while, she would simply leave.
Is she digging something up on me, or is she just like this--persistent with new neighbors?
The question had appeared in her mind more often than not.
She had lived in different towns for over a decade, and not one person had shown the kind of stubborn kindness Mrs. Colin did. Eventually, Aralyn gave up her plan and let her in.
She smiled down at the cupcake, remembering how happy Mrs. Colin looked the first time she opened the door. It was like watching someone receive a long-awaited diamond ring. And somehow, Aralyn herself had become that diamond ring.
Her smile slowly faded.
The sweet cupcake suddenly tasted bitter. She felt appreciated. Loved, even. She had promised herself to stay away. So why did that become so difficult with this one person?
"Humans are just weird sometimes," she murmured.
But another smile betrayed her true feelings as she took another bite of the cupcake.
But not as strange as the sky has been lately, she thought and unwrapped her scarf. A heavy sigh escaped her lips. Her fingers traced the skin of her neck--where the marks of the moon's phases rested.