How long has it been now, since I started keeping the Boarding House? Five year? Nay, surely not.
Has it been?
I feel like I were just a wee lass when I first come here. I remember the night very well. It were dark and raining. I don't remember the name of the man who found me on the road, and helped me into his wagon, and brought me here. I wish I did. I never saw him again after that night. Maybe he were one of the magic folk Ma used to talk about. She said the gods of this world sometimes saw people in trouble, and would send one of themselves down to help. They might look like an ordinary person, or even an animal, and then just like that...they'd vanish. Pa used to laugh at that and say he believed in good soil and sunshine and rain, and the strength of a man's back to get things done. It never made Ma angry when he'd laugh at things she'd say. She'd just smile like she knew things he didn't, and weren't that just all right and nothing to fuss about.
What were I writing about? Find your wandering head and bring it back, Taite!
Oh, aye, how long I've been here. Missus Holbrook took one look at me on that rainy night and took pity on me. I'm sure I were a most pitiful sight, to be sure. Wet and scared and bruised all over.
Poor Emory... I never did hate him. I couldn't. Not even when...
And now here it is, more than five years on, I'll wager. I looked at myself in the looking-glass just now. Do I look different? I don't think so.
I suppose the business of life, after all, is collecting memories. That's all we've got at the end, isn't it? I've collected quite a few already. Missus Hopmead, Pumpkin, Hultroth (Oh, it still pricks my heart to write that name, what a silly thing!), Miss Gustine, Masters Maur and Tumunir, Mister Doc, Mister Dimheim, Mister Zeylheim, Miss Cesistya (I'm still quite proud I learnt to spell that one!). And of course... Tairy.
Many of them come and gone. Missus Holbrook finally gone to her rest. Ma and Pa gone. I don't want anyone else to die anytime soon.
But I'm still here. Pumpkin is here. Master Tumunir is somewhere round Bree-land. He wrote to me a few months ago, he were doing well, he said. Folk still come here and stay and then go on their way. I do wonder sometimes, if I mightn't be happier finding a little house of my own, and just settling down there. I love this place, but sometimes it just feels so...
I don't know. I think there's probably a fancy word for how I feel, but I don't know what it might be.
But all that to say that I think I made a new friend right here in Knotwood. Not someone staying at the Boarding House for once, nay. I were outside minding the weeds round the house and I heard a voice calling out. Looked up and saw a fellow standing there in the front garden and he were holding - of all things - Pumpkin! I were flabr flabbur shocked! I hardly ever let her outside, and only when I'm there to keep an eye on her. I couldn't get up quick enough and he took pity on me and brought her over and placed her on the grass beside me, then offered his hand. He said his name were Brom. I asked him to spell it and when he did, I said, "Like broom?" before realizing what I'd done. I felt like a fool, but he just laughed, a great jolly laugh what sounded so kind and warm, I forgot to feel embar ashamed.
Then he said he'd been working at the Holley Farm, just outside of the village and south a bit. He'd found Pumpkin snooping around the henhouse, and shooed her off, but then worried she might be lost. Isn't that such a kind thing for a lad to think about a pesky little cat? So he followed her and followed her, right back into Knotwood and over the stone bridge and down the lane and managed to scoop her up afore she could disappear again. He said she squirmed and fussed when he got near the gate so he figured this was her home. Right he were!
Of course, I thanked him about a hundred times and offered him tea and biscuits, but he said nay, he had to get back to the farm, but he'd come another day. I told him to stay put a moment, and hurried inside to wrap some raspberry tarts in a cloth and gave them to him to take as thanks. The next morning, I found the cloth on the stoop, clean and folded as proper as you could wish for, with a little note on wrinkled, thin parchment that just said, "I'll follow soon."
Anyway, I've wracked racked? my head about just how Pumpkin got out without me knowing. I can only think that I didn't pull the window to just right one evening, and she slipped out the crack. The little rascal! I'm so glad she made it home all right. I do love her to bits.
