Chapter Text
Grace pressed her forehead against the bus window, letting her eyes unfocus as the trees flew by. The cool window felt good against her flushed face, and she sighed.
The trip should only have been about an hour, but the bus was late leaving Zuzu City. And with the bypass tunnel closed, and the old bus was having trouble banking the narrow roads and turns of the mountains bordering Stardew Valley. Grace despised car rides, and she felt wave after wave of carsickness wash over her.
Zuzu City...as the bus took a sharp turn, she caught a glimpse in the driver’s rearview mirror of the piercing skyscrapers and smog choking the sky behind her. It gave her a moment of comfort to know that no matter what was ahead, it couldn’t be worse than what was behind her.
If she closed her eyes, she could still see her Joja Corp cubicle in perfect clarity. The office space was like a long, dark dungeon, lined with chalky gray cubicle walls. She could still hear the monotonous clacking of a hundred keyboards and the distant ringing of a dozen different office phones. She shuddered.
Before she knew her last day would be her last, it started like any other. She badged into the building and rode the packed elevator with her fellow gray-faced interns. A stack of paperwork sat in the middle of her desk, some sliding off onto the floor. She collapsed into her chair, her chest hollow.
Her boss stuck his head in. “Grace!” he barked. “You’re late again.” She tried to explain the metro delays, but he cut her off. “This is your final warning. Don’t forget just how replaceable you are.”
The comment had sparked a memory: for the first time in a long time, Grace thought of a small red farmhouse and the smell of damp earth in the summer sun. “Miss Gracie,” her grandfather had croaked from his rocking chair perch. “You are just one of a kind.” She’d looked up at the old man on the porch contemplating the sunset. “You are so dang special, you can do just about anything you set your mind to.”
Grace wanted to feel like that forever, Suddenly, it felt like she was waking up for the first time in years. The gray cubes and the stacks of paper were meaningless. She reached deep into her bottom desk drawer and pulled out an envelope she always knew would be the pull-string on her parachute the day she started free falling. In a few shaky, handwritten sentences, her grandfather’s letter gave her the resolve to quit her job, pack up her apartment and hop on a creaky bus to Stardew Valley.
The driver tapped the brakes at the sight of an upcoming hairpin turn, and Grace’s head jerked back and forth and knocked into the window. She groaned loudly and rubbed her forehead.
The young man in front of her turned and gave her a withering glare. Grace furrowed her brow and glared back.
“Keep it down,” he barked. His brown eyes were red and puffy. Grace eyed his wrinkled shirt and grubby zip-up, the stubble around his dimpled chin, and his stuck-up curly hair. His handsome face was betrayed by his hangover.
She rolled her eyes, flipped her wavy brown hair off her shoulder and leaned back in her seat, arms crossed in irritation. He turned back around, and she flicked a gum wrapper at the back of his head. It landed in his hood, and she smiled.
The clouds outside briefly parted, and with a start Grace realized the bus was headed downhill. The trees looked greener and taller, and the sun started to trickle through the foliage and dance in the dewdrops on the bus windows.
The last time Grace was in Pelican Town, it was to bury her grandfather. She was ten, and clung to her mother’s hand the whole memorial.
When she was growing up, she always remembered the last bump in the road before the bus stop. Grace closed her eyes and felt the bus hop and her stomach drop: at last, she was here.
“Everybody off!” hollered the bus driver as she slammed the brakes one final time and opened the bus doors with a squeal. The man in front of Grace heaved himself up, stretched his back, and looked over his shoulder at her. She glared into his chocolate eyes, and his eyebrows scrunched as if to ask a question -- but he turned, carrying no bags, and staggered off the bus and walked down the hill into town.
Grace pulled her ragged suitcase off the top rack, called a “thank you” to the gruff blonde driver, and stepped off the bus. Almost immediately she heard her name -- “Gracie!”
A mustached man in a flat cap and suspenders bustled over through the thinning crowd. “How you’ve grown!”
A memory flickered -- a younger man with a fuller mustache reading at her grandpa’s memorial. “Lewis?”
He chortled. “That’s ‘Mayor’ Lewis, Gracie!” He swept her up in a breathless, bone-crushing hug. “I’m so pleased you wanted to come back. I know your grandfather always hoped--”
“Thanks for waiting for me, Mayor Lewis,” she interjected.
He extended his hand to take her suitcase and she obliged. “Do you remember the way, dear?” Grace shook her head. Lewis pointed left, his hand following a small sign planted at a jaunty angle labelled “Pelican Town.” “That’s the way into the town center. Just a brisk walk away from your new home. That’s where you’ll find the store, the saloon. the clinic, and most of our townsfolk.”
Lewis gestured right. “We’re going to take the road less traveled.” Grace spied a smaller, jauntier sign: “Hillcrest Farm.” He started down the path. Grace took a deep breath and followed.
The whole walk, Mayor Lewis chattered on. “You’re going to love the house,” he crowed. “Just brace yourself a little. Your grandfather was notoriously stubborn -- the man wouldn’t spend a dime on himself, not even on a proper kitchen.” The trees jostled in the wind, like they were laughing with Lewis. Grace could see they thinned out ahead. “If you ever need anything, you can count on us. Many of us old folks remember your grandfather, you know.”
Grace looked at him in surprise and he grinned widely underneath his mustache. “Oh yup,” he continued. “We’re a tight-knit group. You don’t get a community like this in the big city, miss Gracie.” He puffed his chest out with pride. “In the valley, we take care of our neighbors.”
A picture-perfect small town. “Do I have any neighbors out here?” asked Grace.
Lewis nodded. “You’re on the fringe of the town line. But if you head north, you’ll find a path to the carpenter’s. That’ll be Robin and her husband, Demetrius. And if you head south on your farm, you’ll find a shortcut to the local ranch.”
“That’s Marnie’s place, right?” Grace had a fuzzy memory of a warm, jovial face framed by fluffy auburn hair.
Mayor Lewis’s neck suddenly looked flushed. “Yup, that’d be Marnie.” The trees parted. “Look ahead -- there’s your new home!”
Mayor Lewis trudged ahead, but Grace stopped in her tracks. The house was like she remembered, but the paint was peeling and the porch clung to the building at a steep angle. The path was treacherous, covered in loose rocks and errant branches, and the land was thick with vines, weeds and invading saplings. Was she cut out for this?
She shook her head at herself and jogged up to Lewis, dodging the mess in her path. He fished a key out of his trouser pockets and opened the door.
“I’ll leave you to it, Gracie,” he said. “If you need a thing, my number’s on the fridge. I’ll check in once you get yourself settled.”
Lewis grabbed her in another zealous hug, then held her shoulders and looked at her closely. “The fresh air will be good for you,” he declared. “A new start.”
She waved him off as he took his leave back down the path. Only once he was out of sight did she peer inside the house -- fortunately, Lewis must have taken it upon himself (or maybe upon his local friends) to spruce the place up for her. She’d imagined there’d be more dust after almost 15 years.
The home was sparse -- two rooms, no decorations on the walls -- and the living area was marked by only a threadbare couch and an ancient tv. The “kitchen” was a sink and a microwave, an electric stove, a mini-fridge with a list of emergency and local numbers taped on, and a tiny shelf with a few essentials, courtesy of Lewis. Shuddering, she looked into the bedroom. Just a simple wooden bed in an otherwise empty room.
She sighed. Not at all like her apartment in Zuzu City. But there were worse ways to start a new life.
Grace spent the rest of her day unpacking the few things she brought and clearing the path back to the road to town of weeds and debris. At the least, she thought, she could make a quick escape if she botched the farming plan. By the end of the day, she sipped tea on her porch watching the sun set over her tangled, wild lands, and trying not to think about how hard she’s made life for herself.
But for the first time in a long time, when Grace threw herself into bed, she fell into a deep and pleasant sleep.
***
Shapes, colors rushing over her. Scenes and sounds moving fast. Restless dreaming.
The picture changes: a man leans over her, whispers her name.
Suddenly he’s kissing her, his mouth is warm and his arms encircling her waist. She weaves her fingers into his hair, and as she pries herself away for air she catches a glance --
His cheeks are flushed under his stubble, his lips red above a dimpled chin, and warm brown eyes looking into hers. A dark curl of hair falls across his forehead.
He whispered her name, “Grace…”
***
She awoke with a start in the night, sheets tangled, warm and gasping for breath.