“Unbelievable,” she whispered, as if afraid a loud voice would startle away the unexpected vision.
The stagecoach stood at the roadside, by a stop marked by a row of stone slabs, and beyond them, as far as the eye could see, the ground was covered with bright green grass and lush bushes, with birds singing in the treetops.
The sky was un-English in its clarity and blue, and a bright yellow sun shone joyfully with all its might.
Petunia pinched her arm just in case.
It hurt.
Then she squeezed her eyes shut and waited a little with her eyes closed, trying not to be distracted by the whisper of grass and the birdsong.
When she decided it was enough, she opened one eye, inwardly prepared for the beautiful spring to vanish, replaced by the damp, loathsome winter, but no.
The scene before her hadn’t changed.
Forgetting all her worries, Petunia grabbed her suitcase and hurriedly descended the steps outside.
A warm breeze rushed to gently brush her cheeks and playfully toy with the hair escaping from under her hat.
Petunia took a few steps, looking around.
Everything around her gleamed with bright, clean colors, as if she had stepped into a child’s drawing, and it became perfectly clear that…
“This definitely isn’t England,” she said rapturously, and the sound of her voice startled the birds.
A small flock lifted from the branches, fluttering their wings noisily and filling the surroundings with loud complaints, then flew away.
A momentary anxious thought about how to get back from here made her look back at the stagecoach.
The magical coach that had brought her here stood behind her, empty and motionless.
The lantern by the driver’s seat wasn’t lit, the steps remained lowered, and the door was open.
Its whole appearance suggested it had fulfilled its task of bringing Petunia here and would go nowhere else.
It even looked a bit sad, like a horse standing in its stall, dreaming of galloping down the road, and Petunia, surprising herself, reached out and gently stroked its dark-red side.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” she said a bit shyly, addressing the coach.
“We’ll ride together again, I promise.” And she was hardly surprised when a tremor ran through it under her hand.
“I need to go!” she called out cheerfully and hurried along the path leading forward, just as mister Corey had instructed — from the bus stop straight ahead and to the right.
The path turned into a well-trodden country road, and at their intersection stood a signpost.
On one sign, pointing right, was written “Farm.” On the second, pointing in the opposite direction, “Town of Rivendell.” Unfortunately, neither the town nor the farm was visible from the signpost.
Everything that might have been visible was lost among the green-covered hills.
“We’ll leave the town for later,” Petunia said briskly to herself, walking quickly toward the farm.
“It’s not going anywhere, and I’m a bit tired from the journey.” During the six months she’d lived alone, she’d developed a habit of talking to herself.
An outsider would say she was lonely, but that wasn’t the kind of person Petunia was — she didn’t open up to strangers.
Well, except for mister Corey, but they were practically acquaintances already, weren’t they?
“First thing,” she continued making plans out loud, “I need to wash up and have breakfast.
I hope there’s water here.
Well, it is a farm, so there’s probably a well…
oh.” The hills ahead parted, and Petunia saw a gate.
Well, “gate” was putting it generously.
Two crudely hewn logs stuck vertically into the ground, with a third lying crookedly across them on some branch stumps.
On both sides of this structure grew thick bushes, and at first glance, their wall had no gaps.
When Petunia got closer, she noticed a sign nailed to the right vertical log.
At the top was definitely the word “farm,” but the bottom inscription was half-erased, and she couldn’t make out what this place had been called before.
“Well,” was all Petunia said, surveying her new domain through the log arch.
If not for the hedge and this structure, she wouldn’t even have said there was a farm here at all.
On both sides of the gate, the space was thickly overgrown with grass, bushes, and trees.
So thickly that she couldn’t see the house she’d been promised behind them.
She took the dragon key from her handbag and looked at it.
“So what are you supposed to open, friend?” she asked the key.
“There’s no gate here.
Maybe the house door?” But the key said nothing.
Maybe it didn’t like her.
Petunia put the key back and said, looking at the mess spread before her: “I hope the house has a door.” After a moment’s thought, she added: “And the door has a house.
I’m not settling for less.” Of course, no one answered her.
And who could possibly be here?
The Lonely Lands, it seemed, weren’t called Lonely for nothing.
Petunia looked at the sky.
Long ago, in childhood, her father had taught her to tell time by the sun.
The sun in this alien blue sky was high enough to conclude that it was nearing noon.
Besides, in her winter coat, it was already getting stuffy, and Petunia hastened to unbutton the buttons and loosen her scarf, letting the fresh air wash over her body.
It became a little easier.
Readjusting her grip on the suitcase, Petunia resolutely stepped through the arch and plunged into the thicket.
A path emerging here and there among the greenery kept her from losing direction, and soon a clearing began to show through the green growth.
Petunia quickened her pace and finally tumbled out into an open space.
“So,” she said, looking at the scene before her.
Before her stood a house.
No, a cottage.
It had log walls and a roof covered with red tiles.
One small window and a door right in the middle.
A chimney made of dark stone stuck up like an index finger, hinting that the house must have a fireplace.
To the left of the cottage, adjoining it, was a woodpile.
The surrounding space was littered with stones and branches, and even various kinds of trash.
Just by looking at it, Petunia’s new home said she shouldn’t expect an easy life.
“So,” Petunia repeated and headed toward the cottage.
Her suitcase was frankly weighing down her arms, and she just wanted to set it down somewhere, anywhere, to rest.
Only the absence of a gate and her love of order kept her from doing that right outside.
A large padlock hung on the door, to which a big rusty key would have fit perfectly.
How fortunate that she just happened to have one lying around in her handbag.
She inserted the dragon key into the keyhole and leaned on it with all her might.
The lock resisted at first, but then the key turned, scraped, the lock’s shackle snapped open, and the lock fell heavily onto the porch boards.
The door creaked on unoiled hinges as it swung open, and a cloud of dust burst out from behind it, making the new owner sneeze.
Petunia gave the room a little time to air out.
She simply left the door wide open, tossed her suitcase onto the porch, and went for a short walk.
To the right of the cottage, unnoticed by her before, stood a mailbox.
Just like the one at home.
Curious, Petunia looked inside.
At home, the mailbox always had a newspaper or magazine that her parents had forgotten inside; this one was empty.
A bit farther stood a large wooden chest with a hinged lid.
Petunia looked inside that too, but it was also empty.
Making a wide circuit around the cottage, Petunia noticed that in some places the green hedge gave way to a perfectly ordinary wooden fence, separating the farm lands from the surrounding forest.
A peaceful, almost idyllic pastoral scene, quite pleasing to the eye.
But the cottage windows facing the forest were, for some reason, boarded up tight, and this fact made Petunia a little uneasy.
Soon she was sweating and decided the cottage was ready for inspection.
Slinging her coat over her arm, she ran up onto the porch and carefully peered inside.
“Well,” she said again, feeling that her vocabulary had catastrophically shrunk.
But what had she expected?
She’d been warned.
Inside, the cottage was nothing special either.
It consisted of exactly one large room, which was apparently meant to serve as both bedroom, kitchen, dining room, and study.
In the far right corner, away from the single window, stood a single bed.
Against the far wall on the right was a large fireplace, and on the left stood an unexpected television.
Petunia even rubbed her eyes, but a fact was a fact.
A television.
And next to it, a nightstand with a portable lamp.
Both windows on the wall opposite the door were boarded up so tightly that not a single ray of light got through the planks inside.
And on top of everything, there was a thick layer of dust.
Petunia carefully laid her coat on the suitcase and stepped over the threshold.
Leaving footprints in the dust with her boots, she walked around the room, getting acquainted and assessing the scale of the work ahead.
In the semidarkness, she tripped over some protruding objects and nearly fell.
However, it turned out to be a table, placed somehow on its side with the tabletop against the wall, and a stool.
The discovery pleased Petunia.
Finally, to the left of the television, she found another door leading to a small room built right behind the woodpile.
Fetching the magical little lantern, Petunia poked her nose in and found a bucket, a mop, a broom with a dustpan, a large tub meant to serve as a bathtub, and a strange structure resembling a throne, with a round lid on the seat.
She had her suspicions about what kind of throne this was, but they needed to be verified.
Holding her breath, she lifted the lid with two fingers and saw a snow-white porcelain bowl underneath.
Yes, it was a toilet.
Similar to those medieval contraptions drawn in books about castles.
There must be a door underneath to take out the chamber pot every time you did your business.
At this point, Petunia urgently needed to take a breath, and she did.
The air was a little musty, which was no surprise with all that dust, but there were none of the other smells typical of restrooms.
“Still, there’s no other option, Tuney,” Petunia told herself and stopped fooling around.
She quickly changed into pants and a T-shirt, right outside, shyly hiding behind the open door.
Then she returned to the storage room and brought out the bucket, the mop, and the broom with dustpan.
After some thought, she decided to use her work skirt for rags, and with vengeful glee, she tore it into pieces, imagining her boss and that chicken who had taken her place instead.
Armed with the broom and dustpan, Petunia swept all the dust and other debris that had accumulated while no one lived here out of the cottage in several trips.
Searching for a trash can, or at least a temporary spot for one, she came across a small pond.
The water in it was surprisingly clean and fresh, as if springs at the bottom constantly renewed it.
From this very pond, Petunia hauled water, and washed not only the floors but also the walls inside and even a little outside.
The cleaning took the rest of the day, all the way until evening.
Splashing out the remaining water from the bucket, Petunia groaned as she straightened her back and stretched, working out her tired body.
Right at that moment, her stomach growled.
Loudly and demandingly.
Her stomach was reminding her that the last time it had received food was no later than yesterday, and it refused to keep working on an empty stomach.
“Yes, yes, I’ll think of something right away,” Petunia muttered.
She cast a glance around.
It was getting dark quickly in this strange place.
It seemed the sun had just been shining, and now it had almost hidden behind the horizon, with stars appearing in the dark sky.
Some rustling sounded in the thickets surrounding the cottage, and Petunia, like a startled deer, flinched and, somehow frightened, hurried to bring her things inside and close the door.
Only after lowering the large, heavy bolt with which the door was equipped on the inside did she feel safe.
After the hard day of cleaning, the cottage no longer looked abandoned.
She set the chair in place and moved the stool to it.
Under the bed, she found a rug that wonderfully adorned the spot in front of the television.
Of course, after Petunia had brutally beaten the dust out of it and scrubbed it as best she could with cold water and no soap.
It was dark; Lily’s magical little lantern was too small to light even such a small cottage entirely.
But the house had a portable lamp and a fireplace.
Petunia lit the lamp with matches she’d brought from her previous apartment, and it added light to her modest dwelling.
The fireplace, however, was a fiasco.
No matter how she struggled, the branches and twigs she’d gathered during the day, collected from the surrounding area, refused to burn, even though Petunia had used up half her match supply on them.
Finally, she waved her hand.
Forget it.
She’d figure it out tomorrow.
Though she was a little sorry she couldn’t boil some water in the pot she’d found in the storage room.
She laid out the remains of her sandwiches on the table, took out the thermos (the tea inside had gone cold, of course, but it was still tea), and enjoyed her dinner.
From hunger and exhaustion, the simple food tasted almost divine, and Petunia went to bed completely satisfied: both gastronomically and emotionally.