The younger kids were tugging on her cloak as they laughed with her. She then bent down to carry one and toss her into the air. The toddler giggled, which echoed throughout the busy area. Gab wanted to play a prank, but thought better of it, seeing how many people would witness it.
Somehow, this feeling could not be shaken off as Gab received to the outskirts of the town. The town was at a lower altitude, compared to the rest of the villages of Albion. Thus, the outskirts would be like small cliffs with woodlands.
This allowed Gab to see the entire town at a higher ground. He walked around, kicking things here and there. Leaves, branches, rocks. Lots of rocks. He pondered and pondered, why did that mysterious girl gain so much praise from the village when he was left in the dark?
And he was born in that village, why couldn't he get the same attention as she does? The adults could not remember anything else from him but the bad things he had done like playing silly pranks on them. They were annoying but harmless.
But when he did help, like when he had accurately pointed out the taste of certain substance within a batch of odd seafood. Those kinds of seafood, which were turned into the highlights for a soup had been undercooked but the villages were unaware about it.
It was a potluck, where every household would bring an ingredient of their choice. And the main thing they were cooking was a soup with its main theme being seafood. Gab was the first to try it and he instantly spat it out. In front of the entire village.
He then begged his parents not to eat it, which they complied but gave him a scolding for rejecting the food. He said that it wasn't safe since it reminded him of a poison he knew. But of course, the adults did not trust a mere kid's taste buds.
The villagers slowly got their share of the soup. But they stopped when a woman drank and started going crazy. As in, she was normal at first, but then things started to get weird. She was fine for a bit but complained that the soup tasted odd.
But not to disrespect everyone, she finished it in one go. No one else has eaten it yet since they were preparing other things and had left the bowls to cool. Then, she started acting up. She complained about seeing stars.
Then it escalated quickly, from migraines to full-on ramming her head into the fountain. Everyone was shocked as she did that. Blood spewed out from the wound that was caused by hitting her head. Her eyes were dazed as she went in for another try to ram her head once more.
This time, the villagers were one step ahead and pinned her down. She wasn't screaming but she was trying to fight back. She looked like a madwoman, flailing around like that. The children were quickly ushered back into their homes while the men pinned her down.
They had no clue what had happened, but Gab did. He secretly told his parents what to do and they quickly relayed it to the rest of the villagers. Everyone pitched in to help the poor woman gets lots of fluids back into her system.
In the end, the woman was fine. But when they revealed that it was Gab that knew the cure, they instead scolded him for keeping a secret from them. They lashed out on Gab, saying that he purposely withhold that part from them.
It was so unfair, the fact that he tried to tell them but they brushed it off. And when he did step in to help, they blamed it on him instead. The only thing that his family brought was the vegetables, not the meat. The whole thing was caused by a certain substance called 'Mercury'.
It was not known at that time but Gab was trying out different things with live animals. He found that out as he was reading scripts of travelers' journals. They wrote of something that made them go insane. It was the same substance in that soup.
Mercury is mostly found in seafood, which was the main meat in that soup. And since different meats all have different cooking times, it was plausible that some of them weren't cooked through. But in truth, it was mainly because of the main fisherman.
He had thrown in an entire swordfish into the pot, which was high in mercury levels. Gab knew about it but of course, being the kid that no one cares, he got ignored. And now, they pinned the blame on him. As Gab recalled that part, he angrily kicked a particularly large rock away.