Ed stood there open-mouthed looking at her hair. "I never noticed you had blond at the bottom!" trying to sound surprised.
She gasped and rubbed at it furiously. "Man mom is gonna be so mad thinking I've put it in the Lye again!"
Her siblings jumped over and rubbed mud on it like that was going to help. Priya started crying and trying to get it to go away. The more she rubbed it the worse the gold became until it started spreading up her hair. It was like a poison ivy rash, the more you rubbed it to stop the itching the bigger it becomes.
And inside Ed was freaking out. What all else had he blessed inadvertently. Was it a blessing or just a miracle? Ed helped her back to the house and explained that they were playing in the creek with the two little ones, rinsing off for dinner and that her hair became this way. Her mom scolded all of them with her eyes but said nothing because the stories were almost exactly the same.
Her father was impressed and played with it. He mentioned how much softer the golden parts felt than her normal sundried hair. Priya was on the verge of crying afraid of her mother's wrath. Her older brother came down the stairs finally.
"Do you know how hard it is to work on all this leather with you all making such a... holy moly you dyed your hair again! That's ballsy after what mom made you do last time!" He pointed and laughed and ignored Ed. He was almost a grown man and didn't seem to think Ed was worth noticing when the idea of his sister getting scolded was so much more entertaining.
"Corvus you jerk this is not funny! It happened in the creek!" She was holding back tears. Juniper saw how badly this was affecting her and walked over and wrapped her arm around her shoulder to pull her in.
"Now, I don't think you did this on purpose. You are too shook up for this to be another of your pranks. Someone must have been washing with lye further up the creek. You're lucky your clothes didn't get bleached out or anything." Juniper said inspecting her clothes as they started to dry.
"Has to be Lye honey, your clothes are so clean I'd barely think you were in the creek." She said pulling at fibers and looking for mud. Ed didn't even think they might be clean. Is clean a miracle? Add that to the list of things to consider.
Ed walked to the back of the room and started shouting in my head. "RENNISH GET HER NOW AND HIDE IN THE BARN!"
He could hear him jump in his head. Some other things in the area all reacted to Ed's thoughts too. That was loud in the spiritual world and Rennish wasn't the only thing he could talk to that way.
Ed snuck out of the house letting the family console each other. He went to the barn and waited for Rennish. The items were finally cooling off enough to stack together by type of item. House goods in one pile, tools in another. And as Ed was finishing, Rennish walked through the lit fire without even noticing.
"You called? Do you need someone creative? A musician? Need to the woo the lady so hard she falls over in amazement?" Rennish said with a short bow and smile.
"No, you idiot," Ed said thinking and scowling. "These miracles are me! I am causing all the wackiness here. We need to get back to town and get out. We are going to have to travel. We need to find out if our supplies will be ready in time." Ed said pacing and thinking.
"It's a little early but I can show you how to perform miracles," Rennish said trying to make a suggestion.
"What will that help?" Ed said in a panic. "Now that way I know what they are being cursed with?"
Rennish debated telling him to calm down and further explain what was going on but Ed was in a panic. He shrugged to himself and decided to ignore that fact for now. Eventually, he would have the time and place to go through and show him the basics he needed to control his body and its divine powers.
So instead they thought through a plan. And tried to find a way to get out of town before it became so blessed that Ed attracted too much attention. Rennish pointed out a good fact, that as much as the Lord God has control of this world, other entities, malevolent beings we would associate as being demons, come here also and would notice this much leaking power. Ed was a bomb waiting to go off.
Wait... that's a genius idea! Ed thought to himself. "Rennish! I can't leave just yet. I promised them a Job. Make yourself visible, run into town, and talk to Oscar and Plim. Tell them that I have hired you to help me travel. Tell Oscar I've taken a small job for cash and to hold my room. Tell Plim we want to make sure we have everything on time. Can you do that?" Ed said quickly. Thinking and talking. Trying to put everything he could into being intelligent and it seemed to work. Ed needed to get Rennish gone for a while because he needed to call Golliad and ask about this.
"If you wish sir, but you're sure you don't want me to hang around for tonight and see about the lady? Or maybe I can help you in some other way?" He winked at me and pulled a small stringed instrument and started playing something that sounded tawdry.
"Oh, you are never going to let me live that down are you... No this is more important. This whole town might be at stake. You can't get a date when the girls are all dead."
Rennish shrugged and tucked the instrument into that bag on his waist that everything of his seems to come from. "I will be back as soon as I can. I will stay invisible until I am up the hill if that's okay? No reason to scare the farmer and his family."
Ed waved him away and nodded. "Be quick, but not too quick."
Ed got up and scooped as much of the household goods up as he could in his arms. It most of the pile except for one spoon that had needed extensive repairs. Ed was still trying to be smart about this and his brain was telling him he needed to experiment.
Ed grabbed my apron off the wall and wrapped the rest up of the pile into it and brought them to the house. The commotion was dying down finally, and Ed could hear the table being set and Priya was no longer hysterical. She sat on the porch and was sniffling.
As Ed got into eyesight she looked up and threw something at him. "You big idiot! This is all your fault and I thought you just ran away!" She said pouting and putting her hands on both hips. Ed took the hit in his chest. It was some kind of old shoe. It left a harmless dust print on his shirt.
He smiled, "I'm sorry, it seemed like a family moment and I'm no good at those... So, I left to go work in the barn and bring in the house stuff your mom wanted to be fixed."
She didn't stop scowling. "You're a jerk and an ass and I want to know how you did this to my hair!"
"I didn't do it!" Ed said as he stopped and looked her in the eyes. He was trying to be as trustworthy as he could. Her face softened a bit, but she still looked mad and her eyes were still red.
"I still think you did this somehow, but I trust you. I don't think you did it on purpose... Come on, dinner is about to be ready. You are soooo going to make this up to me somehow." she said and turned towards the door.
He put the pile down in the kitchen and Juniper and Jorgen ushered Ed to the table. It was a meal of vegetables and strips of some kind of meat cooked in brown gravy. A tough bread of rye and wheat was on the table and more glasses of the same drink as before were at each place setting. Everyone was happier now. They all introduced me to Corvus, the oldest brother, officially now. He was the family's leather maker. He wasn't any good with anything green so he had taken up a craft as a way to support the farm. Anything he touched would wither and die without reason according to the stories they told.
The children were both 5 and called Lucas and Lorie. They were twins born on a harvest moon so the family considered them a bit of a blessing. They were polite but a bit spoiled. Ed wondered if all families ate like this. Would he eventually have his own family one day? Ed at the head, a wonderful loving wife at his side and kids who look something like him? Ed looked at them harder to see their Auras. He had been trying to ignore that up to now.
They all had that amber-green glow of a good fall harvest. Ed smiled and listened to them tell stories about Priya and the first time she dyed her hair white because she hated that her hair was the color of bark. Priya told about the twins and the time they tied the donkey to Corvus' bed and had it pulled down the stairs. Juniper told them about the time Corvus trained the rat in the barn to do tricks to scare Priya when she was about 5. Ed found out that Corvus was about 18, a bit younger than him, Priya would turn 17 this fall and she was a bit of a tomboy and rebellious.
Ed noticed that several of their relics were real. They had auras just like the family. They were connected to the gods and it was small things tucked here and there. None of the big items that were displayed prominently had any divine power. They truly were blessed before they found their way to Ed. He felt a little better about that.
"So can you finish another pile about that size of larger tools tomorrow and some oddball equipment pieces?" Jorgen asked. Ed assured him he could. Ed had plenty of supplies and the forge was small but remarkably well built and the fires burned hot. Jorgen nodded in approval.
"There is one problem though. I don't think I will make it back up the hill tonight to the Inn. I came unprepared to camp for the night and my lantern is back at the Inn with my other supplies. All I have is my bag." Ed pointed to it by the front door where he had left it earlier when he first came in.
"You will stay the night in the spare room in the barn then. Corvus is too big for the house, and a man now so he stays in one room. The other room is Priya's. She will stay in her old bed upstairs. The twins will share for the night." Juniper said, not so much to Ed but so that the children would know what to do. They all grumbled about the arrangement but knew better than to fight their mom.
And the rest of the night was mostly family banter. Ed listed and laughed and told stories about his old friends in town... It was nice to think about them. He hid enough details that if the stories ever got back no one would imagine it was him here. Ed helped clean up the dishes and then Jorgen filled a small lamp for him and handed him a spare set of his long shirts.
Ed thanked him and hoped they would be long enough. He was at least a foot shorter than Ed. He bowed to Jorgen and excused himself for the night and told everyone else good night. The moon was over halfway in the sky telling everyone it was time to sleep. A hard day's work had left Ed tired in a familiar and comfortable way.
If Ed wasn't leaking magic all over the place like an old grain sack, this was the kind of place he could have settled in to. Ed thought that maybe his miracle was getting to be part of a family for once. Ed walked to the barn and a room in the back was showing light through the cracks in the door. That must be Corvus' room. Ed could hear him singing to himself as he banged away on something inside.
The other room was the one that Priya had come from earlier. That explained why she was so surprised. Ed walked in and found her sitting on her bed folding some clothes for the morning. Her bedsheets turned down and the windows open. It was warm out tonight but the breeze was comfortable and cool. She had changed into a long gown made of a cloth that wasn't the same as the material used everywhere else in the house.
This must have been something someone made special for her. She seemed to be ready for bed, her hair was pulled up inside of a rag to keep it from getting all tangled and she had cleaned the last of the day's dirt off her face. Seeing her like this made Ed blush, he had never seen a woman getting ready for bed before.
"Okay rules for my room. No snooping through my room. No moving anything. No turning anything else of mine blond and no being a pervert!" She said pointing a finger at him as he stood there staring at her. The thought of digging through her clothes hadn't even crossed Ed's mind until the said something about it. He knew what ladies' garments looked like but, not whey they were still in them.
Ed stood dumbfounded at her. "What did I do to you?" he said and walked in and put the lantern on a peg hanging from the wall.
"I just wanted to make myself clear! You should have slept in Corvus room but he's not a kid anymore and mom doesn't like to give him orders unless he's not acting like a proper man." She said scooping up the last of her things in her hands and scowling.
"But I'm not sleeping with the twins! I refuse! They will keep me up all night so I'm sleeping in the empty stall by the door. You stay here." She said trying to get her things and get out of the room pushing past me.
Ed shuffled out the door as fast as he could. "No, I can't do this, that is too rude. I'll sleep in the stable out there! Just spare me a blanket or old tack. You stay in your room where you can have some privacy." Ed was a bit worried about blessing her bedroom anyway. He still doesn't know how all this magic works and, in a stall, he could sneak out and talk to Golliad later. During dinner, he had called out to him and Golliad had replied that he would be around later.
They fought over it but Priya insisted her mom would kill her if she threw Ed out. He promised to back her up like he did earlier and promised to stay in the stall. A final agreement was made to use the bathroom on different sides of the barn and that seemed to settle everything. It was all sealed with yet another handshake. Ed pulled a riding blanket from a small cubby in her room and excused himself towards the door. Golliad would be here soon and Ed wanted to be outside when he got here.
Ed nodded his head to her and walked out of the room shutting the door behind him. He could hear her fuming inside the room as he left.