Basin Town was the northernmost town in the country. So, it was a border town.
However, it was not the most prosperous border town. Silk Town, southeast to Basin Town, famous for their waterways as it was located by the most important river in the country, was the preferred trading spot for merchants. That meant that Basin Town had nothing much to its name and offered very little to the country, unless one counted the population who paid their taxes.
The town was surrounded by four villages. Maple Leaf Village to the east; Green Hill Village to the west; Two Stones Village to the southeast; and finally, Yellow Leaf Village to the northwest, successfully acquiring the title of the northernmost populated place in the country as only a wide valley separated the village from the actual borders.
This quaint village of a little more of one hundred inhabitants went through four seasons.
Spring and Summer were more predominant, taking up more than half of the year. Fall was short, quickly giving way to Winter, in which the temperatures dropped quickly; the coldest days often coming with a snowfall. If families did not prepare well during Summer and Fall, then Winters could be very harsh for them.
The upside of a village being as small as Yellow Leaf Village was that everybody knew each other. And, if a family ever got in trouble, other villagers would readily help them out. The only exception was, of course, the Edris brothers.
The first Winter they spent as orphans almost took their lives. If it was not because of the previous Chief making his rounds to make sure everybody in the village was fine after a heavy snowstorm, then he would have found himself with four little corpses in a few days.
Admittedly, that incident, where he found the four boys shivering from the cold, locked up in the barricaded kitchen, bundled up in all their sheets, and stoking a tiny flame with almost no firewood left, made him take the decision to step down as Chief. He no longer felt himself capable of upholding the position.
His decision came mostly out of guilt. And, although he had spent the next days taking care of the brothers, it could not erase the shame he felt at being so incisive and cruel towards four orphan kids before that.
Weeks later, when Spring came, one of his daughters took him to live with her in Silk Town.
How come the brothers were almost forgotten back then? It was because their house was truly too far apart from the rest of the village. In the middle of a harsh Winter, rarely any villager would want to leave the comfort of their own home to check on a faraway house. Only the Chief braved the weather that day.
The Edris household was the very last in Yellow Leaf Village. One would first need to go through the whole village, then go past the extensive crop fields to finally be able to reach their house. Isabelle once asked why their house was too far away, and Ethan had honestly told her that their parents were basically outsiders.
The two had come from another place. With the borders close to the village, many even thought they came from the neighboring country due to their accent – at least, that was what the current Chief told the brothers when they were children. The couple, back then, had suddenly appeared and asked for a place to build their house in. Nothing more, nothing less.
The previous Chief, who had received the couple, was a very suspicious old man but still decided to accept their request. Though, with how he had chosen a secluded corner of the village for them to build their house, he had actually decided to isolate them.
The couple did not seem to realize his ulterior motives of sending them, basically, at the feet of the mountains, where ferocious animals could attack them at any moment. Or if they did, they did not seem to care and happily built their house to form their own family where they managed to live well for over a decade until the untimely demise of the brothers' parents.
Isabelle noticed the brothers had no lost love towards the previous Chief, which made sense as the man did nothing for them. It even made her form a biased opinion of him. However, he still unknowingly did something good for the family. He gave them a place to live, an identity as inhabitants of Yellow Leaf Village, somewhere to call home.
The brothers liked their house, even if it was old and it had some hazards around – like the wild animals that could come down the mountains, and a river that could flood. Despite that, it was everything they knew, so it was understandable for them to be very attached to their home.
As Isabelle heard them recount some stories about their home and how it came to be as she knew it, she decided to use part of the money she could earn to renovate the house. Although it was well-built, it required some maintenance after years of being at the mercy of the weather, like reinforcing the walls and maybe change the roof. She had even thought of making another room.
But that would be for the future since, at the moment, they were barely surviving with the minimum. As it was, they were eagerly awaiting not only the money from her first work, but the vegetables from the Spring harvest, too.
"What's he doin' with the Chief? We're all hungry." Joseph complained. His comment took her out of her thoughts and made her notice that none of the brothers were eating. They were always together for their previous meals, so Isabelle had been unaware of the fact that they actually waited until everybody was at the table to start eating.
It was a marvelous habit.
Hearing Joseph mutter more and more crass words about his brother, she decided to distract him. "What have you planted so far? The flowers are very beautiful." Isabelle asked. If Ethan heard what Joseph said, then the third brother would be in big trouble.
Luckily, Joseph took the bait. "Lucas and I went to look for more of that lavender plant. We got so many that we almost filled the flower bed. He also found a bush with small red flowers that looked nice, so we also looked for more. Ye've one flower bed ready." He recounted with a proud face.
Well, he was right in being proud as the flower bed did look charming. The short stalks of lavender that were still growing could not hide the lush green and red from the plants at the back.
It was a strange but nice contrast.
"It is very beautiful. Thank you." Isabelle smiled at Joseph and Lucas as they made her wish possible. Part of it at least since they still had to fill the other flower bed.
After the short conversation, Ethan finally appeared. He was carrying something, but they could not tell what it was as he left it aside and sat at the table. "Sorry, let's eat." He quickly said and signaled at the others to start eating. The brothers rapidly dug into their food while Isabelle ate with her characteristic languidness.
They ate in silence for a couple of minutes, but it was obvious everybody was curious about what Ethan brought. Lucas, Joseph and Felix were looking at each other, as if trying to decide who would ask. Finally, the older brothers exerted their might on the youngest one and Felix resigned himself to be the one asking.
But before Felix could even think about how to broach the subject, Ethan spoke up. "I asked the Chief to lend me an old board he used to teach his kids."
When Isabelle heard that, she remembered Ethan had said the current Chief was once a teacher, and instead of staying at school teaching until old, he decided to return to the village to quietly live his senior years.
Unexpectedly, only a couple of months after his return, the village chose him as the new Chief. After all, it was beneficial for them if their Chief could read and write. At least, that way, they did not have to go to Town and spend money on a scholar to write letters or any other document. They could pay the Chief with meat, vegetables, flour or any other things they had at hand.
"Why'd ya need that for?" Joseph asked with a frown. Isabelle was stumped for a moment by his question. Did Ethan not tell them?
"Belle's gonna teach us how to read and write." She nodded at his words, then choked on the pancake she was chewing once she realized what he said. After a moment of chaos where all the brothers were trying to help her stop coughing, Isabelle looked at Ethan with wide and watery eyes.
"Was it not supposed to be only you?" She asked him, her voice still a bit breathy.
"Well, I thought that since ye were gonna teach me, then the others could, too." He shrugged to hide his sheepishness at not telling her his thoughts and decisions beforehand. It was a bad habit of him that she had to fix.
"If they are willing, of course. We just need to decide the time." Isabelle looked at the others who were still surprised at their brother's announcement.
"How about after dinner?" Ethan proposed, seeing his mute and unresponsive brothers. She nodded and went back to her food. Gosh, she needed to change her pad yet again, that coughing back then messed it all up. Ah, the charms of being a woman.