Alex left the general store with a satchel full of seeds, a head full of unanswered questions, and the vague feeling that Sandy had just lured him there to get him to go shopping.

Cognizant of Annabelle’s words about ‘not looking crazy,’ and no longer in any particular mood to talk to strangers who would be unable to give him answers, Alex set off for home. He’d speak to Marie when she came by, get what he could from her, and then decide where to go from there. In the meantime, an afternoon of farm work would be a good distraction from the worries bouncing about inside his head.

The return trip somehow felt longer than the initial walk to the village had, and the sun was already beginning to dip in the sky by the time he was back in the cluttered mess that was the majority of his farmland. He’d have to do quite a bit of work to get it back up to snuff, he realized. Hours, perhaps days of pulling and tilling weeds, chipping away stones and chopping down trees awaited him if he was going to clean up the boundaries of his land.

His land. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought that way of the farm. He’d already thought of it as home more than once, and it surprised him how easily the thought came to him. How quickly he’d forgotten the months and years he’d toiled to get as far as he had at the law firm back home, all of that gone in an instant of whatever madness had brought him here. Yet in spite of all of that, he already found his mind wandering, plotting out the best way to organize his crops or to smooth out and prepare parts of the land for planting.

He suspected it was the nature of the place he found so appealing. Part of the reason Alex had decided to go into law and had to settle back onto a career as a paralegal when he couldn’t afford his dream, had been the very nature of the discipline. It was structured, organized. Everything had rules, and Alex liked rules. He liked playing within them, using them as a firm boundary for what was and wasn’t possible, then testing the edges of them, finding nooks and crannies, small little edge cases where the rules didn’t entirely apply the way they were intended.

At his tabletop games, he had the reputation of a Rules Lawyer, someone who sought out those silly inconsistencies and unabashedly abused them. Like how Dungeons and Dragons had rules for drowning, but ironically, no rules for how to stop drowning once you'd started. Or how a spell component pouch technically had to contain an arbitrarily large number of live spiders due to their nature as a component in the spell Spider Climb.

Alex liked rules. And whatever the real nature of this place, one thing it appeared to have, was rules. Structured, universal rules.

His ability to till the soil wasn't limited by his muscles but by a finite measurement of energy. If Marie and his book were to be believed, his potatoes would be ready in exactly five days. Not four, not six, but five.

He liked that.

As he worked, Alex wondered about his Uncle. From the sounds of things, whatever had brought him here had done the same to his Uncle so many years before, a fact he found oddly reassuring. Whatever else it might be, Blue Hills was safe enough for his Uncle to have grown old, HP bar or no.

More than that, however, he found himself wondering what sort of man Pip must have been to have been thought so highly of. True, his sample size was relatively small, but everyone he'd talked to so far had spoken of the man not only with fondness but reverence. He couldn't be sure, but Alex couldn't think of a single person he knew who would have ever spoken of him that way. Not even his ex.

Surely not his ex, come to think of it.

"Settling in nicely I see?"

Marie Mayer's shouted words were the first thing to have struck through his working trance in what he realized must have been hours. The sun had dipped still further on the horizon, only its last rays peeking out from behind the distant hills. He'd done more than he'd realized, fifteen new plots tilled into the soil, perfect squares awaiting water and seeds, with the final one already well on its way to completion.

"You could say that." Alex shrugged, somewhat uncomfortable with just how close to home her words had fallen. He'd not been here even a day, and he'd already tilled himself a neat little garden, a lot of it while daydreaming about other things entirely. It was a far cry from his office life, of day after day spent staring at the clock while the hours slowly ticked by.

"I'm glad. I think your Uncle would be as well."

Alex thought back to the note he'd found earlier, then smiled knowingly. "I think you'd be right."

"Nothing to ship today?" The woman continued, tilting open the lid of the shipping box and glancing inside.

"Should there be?" Alex asked as he stored his hoe and walked towards the top-hatted mayor. "I've got one of everything that Belle, sells, and nothing grows that fast."

Fading sunlight glimmered off Marie's eyes as a smile danced across her lips. "True. But there are plenty of other things in the valley. The first night he was here, your Uncle sold me quite a number of foragable goods, in fact."

Alex tilted his head briefly to one side, pondering her words before they clicked. "The forest."

"And the lakefront, and all manner of places besides. There is plenty to find in these hills for those who know where to look." That sly smile continued to play as Marie took her turn to shrug. "You'd have discovered that much soon enough, I have no doubt. Belle says you are quite the quick learner."

"News really does travel here, doesn't it?"

"Tsk, just like your Uncle, you say that like a sense of community is a bad thing." Marie scowled.

"Oh?" Alex smirked. "Is that what you call it."

The silver-haired woman studied him for a moment, then laughed. "I take back what I said this morning. You are exactly as quick-witted as your uncle." One hand gestured to the nearby cabin. "It's getting a tad chilly out for my taste. Might we?"

"Of course," Alex replied.

The two walked the short distance to the Cabin in relative silence. Once inside, Marie busied herself in his cupboards, producing an electric kettle, a black and red ceramic pot and a small silver tin of tea leaves. Her motions were practiced and rote, the older woman so accustomed to them that she didn't realize her mistake until she was already halfway through filling the kettle. "I'm sorry Alex-" she blurted out "I didn't even think to ask."

"I'm afraid that is one thing we didn't share in common," Alex replied with an apologetic smile. "But I'll have some water while you have your tea."

Marie's face was a mess of barely concealed grief as she met his eyes, her smile doing a poor job of lying to him as she returned to her work. "He never much liked the tea either, I think. Tolerated it though, for my sake."

"He seemed like quite a person. Judging from all the good people have to say about him."

"You'll hear the same everywhere you go in the village." Marie leaned back against the counter as the kettle began to steam beside her. "Well, almost everywhere."

"There is someone who disliked him?" Alex asked.

"Every party needs a pooper." Marie scoffed. "That is actually what I came to talk to you about."

"I'd thought that you came to discuss how my Uncle passed." He said steadily.

The words seemed to strike her, the older woman returning her attention to the nearby teapot in order to avoid meeting his gaze. "I did. You'll forgive me for trying to put it off, I hope?"

"I'll try to. But to be honest, I'm starting to get nervous."

"Hmm? Oh, no Alex. You aren't in any danger if that is what you are thinking." Marie assured him, one hand waving away the idea as though it were a particularly annoying fly. "It's just hard to think of him."

"If you're uncomfortable with-"

"No. Part of the job is being the bearer of bad news," Marie said, her shoulders rising and falling as she drew in a deep breath, steadying herself against the words she'd have to say.

"Your Uncle was never a healthy man, in all the time I knew him," Marie explained. "When he first arrived, I think it was because he was looking for a place to pass on. A chance to live out his last few years surrounded by beauty and nature." She paused as the kettle began to whistle, claiming it from its electric cradle and filling the nearby pot. "To hear him tell it, he had less than half a year when he arrived."

Alex's brow knitted together in confusion. "But he was here a lot longer than that."

"Over twenty years," Marie confirmed. "He had his fits, and his episodes, but for most of his time here, Pip said he'd never felt better."

"Most?"

She sighed. "The last three years, he started getting worse. At first, it was just a particularly long coughing spell or a shortness of breath. But to look at his face, he knew. He'd always known it wouldn't last." Marie set the kettle down and lifted the teapot in careful hands as she walked the short distance to join him at the kitchen table. "Even good tea and healthy living can't keep the worst at bay forever."

"If only," Alex said, unsure of what else to say.

"I think that knowledge was why he never settled down with anyone," Marie explained. "Most eligible bachelor in town for two decades." She laughed briefly before her face took on a more serious expression. "I know it is why he never reached out to you." Her eyes met his as Alex struggled for words. "You were too young to know him when he came here, and in the good years, I think he just didn't know how to go about it. Once he knew it was time, though, he wanted to, he just-"

"Please." Alex interrupted her. "I've gotten enough excuses from the men who should have been in my life. I don't need more."

"It isn't an-"

"Explanation then. Fine." His words were even angrier than he realized they would be.

Marie held his gaze for a moment, then nodded. "His illness finally overtook him this last winter. He asked me to reach out to you in his will, but you were hard to find. I'm sorry you couldn't be here for the funeral."

"Where is..." Alex swallowed hard against an unforgiving lump that had formed in his throat.

"Where?" She replied uncertainly before the question kicked in. "You mean his... he asked to be cremated. If you wish to pay your respects, there is a small monument in the town square."

"A monument?" He asked in surprise. "He really was a big deal around here, wasn't he?"

The silence that followed was particularly telling.

"Okay, what is it that I don't know. Because I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop since this morning."

"Observant too," Marie grumbled. She waved away any further words as he sought to press the matter, her attention focused on the teapot as she poured two full mugs of the aromatic liquid. "You remember that other matter I wanted to talk to you about?"

Alex stared at her as he searched back through their earlier conversation. "The man who had a problem with my Uncle?"

"He would be the 'other shoe.'"

"I don't follow," Alex replied.

"Roy Lawton. You probably saw his house on your way into town."

"You mean the cookie cutter mansion?" Alex inquired.

"The very same," Marie said as she blew cool breaths over the lip of her mug.

"Then yeah, I did," Alex confirmed. "Not really in keeping with the village's rustic aesthetic, is it?"

"If only that monstrosity were the worst of our problems with him." She winced slightly, her tongue burned by her first sip of still-too-hot tea, then continued. "Do you know anything about the Lawton family."

Alex shook his head. "Honestly, I think you're safe to assume I don't know anything about anything. As a general rule anyway."

"I'll keep that in mind." Marie smiled ruefully. "The Lawtons are an incredibly wealthy family, and Roy Lawton is the heir to his family fortune. Six years ago, he made a purchase of land and rushed construction on that awful, awful house of his."

"Wait, Belle told me that no one has moved here in years, other than my uncle and me."

"He didn't move here, not really anyways." She clarified quickly. "He just bought the land and built the house because doing so made him a resident of the town, which allowed him to petition for the dissolution of the town charter."

"What?!" Alex exclaimed in sudden surprise. "Petition who?"

"Governor Schwartz," Marie replied. She let the name linger as she drew a deep sip of her tea and gestured for him to do the same. "Once we knew about the plot, it was pretty easy to see that the two of them were conspiring against the town, but by then it was too late." As she continued to speak, Marie fished into a purse strung over the back of her chair and produced a leather-bound book, setting it open on the table to show a map of Blue Hills and its surrounding environment. "All of the land that makes up Blue Hills is technically community land. It is owned by the state, and so long as we have a town charter-"

"Your taxes and payments on it are close to nil." Alex finished for her. While he was a little curious precisely what state she was talking about, the scheme itself was one that was startlingly familiar to him. He'd seen it's like at least a dozen times in casework his firm had taken on. "By dissolving the charter without your knowledge, the land goes up for sale." He studied the map for a moment before adding. "You said this was six years ago?"

Marie nodded. "As the current residents, we had first bid on it. It took nearly everything we had at the time, as a down payment, but we did it. After that, your Uncle set up a plan with the Governor to pay the remaining cost in installments from his own personal funds, over the next six years."

"And then he got sick," Alex whispered. Tea wasn't exactly the sort of drink he wanted at that particular moment, but he took several swallows of the lemon-tinged beverage before he continued. "How much." When Marie did not immediately reply, he insisted. "How much?"

"Well it is structured in a format that will allow-"

“How much?”

“…Fifty-thousand for the spring season.”

He coughed around his tea, the back of his hand the only thing keeping him from spraying it everywhere as his lungs heaved. “Fifty thousand?! How much did he have left when he-" Alex started to ask, only to realize he could read the answer clearly on Marie's face. "There isn't any, is there?"

"The thousand we gave you was all that was left of his estate after last year's deposit."

"Well, at least you have time. It is a lot of money, but with the whole village chipping in-"

"Alex, I'm sorry but no," Marie said with a vigorous shake of her head. "I spoke to the Governor shortly after your Uncle's passing, and he was quite insistent that the funds had to come from your Uncle's account, as per the letter of the agreement."

He snorted in derision. "Now it is starting to make sense." Alex spat. "He doesn't reach out to me for most of my life, then he draws me into this lunacy on his deathbed not because he gives a damn, but because he needs someone with his last name to sign the cheques." Anger welled within him, but Alex struggled to keep a straight face. "Once I'm on the train back you can have some people work the farm. Unlike him, I'm not that much of an a-"

"It isn't like that," Marie said at last. Her own face was flushed, he realized, and one quivering hand looked to be just barely restrained from striking him. "Your Uncle didn't know about the stipulation when he died, and I didn't reach out to you because of it either." Her chin tilted up as she drew a long, frustrated breath. "But if you do leave, know that you're nothing like him and that you are condemning this town."

"I just sai-"

"No one can work this farm but you." She cut him off, a finger pointing to his nearby satchel. "Your Status Book says you have the Greenthumb trait, doesn't it? The same as your Uncle."

"It does, but I don-"

"Greenthumb is a special trait, one that your Uncle passed down to you," Marie said. "You are the only one who can work this land the way you do, and you are the only one who can save our town."