“You be a good boy, okay? Father is busy. Don’t harry him too much.” Mannat told Bhadur. The horse blew raspberries at him as if telling him to stop joking.

Mannat shook his head. There was a simple smile on his face, and a relaxed current flowing through his veins. His heart had found peace after a myriad of distraught.

He rubbed Bhadur’s cheeks with both his hands and hugged his face. The horse neighed in response, and then they separated. Mannat pulled a fist full of beans from the bag in the cart and feed it to the horse, who decided to lick him instead. The boy giggled and Raesh who was watching them felt like he was back home, his wife was fine, work was good, and life was normal.

“Don’t feed him too much, son. He will start acting raunchy again.” Raesh said. He was surprised at the energy in his voice. He had gone to the clearing expecting many things, but leaving with a smile was not one of them. He was actually sad to leave there, but also knew he was an intruder, not a guest. He could only spend such a long time with his son because the witch had allowed him to stay. He didn’t have a say there. No one did.

Soon, Mannat patted Bhadoor’s head and pulled away from him. The horse wanted more love, but it was time for them to go their way.

“Why don’t you come back with me for the day? Pandit will be happy to see you, and so will be the Old man’s granddaughter.”

It would be wrong to say the boy wasn’t tempted but kept his distance from the cart. Mannat said helplessly, “I can’t right now, but I’ll come down in a month.”

“That’s alright.” Raesh’s words put the calm in Mannat’s chest. He worried his father would not agree. A night ago his father had only left because Bhadur freaked out and Pandit needed medical assistance. Since the witch refused to show up for some reason Mannat believed his father would argue with him. He was relieved and sad that Raesh didn’t.

“I thought about you last night.” Raesh started, staring at Mannat. His gaze had definitely softened. He had given up.

“I had decided to take you back by every means possible when I started from home in the morning.” He hesitated. Mannat was staring at him unflinching. The boy was no longer worried.

Raesh was relieved and continued, “Of course, I was going to look elsewhere for help. I was worried about the Witch’s actions, I still am, but you have changed my mind.”

Mannat was thoughtful for a second then he grinned. “The pump sold you, didn’t it?”

Raesh laughed out loud. The little devil knew him too well. “I can’t say it didn’t, but there’s more. I see reason in your actions. You are doing what you think is right. I am not going to stop you or argue with you. I simply hope you stay vigilant of the Witch.” He paused and said in a heavier tone of voice, “She’s not what she comes out as. Someone like her is bound to have her designs. There’s definitely a reason behind her help.” Raesh pulled the boy close. He tightly held Mannat’s arms and stared straight into his eyes. “Promise me you will look after yourself.”

Mannat bit his lips and nodded. “I promise.” He said and Raesh took him into his arms again.

Mannat felt cold when his father pulled away. He wished to stop him but kept silent. His father was stepping back because he believed in him. Would he trust Mannat with his mother’s life if he asked him to stay? Raesh didn’t say it aloud, but the respect was mutual. They hugged once, and Raesh reluctantly boarded the cart.

“You want anything other than bedding and pots?” He asked taking a seat on the cart.”

Mannat noticed his father’s eagerness. He wanted an excuse to come back to see him. Mannat was all too happy to oblige. “Perhaps, you could bring me a shovel and some planks for the loo,”

Raesh grinned. “How about some meat and seasoning for those potatoes and carrots?”

“Sure,”

“Alright then, I’ll come by in the evening.”

Bhadur neighed. Raesh pulled the reigns and the two, one man and an animal, slowly disappeared down the golden road. Mannat stayed behind, staring at his father’s shrinking back with his fists clenched. His father had brought the smile back on his face, and it didn’t leave even after he left.

Mannat stayed at the edge of the garden until the cart disappeared from his sight before he took a deep breath and opened the fists. His hands were red, as were his eyes; neither shook nor grew wet.

“Thank you,” He mumbled out loud and a whisper arrived in his ear.

“Come back now. Time is not waiting for you.” It was the Witch. She wasn’t around. He couldn’t see her, but it was her voice. She might have disappeared from their sights but hadn’t left the clearing. It was her home; she lived there. Why would she leave to accommodate a pest and an intruder? However, Mannat knew his father wouldn’t have been so accommodating if she was around. Only because she had given them space was the two able to make up. That is why he was thankful to her.

The hut was still empty when he returned. A thick plaster of aged, hard dirt covered the wooden floor. The bird-stand was empty, the window closed, the air still and lifeless. He was alone inside, but no longer lonely. He knew there were people who cared for him, openly and in thought. They gave him strength.

His eyebrows twitched when he took a thorough look around at the room’s condition. Just how had he managed to sleep inside and not suffocated was a mystery in itself.

The picture book he had been reading was still sitting calmly on the tabletop, along with the stack of yellow paper and charcoal sticks.

He didn’t go to study straight away but decided to clean the hut first. Yes, it was too dirty. He was definitely not right in the head yesterday. Otherwise, how could he have ignored the years-old brown muck sticking out so conspicuously in the morning light? He might have forgotten his manners for a day, but his mother had done a good job of straightening his three views. Someone else might get away with keeping their residence dirty, but he couldn’t. His conscience wouldn’t let him sit still.

Therefore, for the sake of mental peace, he went outside, picked the bucket, and went around the house to get water. He had seen a mop around somewhere. It was by one of the bookshelves. Someone --probably the previous inhabitant of the hut-- had hidden it well, but he still found it.

Time passed away quickly once he started cleaning the room. By the time he was done with cleaning the sun outside had moved slightly to the western hemisphere. It was already past noon and Mannat was a sweating, stinking mess. He heaved the bucket of black tar up, and carefully took it out of the hut. He didn’t want to drop the bucket of mud inside. That would be hilarious. Yes, he had lost it a few times in the middle of cleaning and now he was starting to think such a situation --where all his work was for nothing-- would be hilarious.

Only he knows how frightened he was when the raven decided to barge inside while he was cleaning. It could have created a bigger mess, but it saw him, noticed him working, and left the same way it had come.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he finally rolled the mud in the bushes, away from the hut and his senses. It stank worse than he did, and he didn’t want to smell it around all day. He would build the loo there. There was none in the hut. He didn’t know how the witch dealt with her waste, but he didn’t want to think about it until his father arrived later with the necessary building materials. He also relieved himself there like an animal after a lot of internal discussions, and then returned to the hut, bathed with cold water from the pump, and started studying.

Heat sparked inside his chest when he compared his penmanship to the characters drawn in the picture book. Mannat was not greedy, but he was prideful and perfection was his weakness. Although he mentally understood, the author had probably spent years practicing his penmanship to have such fine control over the letters, that didn’t mean he couldn’t yearn for it.

As for the necessary acceptance of knowledge, the learning of words and characters, he was only getting started in that department. He was still far from decoding all the characters. As for analyzing the sentence structure, grammar, and other rules, it was at best a discussion for the future.

Loudly, he spoke the letters drawn under the majestic quadrupedal, phantom black, sharp-eyed beast. “H-o-r-s-e,” He spoke the alphabets separately, stressing each of the characters to understand their pronunciation. He had filled three yellow pages with letters and the sounds they made. It took him much contemplation, headache, and luck to derive the method.

On the first of the three yellow pages, there was a list of alphabets from A to z, written one after the other in a single file. Some of them, mainly A, P, L, E, T, D, and O, had various versions of sounds written in front of them, like ‘ehh, aeh, Aee,’ for the first letter A.

The following two letters of the word ‘Apple’ had him straining his head for more than an hour. That was a day ago, and now he finally had some work done. He wasn’t planning to solve the problem in a day or two. He knew it would take him at least a week to categorize the letters alone. However, he was excited. Once he had the complete hang of the letters and words, he would get advance to reading books. There was a treasure trove of books around him in the hut; he himself was the only limiting factor.

He wished someone could teach him how to read and write, as his father taught him forging. He had spent over a year learning the art of shaping metal from his father. He didn’t dare think he would manage to teach himself to read and write in a single month.

“But I have to do It.” He mumbled and drove right back into studying, picking a letter, speaking it loudly to separate the sounds, and then writing it down on the paper. That was his routine for now. It was repetitious, mechanical, and boring, but he was meticulous with the details. He didn’t dare lose focus for even a single moment, lest he accidentally noted down the wrong information. He checked things repeatedly for mistakes before moving on.

After a long time, Mannat finally had enough of reading, writing, and singing words for one day. Even the birds tire themselves out after a few hours of singing and he was only--

Mannat chucked and shook his head.

His focus was lapsing, and darkness was slowly growing and engulfing the room. There was still enough light for him to move about, but it was impossible to continue reading-- unless he lit a candle. Then he could carry on studying well into the night. Essentially, he was exhausted. It was funny how his physical condition was limiting his training of the mental faculties. At least he no longer believed all the time he had spent working out was wasted.

“Father was right. Hard work does pay off in unusual ways.”

He stacked the papers together and gently closed the book to prevent wrinkled pages. That one time it happened made him value the book even more. He no longer dared to be negligent.

He let out a big, loud, and reverberating yawn, rubbed the back of his head, and started gathering the page. The wind was strong outside. He didn’t want a wayward gust to pass through the room and have fun with his hard work. They would be a hassle to collect from under and behind the cabinets.

The chair screeched when he stood up. He picked it up and put it under the table. The book and the pages he returned to the shelf and walked out of the hut. He yawned again. That was how tired he was. Really, physical tiredness was not even comparable to mental fatigue. At least, the former didn’t make his sight blurred and movements uncoordinated. He needed to wash up. That was the only way to get the sleep out of his eyes. There was water in the bucket and some roots in the pot. He wasn’t hungry, but tired. He believed the mana-enriched roots were healthier and more filling than normal crops.

If only I could see the difference in their nutritional values. He thought and said aloud, “I hope ‘examine’ will give me that information.”