Five years had passed since that night.
The night Anna disappeared and was found sleeping by the fire was now just a story the elders loved to tell whenever they missed the sound of children laughing.
Fernstead had changed.
The rice fields still glimmered under the sun, and the wind still carried the scent of wet grass, but the laughter wasn't as loud anymore.
Many of the young couples had left for the city, chasing work and silver.
Some of the older ones had grown too tired to farm.
What was once a village of forty had become barely twenty still lively, still warm, but quieter, like a song with fewer voices.
The Children of Fernstead
I was five years old now.
So was Anna, with her silver hair tied back in a small braid that always came loose by noon.
Goru had grown tall and lean, already eight, while Jack, the oldest of us all, was nine and looked proud of it.
There were two new friends, too
Edwin, a shy boy of seven who always carried a wooden stick like a sword,
and Twilight, a clever girl the same age as Goru, quick with her tongue and quicker with her laugh.
We were the heart of Fernstead the only children left in the village.
The elders called us the rice sprouts, because they said we grew fast, laughed loud, and never stopped moving.
Life in the Village
The days were warm, the sky bright.
We worked beside our parents now or at least tried to.
Goru and Jack cut down the tall rice stalks with small sickles, pretending to be warriors in a field of golden swords.
Anna and I picked up the bundles behind them, stacking them into neat piles.
"Faster, Erin!" Anna would say, puffing her cheeks.
"You're letting the wind beat you again!"
"The wind cheats," I would answer, making her laugh.
From the distance, the elders would watch us, smiling through wrinkles carved deep by years of sun and laughter.
"Those are the children who once made us cry and laugh in the same night," they'd say.
"Now look at them taller, stronger, chasing the same fields we once did."
Time, they said, flowed like the river never stopping, never asking permission.
The Message from the City
One morning, a messenger from Render arrived with a small cart.
He brought a letter from Aunt Merlin and a few gifts soft clothes, wooden toys, and a pouch of bright red apples that tasted sweeter than anything from Fernstead.
My mother smiled as she read the letter aloud.
"She says she's proud of all of you," she told us.
"And that one day, she'll come see how much you've grown."
We never stopped talking about her after that.
To us, Auntie Merlin was like a story the brave woman who guarded the city gates and sent us gifts from far away.
Sometimes, my father would take rice to the city himself, and I would go along.
We would meet Merlin there, and she would lift me up and spin me around, her laughter bright like sunlight on metal.
The city always amazed me the tall buildings, the crowded streets, the sound of blacksmiths and horses and bells.
I was shy, holding onto my father's hand, but Anna was not.
She ran ahead, tugging Goru's sleeve, asking a thousand questions.
Anna and Twilight
Back in the village, Anna's friendship with Twilight was both strong and fiery.
They were always together and always arguing.
"You're too close to Goru," Twilight would tease.
"He's older than you! You're just a five-year-old baby."
"So what?" Anna shot back. "You're jealous because he listens to me!"
Then they'd chase each other through the fields, shouting and laughing, their voices echoing across the water.
Goru would sigh like a tired old man and say,
"Girls are strange."
And I sitting on the grass, watching them could only smile.
Jack the Worker
Jack, now nine, didn't play as much anymore.
He was taller, broader, and always busy helping the adults with the harvest or delivering baskets of rice to the drying racks.
When he wasn't working, he was eating rice cakes, roasted corn, or anything his mother cooked.
"Jack's stomach is a rice pit," Goru joked once.
"No matter how much you throw in, it never fills!"
Jack only shrugged, smiling lazily.
"Someone has to keep the village strong," he said with his mouth full.
Even the elders laughed at that.
The Heart of Fernstead
Though Fernstead had grown smaller, it still pulsed with life.
The laughter of six children could fill the empty spaces that twenty families once did.
The rice still grew golden, the water still shimmered in the sun, and the nights still hummed with the sound of frogs and wind.
To me, it was all I had ever known
a world where everyone was family,
where every smile mattered,
and where peace still felt eternal.
But peace never lasts forever.
And though I didn't know it then,
the path that led to Render the road my father and Mr. Gareth traveled every season
would one day bring something else to our quiet village.
Something that would change everything.