Things started well the next morning. The farmer's name was Len and he put them to work right away with odd jobs and chores. They started by rearranging equipment to the man's specifications, and then moved hay bales for a few hours. He had tried to put them onto some trickier tasks as well, but quickly realized that while plenty enthusiastic, the two were not the handiest bunch. Even Myles looked blankly at the equipment when asked if he could do anything to fix the axle on a plow that had been giving the man trouble.

  For as scrawny as he was, Devlin was quite strong. It almost made up for his short attention span and lack of coordination. Myles was a force in his own right, but he felt the first hints of exhaustion embarrassingly early in the day. Irritated by his own weakness, he pushed it out of his mind and worked twice as hard, careful not to let it show on his face or in his movements. Not for the first time since he had run into Devlin, he regretted letting himself fall so far out of shape. Maybe that wasn't totally fair. When compared to the average person, he was probably doing just fine. But his muscles were slimmer than they were supposed to be and his energy didn't come to him as readily as he wanted it to. Bruises from the fights they had been in lately were slower to heal than he had expected and Myles knew that they wouldn't be bothering him anymore had he been stronger. Right now, he was still the man who had fallen so far that a couple of intellectually challenged thugs had managed to pick him out as an easy target. He decided that he was done with being weak. Maybe it was too late to return to the man who he had once hoped to be, but the least he could do for him was to be strong enough not to be an embarrassment. Besides, he thought, glancing at Devlin and thinking about the week they had had, it seemed he wasn't quite done fighting after all.

  "Myles, I'm bored."

  "What you are is broke. And we've only been working for a few hours."

  "I want to go explore the rest of the farm."

  Devlin was sitting on the edge of the loft in the barn which was now full of hay bales. He kicked his feet absently. Myles was looking up at him from the first floor where he had been throwing the bales up to him.

  "Are you boys done with that already?" The farmer walked back into the barn to check on them.

  "Yep!" Devlin called back.

  "Wow! I forget how energetic youngsters can be. Well, if you don't mind, could you walk the fence and see how bad the damage is? I've got some logs out back I was saving for repairs, but I just haven't been able to get to it. If you could help me replace any of the posts that need to go, then I'd appreciate it very much."

  Myles just nodded.

  "Does that mean that we get to go explore the farm? See, Myles, I told you it was a great idea! Catch!"

  Myles wasn't looking at Devlin when he said that, and furrowed his brow. Catch? Catch what?

  He turned just in time for a body to come crashing into him and knock him to the ground.

  "What the hell was that? Why would you jump off? I wasn't even looking!"

  "I said catch."

  Devlin, jumped back on his feet as if he hadn't just tried to kill Myles.

  "Come on!" He was already walking out the barn doors.

  Myles got to his feet, grumbling threats.

  The farmer had been looking on with concern a moment ago, but couldn't help but chuckle to himself when both of the young men made their way outside. The two were something else.

  The pair made their way to the fence on the edge of one of the farmer's wheat fields. It was early enough in the season that the plants were still mostly green. They started on the uphill side of the property, and made their way down the line. Devlin walked the way he always did, constantly speeding up and slowing down on a whim, looking all around, anexcited to be somewhere new. To Myles, it was just another wheat field. But as he tried to see what Devlin was looking athe could admit the breeze was blowing nicely, and he liked the way the sun was shining on the hill. The sound of rustling fields wasn't too bad either.

  Myles knew that the fence was to keep predators out, since the farmer didn't have anyone to watch the fields when he wasn't there. Close to the main house, it looked to be in good condition. It was a simple fence with posts about every ten feet and wire running across in several rows.

  Past the fence line, they could see the entrance to another barn in the distance. This one was also built into the hillside, facing the sun.

  "Myles, I like this town. I like how all of the buildings are so funny. What do you think?"

  Myles shrugged. "It's alright."

  "I wanna see what's at the top of this hill. We've got to go check it out."

  "We've got to finish this work. We're completely broke."

  "Whatever you say, Myles." The way he laughed was not reassuring.

  Devlin continued to chatter away, and Myles listened. Eventually, they found some areas where the fence was in disrepair and needed to be worked on. It wasn't until they reached the back side of the fields that they started to see the major problems. This farm happened to sit further away from town, wrapping around towards the other side of the hill. Here on the edge of the property, the sun was no longer as easily visible, and everything was a shade darker. They could see trees in the distance with a heavy canopy. But more noticeable than any of that was the way that the field seemed to be looking worse and worse the closer they got to the edge. The plants here were wilting away and some of the stalks were twisted at unnatural angles. The colors were wrong too. Everything looked black and sickly. The field was dying.

  Even further past that, it was overgrown. When they got to the fence, some of the posts were still in good condition, but others were being strangled by vines and were rotting. The fence was completely down in at least two spots.

  The damage became grew the further they went. It seemed to be worse on the lower half of the fields. At least a quarter of the space seemed to have been impacted, and that was without it spreading further. Myles didn't know much about farming, but he knew that this wasn't good at all. Had this been what the woman at the restaurant had been referring to when she had said that the fields weren't doing too well this year? Were they all like this?

  Myles was focusing on those thoughts so he almost missed it. He threw out his arm just in time to grab Devlin by the back of his shirt and stop him from vaulting over the fence and into the woods.

  "Where the hell are you going? We are supposed to be tallying up what needs repairs on this fence."

  "We can fix the fence later. Don't you want to know what's in that forest? Besides it's time for dinner."

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  "Then let's head back to the old man's house. We don't need to go into the woods to find food."

  Devlin pouted. "You're no fun. This is supposed to be an adventure!"

  Myles let him go and then started walking again. "Come on, Devlin."

  "You go ahead. I'm going to go take a break."

  With that, Devlin leapt over the fence, and disappeared.

  Myles' eyes narrowed in annoyance, but he found himself going after him anyway. If he didn't, Devlin would definitely get lost.

  The forest was dense, and the change was immediate as he entered beneath the canopy. It took him a minute for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The shadows were long and layered, and it only appeared to get darker the further in you traveled.

  He still had a line of sight back towards the fields when he heard something moving up ahead and to his left. Hoping it was Devlin, he started went that way.

  Devlin didn't know what it was, but he knew that there was something he was supposed to find in this forest. Wait to go exploring? That wouldn't have been like him at all. He glanced behind him and frowned when he didn't see his new friend with him. Myles would catch up. Devlin would to find something cool to show him when he did to prove that exploring was the right idea. Myles was new to being part of an adventuring team. He would learn that this was what it was all about.

  He crouched down in front of a hole in the ground and tried to look inside. He jerked back when a snake burst out and hissed to warn him off, but then he laughed, poking at it and then jumping away.

  The forest here had big roots that twisted high out of the ground into rings and shapes. Devlin liked them. When Myles caught up, he'd have to challenge him to a race through the thick of it. That would be fun. In the mean time, he jumped and ducked and swung his way through on his own. For a second as he moved deeper into the darkness, he felt as though he could feel his heartbeat thrumming through his hands. He stopped to pay attention, but then the feeling was gone. He shook his hands out and kept moving without giving it another thought.

  He got distracted by a long-legged spider and chased it from the forest floor up into a tree where he lost it. It was standing in the branches that a soft breeze distracted him, blowing off to the left. He turned in that direction and then swung through the trees to follow it.

  He grinned in satisfaction when he looked down and saw a trail. He hopped off of his branch and hit the ground right beside it. It was a bit overgrown, but still clear enough to follow. Devlin was fired up. He was nothing if not a good adventurer, and what kind of adventurer would leave such an obvious mystery unexplored?

  Admittedly, Devlin couldn't remember which direction was which anymore (not that he had been trying to pay attention), but he followed the breeze several hundred meters. There were more plants growing here that looked similar to ones that were on the edge of the farm, overgrowing the fields. They were a dark black color, and grew in curls and spirals.

  It was while he was distracted by them that Devlin walked up on someone else who was looking closely at the undergrowth.

  The girl turned her head quickly to look at him as he approached. A hood shadowed her face, and messy blonde bangs shielded her eyes from view.

  "Hey! You're that girl I saw in the restaurant!"

  She didn't look pleased to be interrupted. "What do you want?"

  She stood to take a step back as he came closer, but he just walked past and crouched next to where she had been. He poked at the strange black plants. "Are you out here checking out this forest too? Wait, are you from this town!? These curly plants are kind of cool, right? Say, do you know if they taste good?"

  "Excuse me? Look, I'm not interested in talking to you right now. I don't know who you are, but leave me alone."

  Devlin reached out and broke off the stem of one of the plants. He turned it to the left, then to the right, contemplating what it might taste like. Looking more closely, he noticed faint white stripes all over the plant. She kept talking at him. "I mean it. Get out of here. I was here first." Devlin ignored her in favor of continuing his study. He shrugged and started moving it up towards his mouth.

  "STOP!" The only thing that stopped him from taking a bite was the way that her panicked shout startled him. He froze, mouth still open and wide eyes looking up at the girl speaking. "What the hell are you doing? You're not seriously about to eat that are you? There's no way those plants are safe to eat!"

  Devlin answered her, but his hands remained frozen with his eyes still wide and on hers. "Oh. Are you sure? Have you tried them? I'm pretty hungry you know."

  "Have I tried them? Of course not. I don't go around eating strange plants."

  "If you weren't going to eat them, then why were you so interested in these things when I got here? And how would you know that they're not any good?" Devlin made another attempt to put it in his mouth.

  "I said stop it! I can't watch you eat that. That's so gross. It's all viny and curly-cued. And for all you know it's poisonous or worse."

  "You don't like curly food?"

  "What is wrong with you?!"

  Devlin looked back at the plant thoughtfully. "Wait, so you think this stuff might be poisonous?"

  "Look, I don't know what exactly these plants are which is strange in it of itself, but it doesn't take a genius to think that maybe if it's black, stripey, and shaped like that then maybe it's toxic."

  "Huh. Maybe you're right. You might be kinda smart." He grinned at her again. And then he took a bite out of the damn plant.

  The girl's eyes just about jumped out of her head.

  "Are you kidding me?! Did you ignore every word I just said?"

  "This stuff is actually pretty good. Maybe it's a tasty poison."

  "You agree with me that it might be poisonous, and you ate it anyway?!"

  "Of course. What you said made sense, and gave me a great idea. If these plants make people sick, then maybe they are what is making the plants in the fields sick." He ate another bite of the thing. "Now I just have to wait and see."

  "That's not how it works! And what in the hell are you going to do when you get sick and keel over dead? I don't want anything to do with this." Her eye twitched as he took another bite. "Stop eating more of it!"

  Devlin didn't seem too fazed by the commentary. He just kept smiling at her. "Don't worry. I'm pretty tough. Thanks for all of your help!"

  "I'm not- I didn't-" She huffed out a breath in frustration. "Why are you even worried about this at all? I saw you the other day. You're not from Sunnyside either."

  Devlin shrugged. "Are you sure you don't want to try some of this stuff? I told you, it's pretty good." He had eaten the whole stalk in his hand while they had been talking. "What were you looking at out here, anyway?"

  His question seemed to bring her back to reality from the distraction he had wrought. The frustration that had been on her face when Devlin had first approached flashed across her features once more before she schooled them.

  "I was looking into something, but that doesn't matter. I thought these plants might be infected with some kind of disease, but after looking into them further, they appear to simply grow this way."

  "And that's why you were so unhappy?" The look he shot her as he scratched his head only garnered a harsh look.

  The girl wrapped her hand in something before pulling out one of the plants carefully by the roots and covering it. She placed it in a small pouch on her belt and then turned to go.

  "Are you leaving?"

  "Obviously."

  "You should stay! I'll introduce you to my friend Myles. He's super cool, so you'll like him."

  The girl brought her fingers to her lips and whistled loudly. "You should probably find him then, in case those plants were poisonous, and you need someone to carry you out of here."

  "You'd just leave me here, even if I was sick?"

  She didn't look back at him. "Do I look like a healer to you?"

  Devlin scratched his head. "Dunno. Are healers supposed to look like something?"

  She failed to come up with a response.

  Before he could say anything more, Devlin heard a sound approaching. A beautiful tan and gray mare ran up the path into the small clearing and stopped in front of the girl. The horse was tall- taller than any that Devlin had seen before. Her lines were so long and graceful that she wasn't stocky despite its obvious strength. Devlin stared up in wonder.

  "Wow! Is that your horse?" Devlin stepped closer, hand rising up to try to pet the horse of its own accord.

  The girl had already swung up onto its back.

  "Don't even think about touching Folly." Devlin dropped his hand, but the grin that had worked its way onto his face only grew wider. In a shocking move, the horse took a step closer to him and started sniffing at him in a friendly way. It took him a moment to realize that she was interested in his pockets, and he triumphantly pulled out the last of his apples. She snatched it before he even had a chance to offer it.

  "Folly? Is that her name? She's perfect!" He glanced up at the girl and then back at the horse, clearly addressing the animal when he spoke. "You look tough. And strong. And nice. You've got to come on my adventure with me! Join my crew."

  If a horse could have raised an eyebrow at him, Folly would have. The girl snarled at him. "She's not yours and she's not coming with you."

  The girl's expression turned serious. "Look, I don't know who you are, but I'm warning you. Don't go anywhere near my horse." With that, the two of them turned on a dime and galloped away.

  Devlin was disappointed they were leaving already. And where was Myles? Oh, well. It didn't matter. He had already made up his mind. He wanted that horse on their team.