Chapter 5

One last night before the next raid was scheduled. 

My day was spent wandering from place to place checking in on our faction. Jessica was close to harvesting her first crop yield. They were also in the process of building several more houses near the fields. Three large families had classes well suited for working with Jessica and she welcomed the help. 

There were a few others that had crop adjacent skills one around alchemy the other around baked goods. They were also having homes constructed nearby. 

It was a bit surprising to hear about a mana enhanced baker and I wondered what a doughnut baked by someone level 100 might taste like. I’d need to make sure that Jared knew this was a priority for our people. 

From the fields I went and met with a few of the new arrivals. Cassie had become the de facto representative of the group. 

Most still spent their nights under the stars in the woods. We didn’t have tents or other means to house everyone but we were getting much closer. 

Especially since our construction crew more than tripled. They hadn’t been much help at first. The first two days pretty much everyone spent grieving. But little by little the weight of grief lessened—at least enough to start to contribute. 

Each night since the tragedy myself and a few others would walk the campground. 

Five days. Five long days and people were actually healing. There was even the sound of laughter as we met with several families introducing the new relief fund. 

It was twilight now and I walked alone. Plenty of people still walked the paths through town, many greeting me politely as they passed. It was nearly all humans. 

The Guildian’s spent most of their time in their territory. Occasionally when they had business in the main part of town I’d see them, but at night it was a rarity. One day I hoped that it would be less segregated, but for now it was peaceful and that was enough for me. 

My gut told me that the Guildian’s would be far from the last alien faction that was incorporated into our fold.

It was my plan to meet up with some of my friends at the fire outside my home. I was already late on my way there when my feet caught something soft and I barely caught my balance before faceplanting. 

“AAhhhh—Oh I’m so sorry!” A soft voice squealed at my feet. 

I looked down to find a young woman lying on her side rubbing her hip. Mortified, I reached down and helped the woman to her feet. 

She took my hand and I pulled her up, while I cast a healing spell. I recognized the small woman. I’d seen her many times wandering the streets of the town. She had dark curly hair, and pink rosy cheeks. She wore dirty, baggy mom jeans and an oversized red flannel shirt

Matt’s widow. 

“No please don’t apologize, I’m sorry for kicking you—I didn’t see you down on the ground.” 

Wait. Why was she on the ground? Maybe she had dropped something? I looked at the ground scanning for anything that might be amiss.

“It’s my fault, I should’ve been more out of the way.” Her voice was soft, cheeks flush. 

I couldn’t see anything on the ground, and that’s when I noticed where we were. Tom’s monument. What was she doing here?

“Seriously, don’t apologize. It was my fault.” I felt embarrassed. And not just for kicking her. After more than two months I hadn’t once introduced myself. 

I wiped my hand on my robe and extended toward her. “I’m normally more careful about where I walk. I don’t think I’ve formally introduced myself, my name’s Layton. Are you ok?”

The woman actually laughed. Somehow turning even more pink. “I’m pretty sure everyone knows who you are here.” 

She reached out and took my hand. “I’m Brooke. And I’m fine.”

Her hand is soft and her grip is gentle. I look up at the monument completely forgetting that I haven't let go of her hand.

She chuckles softly. “You're wondering what I’m doing on the ground next to this monument?”

That is exactly what I was wondering. I look back at her doing a bad job of hiding my confusion. Then see that I am still holding her hand and recoil, my cheeks warming up to match hers.

“Actually yeah kind of.” I admit. 

“I’m surprised you don’t know.” 

Now I was really confused. What didn’t I know?

“I was praying.”

Praying? 

She was praying at Tom’s monument? 

“You seemed surprised.”

I looked down at the woman. She’s right. I am surprised. Shocked actually. 

“Brooke. I…why are you praying?” My words felt brittle, I hoped she wasn’t offended. Maybe I should apologize? 

But she didn’t seem offended. Her eyes were soft, red around the edges. I hadn’t noticed it before. Had she been crying? 

She shrugged. “I don’t know.” Her voice was husky. “Other people were. I just thought maybe it would help.”

Her voice had quavered at the end, but she didn’t let it break. “What was Tom like? That’s his name right?”

“Yes, that was his name.” 

The question caught me completely off guard. The truth was I hadn’t really known Tom. Not really. And the little parts I did know weren’t great. 

Tom had made some very wrong choices in his life. Choices that hurt so many people. 

Brooke wasn’t looking at me. She stared up at the immortalized image of Tom carved in beautiful white marble. I turned and looked at the image. 

The monument didn’t reflect the man I remembered. Tom stood staring proudly into the future. 

“He was complicated.”

This wasn’t the first time I had thought about the monument. The words “Forgiveness brings peace.” were confusing. 

I hadn’t forgiven Jordan. I cut off his head. He had committed crimes that I knew I couldn’t overlook. How was I supposed to forgive men like that? It seemed to be an ideal that contradicted itself. I felt like a hypocrite when I looked at it. 

“Complicated how?” Brooke didn’t look away from the marble figure. 

“I think he was broken. He did things that I couldn’t even imagine ever doing.”

“Complicated.” Brooke whispered. I didn’t really know what else to say but I didn’t just want to leave so I just waited. 

“Matt was complicated also.”

Surprised, I finally pulled my eyes off Tom to look at Brooke. “What do you mean?”

Brooke didn’t look at me. She just kept staring at Tom. 

“Everyone loved Matt so much. I did too. He was an amazing man.” She paused, as if hesitant to share more. “He was stealing money from his boss.”

The revelation hit me like a ton of bricks. Matt was a legend to Jared’s group. He fought and died a hero. Everyone who knew him had looked up to him, hell I even wanted to be more like Matt. 

“Damn.” 

“I was getting ready to tell him I was leaving, and then everything happened.”

This was more than I wanted to know. Why was Brooke telling me all this? She touched the plaque, fingers running over the words. 

“When everything happened, I couldn’t live with myself.”

Richard had murdered her husband. The husband who she was getting ready to leave. Everyone saw him as a hero, but she had to carry the weight of his secret. 

“I’m sorry. That’s a heavy weight to carry.”

“It was.” Brooke nodded. “But then you carried Tom here, and everything changed.”

I cocked my head. 

“I was so angry—angry at myself. Matt wanted to be better so badly, but I wouldn’t listen. All I saw was a thief.” 

It was hard to blame her. I would have felt the same way.

“And then he died. And all that resentment, all that anger had nowhere to go. And then that made me even more angry at him, which made me feel sick inside…”

Her voice broke and her shoulders started to shake. Unsure of what to do I placed a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t pull away. She took a deep calming breath. 

“These words.” She touched the plaque again. “They healed me—so now? I pray.”

Brooke’s words touched me. Humanity was complicated. I was grateful that she had shared her story about Matt. But it did little to help me grapple with what the words meant to me. I had no regrets for how I handled both Richard and jordan. How was I supposed to forgive them?

I still felt peace with my actions. Maybe forgiveness wasn't about sparing them. Maybe it was about letting go of what broke us.

Brooke rested her hand on mine. She looked up at me and smiled. 

“Thank you for listening.”