Jasha tilted his chin at me as I stepped off the old spiral staircase and onto the tile of the lounge. He didn't look up from the piano. It was a piece that I didn't recognise, and the music was scrolling past on the screen before him. A new one, then. I watched the small notations float across the screen. He paused, flicked his fingers to rewind. Began again midway, dropping straight into the music, more confident this time.
I leaned carefully against the great wooden instrument. The glossy white of its lacquered surface reflected the sunshine from the south windows. I could feel the vibrations travelling up from my elbows. The sound seemed to float to me from the light, that coastal brilliance, so different from the paler sunlight up north at school. And I just watched Jas.
He’s quiet, serious, sarcastic and forthright. I felt myself smiling at the thought of some of the things I’d made him put up with. He’s the one who had seen, when I came to live with him and Arind when I was seven, what most of my angry acting-out had been from. He’d taken me under his little nine-year-old wing and taught me a bit about how to speak my feelings, not just strike out. We’d gone out to collect the animals and insects that lived in this part of the continent, most of which I’d never seen before. He and Arind had taken me camping. In short, much of my love for the world I lived on was instilled in me during my first few years with my foster brother. His decision to focus on biology surprised no one.
Jasha stopped playing, and inhaled deeply. His glance took in my careless outfit and half-asleep expression. "Got some rest then, finally?" he asked.
"Yeah. Another big day today." I stretched. "I haven't heard you play that before. Did you write it?"
He scoffed, but he was flattered. "I wish. It's from old Earth. I've mostly practised in my room. Been waking up in the night. It's hot."
"We should move downstairs," I admitted. "I've been putting it off."
"Me too." Jas played a few bars of the song, and then paused. "You think they'll like this tonight?"
"Of course."
He looked relieved. "It's a handbreaker. I figure enough notes, and no one will notice if I miss one."
"Play that 'rag' one I like," I said, walking over towards the small kitchen.
"'Topliner Rag.''"
"Yeah, that one." The name had made me laugh when he'd first told it to me. But it was a friendly song, and beautiful. It reminded me of carefully cleaning off a ship once the flights were done. Jas started playing it, with the confidence of familiar years. In the kitchen, I could see a mostly-completed list of chores on the family screen, and hoped that not too many of the remaining ones were outside.
Our turn to host an open-house on our holding had come around. We were always one of the last of the season, before things closed down for Perihelion. Arind, my foster-father, had a list of gifts for the neighbours who'd been with us from nearby holdings for the last few months, and it looked like all the items were here. He and Dio were probably already downstairs arranging those. Our part of the menu had been programmed for weeks, and Dio's sister would be bringing her chef for the rest. So that left -- yeah. All that remained was a final check on several of the holding's production areas.
I sighed. It wasn't so hard to imagine the sun above me, already baking the tired grass covering the house's roof. It was one reason why I hadn't put on fresh clothes yet. What was the point? They'd be soaked in fifteen minutes out there.
I decided to go ahead and fill up with some water, and listen to the remainder of Jasha's music. He could talk to you through the way he played, tell you things. Today the notes of the ancient song were filled with his contentment to be out here again. Yes, it was hot. Yes, there was a lot to do, but there was also the southern sea wind, simple food, familiar views. And family and friends would be visiting tonight. We had good things to show them, it had been a comfortable season.
"Gorgeous," I said, when he stopped. He nodded. I put my hand on his shoulder on the way out, as thanks.
On the way through the utility door, I grabbed a wide hat and one of the cold bottles of water that stood ready in the nearby dispenser. The midday sun pressed down like an immediate weight. Even my posture shifted slightly, as if to hold up that light.
I took the small flyer to the first stop on the errands circuit. We had a few hectares northeast of the house that grew flax. Our harvest was already in and sold, but the machinery had been left out for guests to view. I spent a while talking to Simone, who'd been relaxing in the small cooled building near the field. She was from a holding far to the west, and it had actually been her second spring to stay here. The flax was her mother's suggestion, back when Simone and I were kids.
The second area I went to was much larger. Renzo and Bianca ran the cotton fields, and four or five of Bianca's cousins had come here this year to help. Her family had implemented a new picking process on their holding last year, and this year they'd set it up for us. I also suspected she and Renzo had finally made a pledge, and I was curious whether we'd all hear about it tonight.
The last errands were close together, so I parked the little flyer between them and walked.
East of the hill in which our house was built, the land sloped gradually down towards mostly-waterlogged shrubland. Before the Adjustment, Arind's ancestors had carved winding inlets and tidal pools to encourage animal spawning. Now that the area was part of the vast mangrove forests that dotted the southern coast, we used the channels to raise and farm mero fish.
Marisa, one of the neighbours to our immediate north, told me that Konrad was far out into the field. I decided to leave him to it, and take her word that everything was fine, and ready for any visitors that wanted to come by. Konrad didn't like interruptions when he was out in the trees, even at the best of times. I knew Marisa's parents would be here tonight. She'd cleaned and freshened the entire camp better than I had ever seen it. Certainly more thoroughly than I had, when I'd been the head assistant here at fifteen.
She walked with me over to check on the seaweed lines. I could smell it before we even rounded the final corner, and it made me smile. I used to think of it as the ocean's hair, and try to get my own hair to float and twist underwater when I swam, like its long leaves. It was the smell of home, more than any other. Both here at Arind's house, and earlier.
At least, it had been.
Unlike Jasha, who had been born in this place, it still felt to me as if I came here for long, safe visits. Especially recently. University had taken me far away for most of each cycle. Partly it made me sad, as I didn't fit in here the way someone would with their actual family, I imagined.
But mostly I just loved that it was always the same.
No matter what I got up to in Damor, or what mental pressure school demanded of me, there was always the physical work and deep rest of Ari's place.
Marisa told me that she wanted to return to this farm the following year, and I didn't blame her. I noticed that her light brown eyes were already taking that long-distance squint, under the wide brim of her hat. It was made to look over vistas, to peer past the reflective surface of the salty water. Daltians celebrated when one of us unfolded a passion, and tried to make arrangements for it. Even though I hadn't been born on Ari's estate, I still felt a little pride that someone had found her calling here.
It was coming up on three hours that I'd been out in the heat, so Marisa saw me back to the flyer. She gave me a quick hug and then headed eagerly back into the air-controlled building of the camp's headquarters.
I took off and circled over the mangrove marshes, looking for the reflective top and crimson railing of Konrad's float. I spotted it halfway down the main watercourse, making its slow way back to the camp's dock. There would be a fish on that boat. And in the hands of Zholya Murohe's chef, it would be one of the highlights of dinner. Speaking of which -- I needed to get back, before the guests arrived.