Simmering Jams at the Edge of the Forest

uld be made by Mark if I just wanted to check on her injuries, but I went myself because I had to submit a report to the royal palace….
But that was just a pretext, because I wanted to see her and meet Addy.

That day, after giving her first aid in the backyard to the extent that she could move, I brought her into the guest room of the mansion and gave a full-scale healing spell.
We were about to take her back to the infirmary, but Addy changed her mind and stopped us.

“”

‘What are you doing? The child will be taken care of here.’

‘Even so, Addy, she may be an orison, but you don’t know what kind of person she is.
There’s always the possibility that she could harm you, and taking care of her is a burden, right?’

‘It’s not much of a burden.
She’s a girl.
I’m not leaving her in a clinic full of men.
Besides… She’s not a bad kid.
I can tell.’

She refused more adamantly than when I suggested a roommate.
I’d known Addy long enough to know that she would not change her mind about this.
I made frequent house calls, both as a precaution and to monitor things….
I soon found out that it was completely unnecessary.

Margaret was a calm child.
She treated everyone in the village with the same smile and didn’t make them feel uncomfortable.
I knew it was her social expression because it differed from the smile she gave Addy and me.

That said, it was neither overt nor sarcastic, like the flip side of nobility, and seemed to come purely from her sociable, but, in fact, shy nature.
There would be no one in this village who could tell that it was a fake smile.
It was so natural that even I, who was somewhat familiar with the royal palace, would have had a hard time recognizing it if I hadn’t been given a genuine smile.

In front of me and Addy, Margaret was incredibly honest and bad at hiding things.
If she could have spoken, she might have been able to fool me a little, but all her emotions were showing on her face.
She felt a little more reserved towards Mark, but that was not really a problem since he was usually with us.

I knew from her body that she was an adult woman, but when I heard that she was twenty-eight years old, I couldn’t believe it, and had to keep checking to make sure, which made her look at me suspiciously.
She said she was single, even though she was old enough to be married and have a couple of children.
Apparently, this was not very uncommon in her world.

Shoulder-length black hair, fine white skin, dark brown and light brown, odd eyes with an intelligent light… ‘This used to be different’, she said.
I guess that was the effect of crossing worlds.
She had slender arms and legs and a vaguely childish face.
She had a calm demeanor, but could be childish at times.
What an unbalanced and attractive woman she was.

Because her eyesight was not very good and she needed paper or a palm of someone’s hand to communicate, she would be close to someone when talking.
Very close.
I repeatedly told her to be careful about that if she didn’t want the men in the village to develop unnecessary romantic feelings for her, but I didn’t know if she understood.

I thought she was a good person, but it was a little dangerous.
I guessed she was basically a good person who didn’t seem to suspect others.
Well, it was not every day that you see someone with the guts to do something bad in this village.
It was mostly peaceful.
But I would have to talk her through it very carefully before we went to the royal capital.

Addy’s face became brighter and softer as the days went by as she lived with Margaret.
Her lively appearance was just like when she was a young lady before marriage.

“”

It was fortuitous that Margaret asked me that she wanted to stay with Addy for as long as possible, even though she would leave for the capital soon.

Addy’s way of life was, in a word, outdated.
It was rare to find a house without so many magical tools nowadays, and the house was also mostly self-sufficient.
She didn’t have a cook, she worked in the kitchen by herself, and before that, she had a farm.
When I was a nobleman in the countryside, I would have been afraid that the wife of a countess in the royal capital would like to work in the fields…It was obvious that life in the capital was not going well.

Nevertheless, it was her will and intention to stay in the capital until her husband, the Count, died and her son was married.
The reason why she didn’t have a servant was because she spent her days at the Count’s house in the royal capital, where it was hard to say she was at peace.

It was such an inconvenient life, but Margaret unexpectedly liked the hassle of it.
She felt uncomfortable with magic and magic tools because she had lived in a world without magic.

She said that her life seemed to go back over fifty years, but she still felt more familiar with it than with magic tools, and she didn’t mind the laborious work.
She said with a smile that she had been so busy working outside home that she had neglected her life and wanted to live a more caring and human life.

When I arrived at the house, I could smell a sweet aroma coming from the kitchen.
The fresh, sour smell of it told me that Margaret had achieved her primary goal as of late.
I could feel myself smiling as I rang the doorbell.

“Hey, are you making strawberry jam at last?”

“…”

“She said it’s almost ready, and she’d like to share.
Good for you, Daniel.”

Like a mother and daughter on good terms, the two of them in their old-fashioned but tasteful dresses, laughing and cooking in the kitchen, looked like illustrations in a picture book.
A sight that I craved and could not get… Something gentle flowed into my heart with nostalgia.

After the jam bottling was finished, I called Margaret close and whispered to her.

“When you’re healed, this old man will keep you company as long as you want, but you’ll have to wait a little longer for dance practice.”

“!!”

“It’s hard to see from the field, but there’s a path at the edge of the forest.
Mark uses it a lot to get herbs.”

When I told her that I had Addy’s permission, her face turned red and she smiled ruefully.
I knew she couldn’t fake it.
I couldn’t help but pat her on the head for her childlike expression.

The house call was over, and when I left, I was given some freshly baked bread and two jars of strawberry jam.
‘It’s hush money’, she said with a wink, placing her index finger in front of her shapely lips.

Well then.
I was somewhat torn about whether to give this half to Mark.