B1 Chapter 14: Fish

Modivar woke to a god-awful racket and the distinct certainty that his house had finally decided to give up on him.

For a brief, hopeful second, he wondered if he had already died and this was some strange, bureaucratic afterlife designed specifically to irritate him.

The crashing continued.

He rolled off the bed instead of sitting up, teeth gritted as the room tilted and steadied again. His lungs burned faintly with that familiar hollow ache. He reached under the frame and pulled out his staff, fingers tightening around the smooth wood. Whatever strength he had left, he gathered it like a miser counting coins.

He moved toward the stairs slowly, carefully, listening.

“You’re just pushing it in circles,” Millie was saying sharply.

He blinked.

That wasn’t the voice of a burglar.

He descended one step at a time, knees stiff, shoulders tight. The noise below was unmistakable now. Scraping. Clattering. Something heavy being dragged.

He turned the corner into the shop.

Gwendolyn stood in the middle of the floor with a broom clamped between her teeth. She was attempting to sweep broken glass into what she clearly believed was a neat pile. The glass, however, was migrating in widening loops across the floor like it had developed its own opinion.

“She’s a horse,” Belladonna said patiently. “This is the best she can do.”

“If she’s going to help, she has to learn how to do it better,” Millie replied. “I can’t believe I’m arguing with a horse. I especially can’t believe the horse is winning.”

Modivar stepped fully into the room. The small surge of readiness he had summoned drained out of him all at once.

“What,” he asked hoarsely, “is going on?”

Belladonna turned. Relief flickered across her face before she schooled it into something gentler.

“You’re awake,” she said.

“Yes,” he replied. “Why are all of you in my house?”

A half-naked Boris emerged from the basement stairs, boots soaked, hair damp, a sledgehammer balanced over one broad shoulder.

“Oh. Good. You’re conscious,” Boris said. “Right. So. There’s a situation.”

Modivar closed his eyes for a long, steady breath. “There is a what?”

“A flooding situation,” Boris clarified.

From below came a splash and a cheer.

“The boys say it’ll take a bit to fix,” Boris continued. “Turns out there’s an underground spring right under your foundation. It picked this morning to introduce itself.”

Modivar dragged a hand slowly down his face. “What is happening in my basement?”

“Well,” Boris said brightly, “you have a water feature.”

From below, a gnome shouted, “It’s technically more of a cistern!”

“Ed found it,” Boris went on. “Said he could feel moisture in the stone. Pulled up a slab that was too damp to ignore. The moment he did, the water came in like it had been waiting.”

“Like a blessing!” someone else called.

“Like a structural threat,” Modivar muttered.

“It’s clean water,” Boris added quickly. “Spring water. Clear as glass, once you get past the junk you’ve thrown down there over the years. I wouldn’t drink it yet. But if we clear it out, you’ll have a permanent source.”

“Think of it as an upgrade,” one of the gnomes shouted.

“How,” Modivar asked slowly, “am I supposed to think of it as anything but a problem? There are wooden support beams down there.”

Silence fell from below.

“Oh,” Boris said after a moment. “Right.”

Modivar stared at him. “My house is going to collapse.”

“Possibly,” Boris admitted. “Unless the brothers do what they do. It won’t look pretty. But it’ll stand.”

Belladonna stepped closer, her focus no longer on the flooding, the glass, or the broom-wielding horse. She studied his face.

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“Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

He straightened up by reflex. “I’m fine.”

His gaze swept the shop again. Boards stacked near the wall. Tools laid out. His broken counter half-cleared. Nails sorted neatly into piles.

“How did you get into my house?” he asked.

Millie glanced at Gwendolyn.

Gwendolyn had somehow relocated herself and now appeared to be sleeping upright against a support post, the broom resting near her hoof like she had simply grown bored.

Modivar exhaled through his nose. “Of course.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Belladonna said. “Ed, Edd, and Edward are the best fixer gnomes I’ve ever encountered.”

“They’re the only fixer gnomes you’ve ever encountered,” Millie said.

“That doesn’t make it less accurate,” Belladonna shot back. “They fix things. Even things you didn’t know were broken.”

From below came hammering. Then laughter. Then another splash.

Water dripped steadily somewhere beneath his feet.

“I went to sleep in a broken shop,” Modivar said faintly. “And I somehow woke up in an even more broken shop with an aquatic feature. I don’t know if my life is a joke, or if I deserve this.”

Millie watched him for a long moment.

“So,” she said bluntly, “Bella says you’re dying. And let me guess. You don’t want to get attached. You wanted a quiet little retirement at the end of the world, Mr. Last Light of Salvation.”