Chapter 53 - Travel Buddy

Gren was shocked to see Shelley behind his seat but soon became worried. "Mom!" Gren checked to see if his mother's wrapped up body was still there. She was a bit squished to the back but the wraps were still over her so he couldn't tell whether or not she was fine.

"I think you have the wrong person. I'm too young to be a mom." Shelley was rightfully confused by Gren's words.

"No, my mom is behind you. She's wrapped up in that cloth." Gren pointed towards his mom's body.

Shelley looked back at the wrapped up body and reached out to touch it. "Why is she all wrapped up?"

"Stop!" Georgia must have thought that Gren was talking to her so she made the carriage come to a stop. Shelley also stopped what she was doing.

"Is everything okay in there?" Georgia called back to Gren. Gren didn't want to worry Georgia or make things awkward so he made an excuse. He didn't know how to explain Shelley's presence.

"Everything's fine but I didn't check my mother before we left the village. I want to see her for myself before we get too far away." Gren lowered his voice to talk to Shelley. "Move up to the front and take a seat. Feel free to eat the apple; it's yours."

Shelley shambled over the back of the seat and tossed Sheila on the magic puzzle box. It took her a bit of time to get into her seat and now Gren had even less space to lay down when he wanted to rest. With Shelley out of the way, Gren hopped into the back of the carriage where supplies were meant to be stored and unwrapped the cloth around his mother.

Her body was still the same as it was when he uncovered her from the pile of ashes. The ash itself was a mixture of black and white so Gren couldn't make out her original skin tone. Her already poor quality clothes were even more in tatters so Gren wanted to replace them.

Gren stored her clothes away as they were and noticed a pendant around his mother's neck that he couldn't remember seeing her with before now. It was black on one side and gold on the other; the system indicated that it had a spell on it with its own pocket dimension but Gren decided not to absorb or open it. If his mother was hiding it then it was probably important to her.

There was a bit of a problem with the pendant. Gren couldn't store an item enchanted with its own pocket dimension. He decided to keep it on her body and hide it from view behind her new robe. It would be a problem if people recognized her as the goddess so Gren picked a fancy golden robe to put over her. Now she looked more like a noblewoman.

There was still ash covering her body so Gren pulled out a bucket and washcloth; filling the bucket with water using the water ball spell. He cleaned her, hoping that it would allow her to heal quicker. This was his mother; the only family member he had in his two lives. The idea of having a living relative that cared about him made Gren smile as he finished dressing her up; he still wrapped her up to prevent her two halves from separating though.

Gren hopped back to the other side of the seat and sat down. "We can go now." Georgia controlled the horse and made it start moving forward yet again.

Shelley had already finished the apple and was looking at Gren. "Thanks for letting me stay. You're with the Church, right? I can't use magic like you can but I'll do anything you need me to do. I don't need much, just a place to stay and food to eat."

Gren wasn't sure if it was a good idea to invite her to stay with him. She is still the daughter of a bandit, after all. He didn't want her to tell Susan about him if Susan managed to survive his injuries and escape. Still, she was too young to live on her own.

Gren decided on using the age old solution when dealing with a difficult decision. "That's not a decision I can make. We can bring you to the city but it's up to the high priestess if you can join the Church." Gren's solution was to let someone else make the decision on what to do.

Shelley looked a bit disappointed with Gren's response but didn't say anything about it to him. After a while of silence with Gren deep in his book reading more about magic and Shelley staring out the window, Shelley finally spoke up. "My name is Shelley, by the way. What's yours?"

Gren didn't want to give her his real name but it would be weird if he refused to tell her his name without giving her a good excuse. The only good excuse he could think of would end up exposing his identity. Gren couldn't think of a name off the top of his head so he looked around. Sheila was a good feminine name but Shelley knew the doll's name already. The white from his own outfit stood out which ultimately helped Gren come up with a fake name. "Whitney."

"It's nice to meet you, Whitney. My name is Shelley. If you and the rest of your group didn't show up then I might have gotten in trouble back there." Shelley's mood seemed to drop and become a bit depressing. "That thing just killed everybody. It would have killed me too if Jane didn't help me hide."

There was a small moment of silence as Shelley thought of something. "Talking about Jane, what happened to her body? It was there before you got there but I went back to hide when you and the knights arrived so I didn't see what you did."

Gren realized that he would have to lie about what happened. He didn't want to keep lying so Gren told the truth while hiding the details about what happened to Jane's body so that Shelley would misunderstand all on her own. "The knights were moving the bodies while we were looking for survivors."

Shelley nodded and went back to looking out the window. Gren thought that he could go back to reading but soon realized that he was wrong. "Hey, what's Adierton like?"

Gren hoped that she'd be satisfied if he answered her questions so he told her what he knew as the two continued down the road inside the carriage.