“Is my hat straight?” the fidgeting crab asked.

“Yes, it is, just like it was the last three times you asked me that,” replied the amused baker.

Balthazar tugged at the edges of his blue winter hat with the tips of his pincers, trying to adjust it anyway as the two walked down one of Ardville’s side roads

“Maybe I should be wearing a more formal hat?”

Madeleine cocked a bemused eyebrow at her friend.

“I thought this hat was the only one you had,” she said with a sly tone. “Is my gift not good enough for the great merchant crab anymore?”

The merchant frowned and huffed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

The young woman sighed and smiled.

“Will you relax? It’s just my grandmother, I’m sure she will approve of my friend wearing the hat I made for him. I swear you’re more nervous about meeting her than meeting the mayor!”

“I already met the mayor before. He knows what I’m about, for better or for worse. What’s the worst he could do? Try to have me arrested? Been there, done that. But your grandmother? What if she doesn’t like me?!”

Madeleine shook her head and chuckled. “Oh, Balthazar, you are one silly crab. You’ll be fine, she’s gonna love you. I’ve told her about you so much, she practically knows you already!”

The crab’s eyestalks jumped with a start. “That’s even more worrying!”

“There’s her house!” the happy girl exclaimed, pointing toward the end of the narrow street in front of them.

A small, rustic stone house that looked more like a large hut stood near the wall at the edge of the town. It was far more weathered than all the other buildings around it, its bricks having clearly seen many more winters than most other houses in that neighborhood. Despite its old appearance, Balthazar found the place invitingly cozy.

Small white plumes escaped the narrow chimney sticking out of the dark brown roof of the residence, spreading a warm, soft aroma through the air. The merchant immediately recognized it as the same smell that would come from Madeleine’s kitchen at the pond at least twice a day—tea.

With crab in tow, the young woman skipped toward the door like a young girl, a giddy smile under her rosy cheeks as she brought her knuckles to the old, rugged wood of the door and knocked three times with a practiced rhythm.

“Grandmaaaa?” Madeleine called. “It’s your favorite granddaughter!”

She turned to the side, leaned down, and whispered to the crab, her palm cupped beside her mouth. “I’m also her only granddaughter.”

A voice came from inside the house, warm but frail.

“Maddie, is that you?”

A creak came from the rusty hinges as the door opened, revealing an old, slightly hunched old lady with a big bun of white hair held by a knitting needle atop her head. She had a squinting expression on her wrinkly face, but a warm smile that was almost at eye-level with Balthazar’s eyestalks, for how short she was.

“Grandma!” exclaimed Madeleine as she embraced the old lady into a hug.

The elder tapped her granddaughter’s back gently with one hand, while the other remained on her walking cane for stability. As they split from their hug, she pulled her knitted shawl back into place over her shoulders and eyed the young woman before her.

“Maddie, where have you been? I haven’t seen you in so long!”

“I was here two days ago, grandma!” said the baker. “Besides, you know I’ve been busy working outside the gates. Speaking of which, I brought a friend to see you.”

The old woman followed Madeleine’s gesture toward Balthazar, her small eyes squinted almost into pinholes behind her round glasses.

“Is this that boy of yours… Rye?” she said, looking the crab up and down. “He doesn’t look well. What happened to him?”

“No, grandma! This is Balthazar, I told you about him, remember?”

The old lady leaned back, nudged the glasses up her nose, eyebrows shooting halfway up her wrinkled forehead.

“The crab? Goodness gracious! He’s huge! How many pies a day have you been feeding him?!”

“Don’t mind her comments,” Madeleine said, looking down at the merchant and shaking her head. “Balthazar, meet my grandmother, Margaret.”

“Uhm, hello, it’s nice to meet you, I’m Balthazar… But you already knew that, because Madeleine just told you. Right…” the fumbling crab said, stepping forward and offering the old woman his open pincer.

Oh, great! What am I now, an adventurer?!

Realizing what he was doing, the merchant quickly retreated his claw and looked around as if trying to seem distracted by nothing in particular.

“You told me he was a bit odd, but not this odd,” Margaret said to her granddaughter, making no attempt to lower her voice.

“Grandma!” the girl exclaimed.

“Oh, what? I’m sure he doesn’t mind an old woman’s rantings,” the elder said, waving her hand down. “Now, I know the smell of freshly roasted chestnuts when I feel it. Are you going to hand them over, or wait so your grandma has to eat them cold?”

Madeleine smiled and extended the paper bag to the old lady.

“I never could surprise you.”

Margaret took the cone of chestnuts and looked inside with a wrinkly smile as she took in their warm aroma.

“Now, Maddie, you know how I like to have my chestnuts, don’t you, sweetie?”

The girl’s eyebrows rose as she paused for a second.

“With tea? But you’re already making some, we could smell it from the end of the street.”

The baker’s grandmother shook her head lightly with a smile.

“That’s green tea I was making, girl. You know which one I like with roasted chestnuts.”

“Oooh!” Madeleine said, bringing one hand up to her forehead. “Black tea, of course!”

Margaret smiled again, but this time with a nod.

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“That’s right. And I’m fresh out, so be a darling and fetch me some from the market before these get cold, will you?”

“Of course, grandma!” the baker exclaimed before starting to make her way back down the street. “Keep her company while I go get the tea, will you, Balthazar? I’ll be right back!”

Before the crab had any time to form a protest or reply of any kind, the young woman was already gone past the corner.

The merchant stood there, next to the old lady, big backpack on his carapace and claws hanging by his sides, feeling… inadequate.

“So,” Margaret started, using her cane to help slowly turn herself to face the crab. “A merchant, eh?”

Balthazar stared at the elder for a couple of hesitant seconds. “Uh… Yes… ma’am?”

“We never met before, so I never got a chance to talk to you about this,” the woman continued. “You went to great lengths to find and rescue my granddaughter, and that deserves a thank you.”

“Oh, well, that’s not really nece—”

“You were also the reason she was taken by that dragon in the first place, and that deserves a big scolding.”

“Oh! That’s…”

“Oh, shush!” Margaret interrupted, hitting the ground with her cane. “My granddaughter clearly trusts you, and that girl has her head on straight, so I’m not going to question her judgment. If she decided to befriend a crab, I’m sure it’s because she saw something worthy in you. Better than when she was 5 and decided to adopt a wild squirrel as a pet. The little thing was dead from overfeeding within a year!”

“That’s really sad and… Wait, what do you mean, overfeeding?!”

“What I want to know,” the elder said, ignoring the crustacean’s worry, “is if she will be safe with you. With that boy, Rye. And with whatever other manner of strange companies you all keep down by that pond of yours?”

Balthazar paused, felt taken aback by the old lady’s words. He wasn’t really sure what made him so nervous around her. It’s not as if he hadn’t met other elderly people before. Yet, this one felt different. Maybe because she was his dear friend’s only relative. Maybe because for once he actually cared that someone he had just met liked him.

Inhaling deeply, the crab puffed up his shell and called on every one of his 96 points of Charisma.

“Margaret, I can promise you that no harm will come to Madeleine while within Boulder’s Point!” Balthazar declared in a valiant tone.

[The Gift of the Crab: Failure]

What?! The baffled crustacean exclaimed internally.

“Oh, don’t put on airs with me, you old clacker,” the old lady said. “I’m not looking for empty promises. I’m old, not foolish! Of course you can’t make a promise like that and know for sure you will be able to keep it. Are you a god?”

“Uhhh… No?” Balthazar replied, unsure if he was being presented with a trick question.

“Of course not!” Margaret said, waving her little baggie of chestnuts around as she spoke. “So you can’t be certain no harm will come to her. What I want to know is, if that happens… will she be in good hands—and pincers?”

“Oh…” the merchant muttered.

His promise had not been a lie, but he realized how empty it was. He couldn’t be sure no danger would get to Madeleine. It had already happened before, it could very well happen again. It was not as if he was a powerhouse who could shield the girl from any and every form of harm while in his territory. He was just her crab friend. She had probably saved his chitin more times than the other way around. And Margaret knew that.

“All I can promise,” the crab said to the elder, “is that if trouble comes, I, and everyone else at the pond, will do everything we can to protect each other. And that includes Madeleine, because she’s as much family to me as everyone else.”

Margaret rested both hands atop her cane and gazed into the distance, a smile creasing her wrinkled face upward.

“That’s the right answer,” she said, nodding gently.

Reaching into the baggie, the old lady started idly cracking a chestnut with her fingers.

“When you reach my age, you start thinking about what happens to those you will one day leave behind. Madeleine is a good girl, but I’m all the family she has left now. Once I’m gone, I want to rest knowing she will be surrounded by good people.”

Balthazar felt a tug deep within his shell. A strange, unusual feeling.

“Hey, come on, don’t talk like that, Margaret,” the merchant said, trying to sound uplifting. “I’m sure you will still live for many, long years.”

The old woman suddenly spat out the chestnut she had started chewing and turned to the crab with eyes wide.

“Don’t you say that, not even joking!”

Balthazar’s eyestalks shot back, startled.

“Wha-what??”

“About me living for many more years!” the suddenly very energetic elder exclaimed.

The crab stared at her, slackjawed.

“You… don’t want to live for many more, long years?”

“Hell no!” yelled the old lady, flakes of chestnut shell flying out of the paper bag she was holding.

Balthazar was so gobsmacked that all he could do was gawk at her and blink. Despite having no eyelids. That was how baffled he was.

“But… why?” he finally managed to ask.

“Do you know how long I’ve lived?” Margaret said, her sweet demeanor now replaced with grumpy anger. “Because I don’t! I’ve lost track! Every day, for ages, living here in this little house, in this corner of town, same routine, day in, day out. I’m sick of it! The only break I get from the monotony is when Madeleine comes to visit, but that’s not fair for the girl. Sooner or later, she will have to move on with her life. And I swear, I am just so sick of leaning out of my window watching all the neighbors passing by every damn morning!”

The crab’s confusion was only growing with every word she spoke.

“Why not just break the routine, then? Go somewhere new, do something else, meet new people, all that sort of stuff.”

“You think I don’t want to?” said the old woman. “But I can’t! Not until that little… devil comes back!”

Balthazar frowned. “Who?”

“The adventurer!” Margaret exclaimed, looking visibly upset about just mentioning him. “Back when I was still a young girl, barely older than Maddie, I gave one of those troublemakers a quest to find and return an heirloom of mine that I had lost. Oh, curse that day! The damn miscreant took the quest, left to retrieve it, and do you think he ever came back? No! Must have just forgotten about it!”

“Uhh…” the merchant started. “If that was so long ago, why not just carry on with your life?”

“Oh, he really is a silly crab, just like she said,” the elder muttered, shaking her head. “I can’t just leave here! What if he comes back to complete the quest?! No, sir, I have to keep on waiting until his excellency finally decides to return the stupid heirloom to me.”

“But why do—” the crab began, but the old lady quickly cut him off.

“I swear, if one day I see that quest completed, I’ll be so happy I might just go inside and croak right away there on the sofa. Oh, what sweet, blissful relief that would be…”

Balthazar paused for a moment, and then he frowned. “But wouldn’t your granddaughter miss you?”

Margaret shook her head and rolled her eyes in an expression that resembled the crab’s baker.

“Of course she would! But old people are not supposed to live forever. Sooner or later, she would have to say goodbye to me. And let me tell you, I can’t wait for that day, because I’m this close from smacking that stupid fisherman that lives around the corner with my cane if he keeps telling me it’s a nice day for fishing in the morning. He says it even when it’s snowing, for crying out loud!”

“Oh…” Balthazar muttered, feeling at a complete loss for words.

“Stupid adventurers,” the elderly woman grumbled as she angrily cracked the husk of another chestnut. “Keeping an old lady from kicking the bucket in peace. Unbelievable.”

Unsure of how to handle the unexpected situation, the merchant felt relieved when he saw Madeleine reappear from around the corner with a bag of tea leaves in her hand.

“Got your tea, grandma!” she happily announced.

“That’s great, Maddie,” Margaret said, her voice suddenly sweet and kind again.

The crab’s eyestalks snapped to look at her. The old lady had a friendly and innocent expression again, smiling at her granddaughter as if nothing had happened just a few seconds before.

Wow, grandma sure knows how to play her role. Balthazar thought, slightly impressed.

“Now, why don’t you two come in and I’ll prepare you a tea to go with these chestnuts? I wouldn’t mind learning more about your friend here, Madeleine.”

Suddenly, the bells atop one of the tallest towers in town started ringing, announcing the passing of the hour.

“Oh no!” exclaimed the baker. “We lost track of time! You’re going to be late to your meeting with the mayor, Balthazar!”

Quickly grabbing the crab’s arm, the young woman started sprinting away with her friend bouncing along with his backpack behind her.

“Sorry, we’ll have that tea later, gotta run now!” she shouted back to her grandmother before turning the corner toward the center of town. “Love you, grandma!”