I sat at the dinner table with Mom about three months later. I’d just returned home from the the shooting range. Grandpa Joe had finally let me graduate to handguns and rifles of a larger caliber. As I ate, I got a notification I wasn’t expecting.

  “Is something wrong?” Mom asked, seeing the look on my face.

  “Nothing bad,” I said. “I got a notification and it’s strange.”

  “How so?”

  “I just gained experience for picking corn but I didn’t pick any corn today.”

  Mom sat there with a confused expression on her face. Although I couldn’t see the gears turning in her head—or the steam escaping from her ears as her brain worked hard—I knew she was trying to figure it out just like I was. I could smell it. That’s when I had a thought.

  “I planted corn with Grandpa Milton a few months ago,” I said. “Could it be that he picked some and it counted?”

  Mom’s face lit up.

  “You could be right,” she said. “Give me one minute… do you know their number?”

  I shook my head.

  “Ok, maybe more than just a moment,” she laughed.

  Mom called Dad and got their phone number from him. She dialed it on her cell phone and put it on speaker. It rang a couple of times before Grandma Rose picked up.

  “Hello?” she asked.

  “Hey, it’s Ashley—Eddy’s Mom,” Mom said.

  “Oh, how are you?”

  I could hear Grandma Rose doing something in the background.

  “Good, good. Am I calling at a bad time?” Mom asked.

  “I’m making dinner,” Grandma Rose said.

  “Ah, sorry. We’re just sitting down to some mac and cheese.”

  “That sounds wonderful. Listen, I’ll have to call you another time, the water’s boiling for the corn and Milton just came in with the ears.”

  Mom hung up and looked at me. She didn’t need to say anything—we both knew what that meant. I knew that this revelation changed everything. While I would get more for actually doing the growing and harvesting myself, simply being involved allowed me to gain some experience.

  “I think this means I should talk to them about what’s going on,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Mom said.

  Her face looked at me with apprehension.

  “You should talk to your father about it. He knows his parents better than either of us.”

  “Sure,” I agreed. “I’ll see what he says.”

  I had to wait until the following week to talk with Dad about it. It was the kind of conversation that needed to happen face to face. Talking over the phone or video chat just wasn’t going to cut it.

  “Hey Dad,” I began.

  “What’s up, kid?” he asked with eyes that drilled into me.

  “So something happened the other day…”

  I explained what happened at Mom’s with the corn and its implications.

  “…so I think telling Grandpa Milton and Grandma Rose about the loops and stuff would make sense. If they know, then we can plan on getting me to plant everything so that I get a good amount of experience come harvest time—even if I’m not the one harvesting.”

  “I see,” Dad said. “I don’t think Grandpa Milton will care one way or the other. It’s Grandma Rose who is the sticking point. She’s a rather spiritual woman full of superstitions. I could see her being completely fine with it and seeing the magic you can do as a gift from God or spirits or something. On the other hand, she could see you as tainted by the Devil and make a big fuss—one that would bring unwanted attention onto your situation.”

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  “So find a way to tell Grandpa Milton alone?”

  Dad nodded.

  “Yeah, that would be the best way. He’s good with keeping secrets.”

  “Makes sense. Maybe I should tell Grandma Rose right before I reset. Gaging her reaction would be important knowledge for the future.”

  “That’s a good plan,” he said. “Maybe you can explain it to him tomorrow. He asked for you to go and help him gather more of the crops before the first frost hits in a few weeks.”

  “Hopefully a good opportunity arises,” I concluded.

  An opportunity presented itself while I was helping Grandpa Milton with gathering the rest of the corn. The corn had been left to dry so that it could be saved for the next year and used to make corn flour for tortillas and corn bread. While breaking off the ears of corn, he’d managed to trip and bang his knee on a sharp rock.

  “Damn it!” he swore.

  He wasn’t the type to swear much or make a fuss—even when in considerable pain. This clued me into the fact that he’d hurt himself more than I thought from a simple fall.

  “Are you ok?” I asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” he winced. “Just give me a minute. I might have to go inside for a bandage.”

  His pants were cut where the rock had been and I could see a line of blood beginning to form.

  “Before you go, I think I can help,” I said.

  “Did you learn first aid?”

  “Something even better.”

  I mentally used Heal on him. Immediately, the blood stopped flowing. I Healed once more to be sure. I looked at his face. It went from gritting through the pain to shocked at feeling no pain at all.

  “What just happened?” he asked.

  “Your knee is better, right?”

  “I think so? It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  He paused, looked at his knee, then looked back at me.

  “That doesn’t answer the question, though. What just happened?”

  “Magic,” I said.

  He looked at me like I was pulling his leg. But I didn’t laugh. I said it with a straight face.

  “Magic?” he repeated.

  “Yeah. Magic. I healed your knee with magic. Twice, in fact. I wasn’t sure if one would be enough.”

  “Magic,” he repeated to himself quietly.

  I could tell that what I said was difficult for him to understand and process. However, I also knew that trying to explain fantasy terms to him was going to be a no-go. Using the more traditional magic was going to be a better way to handle it. Time travel also wouldn’t be a foreign concept to him—probably—so explaining the time loops wouldn’t be too big of a challenge. At least I had been able to give him a practical demonstration of the magic. That should make things easier.

  “Did you ever wonder how I went from kindergarten to college?” I asked.

  “I always thought you were smart,” he shrugged.

  “Why thank-you,” I smiled. “I’ve got a good head on my shoulders, yes, but I also have a huge advantage: time travel. I returned from the future. In so doing, I still have my memories and education from the first time I lived through this—so college wasn’t too bad.”

  “Magic and time travel,” Grandpa Milton said while shaking his head. “I don’t believe it. Well, I do… you’re right here in front of me and used magic and everything… but I can’t believe it. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “Would you have believed me if I had?”

  “Eh, probably not. I’d have thought you had a very active imagination or something.”

  “Exactly. And when the magic is right in front of you, then it’s incontrovertible evidence of what I’m telling you. Oh, and please keep this a secret from Grandma Rose.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I don’t know how she’ll react to it,” I explained. “I’m going to tell her eventually, but not for another ten years or so. Just in case. If she is amicable to the idea, then I’ll come forward and tell her right away next time.”

  “Wait, there’s going to be a next time?!”

  “Yeah. I have a problem that I need to fix, and for that there’s a lot I need to do. When I do things—like picking corn with you—I get points that I can spend on magic that will help me fix the problem. I discovered the other day—when you picked corn for dinner—that I got points because I was the one who planted and helped care for the plants. That’s what made me think of talking to you about it.”

  “Why hadn’t you sooner?” he asked, looking hurt.

  “How do you think people would react if they knew?” I shook my head. “Not well, that’s how. I’ve kept it to as few people as I can. You know, Mom and Dad know, and Grandpa Joe knows. That’s it. The fewer people know, the less the chance there is of it leaking out and becoming a problem.”

  “I see,” he said. “That makes some sense. So! Are you ready to get back to work? This corn—and those points of yours—won’t harvest themselves!”

  I laughed and helped him up onto his feet. We collected the rest of the produce over the remaining hours of the day. It turned out that Heal was a great way to relieve the stress of the work on muscles. The aches and pains went away immediately. It didn’t do anything for our stamina, but the lack of pain kept us working far longer than we otherwise would have. By the time the sun was setting, we’d finished gathering everything that Grandpa Milton had said needed to be harvested as soon as possible.

  “Milt, dear,” Grandma Rose said when we came in with smiles on our faces. “Why do you work so hard? You’re going to feel it tomorrow if you’re not careful!”

  “Don’t worry so much, Dear,” he replied. “Eddy here’s a strong young lad and he helped me get everything done today. Isn’t that right, Eddy?”

  “That’s right,” I nodded with a smile. “We got everything done together.”

  “Hmph, well I hope so,” she said. “Dinner’s ready and I’m hungry. Please don’t take so long next time, ok?”

  “We won’t,” both of us said at the same time.

  Over the next week, I helped Grandpa Milton put away all of what we had collected. We grabbed some more things that weren’t as pressing to gather—like the potatoes—and put those away in the cellar as well. That was when he showed me how to properly store things over winter.

  “The most important thing is to keep everything in a cool, dry, and dark place,” he told me. “A cellar is a great location—but not every part of the world can support cellars. Here, though, they’ve been built for centuries. Before refrigeration, this was the best you could do if you didn’t have access to ice houses.”

  “What are ice houses?” I wondered.

  “A long time ago, people used to harvest ice from lakes. Then they’d cover them in straw for insulation. The ice would be able to keep a small room cold—like a fridge—for a whole year. The next winter, they’d repeat the exercise.”

  “That’s pretty cool!”

  “Definitely ice cold,” Grandpa Milton laughed.

  I shot him a glare for the bad joke.

  “So in our cellar, I put all of the vegetables—and the seeds for next year once they’ve dried. You’ll lose a little to animals or to time, but it’s a good option for long-term storage.”

  “Thanks for showing me,” I said.

  “Any time! Did you get a lot of points?”

  “Quite a few, thanks to you,” I smiled.

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