“We just need to fly due south from here, and find an abandoned cabin among the trees!” Nurcan answers her family as the carpet flies towards the Pontic Alps, trembling of cold.

  The carpet is now at an altitude so high that it flies above the sis cover that she feels would dissuade the yeniceri from getting to her planned hideout in the Forest of Surmene. An area she knew was chock-full of mahlul (escheated) timars (military fiefs) who were declared mewat (unproductive) due to them being more expensive to operate than any benefit derived.

  However, the mere thought of having to resort to hiding in a high-altitude mewat timar starts to consume her with bitterness as she tries to look for signs of abandonment in cabins. I might no longer need to fear Muggle yeniceri, but they forced my hand into hiding in a mewat timar! To think that, just a few days ago, I was the one dealing with timars whose holders died intestate or were subjected to musadere (judicial seizure)!

  When the carpet arrives at a high stratum, Nurcan starts looking for abandoned cabins away from the major road to Bayburt, but still within the woods. She stays on the north side, based on her recollections of what lands in the area are declared mewat.

  A former woodcutter’s lodge, itself a log cabin, appears to be promising, and the family approaches it, using the tree cover to ensure that it really is abandoned. Vincent then whips out his wand:

  “Revelio!” Vincent yaks in the direction of the log cabin.

  Once the spell is cast, the log cabin seems not to reveal signs of other people having inhabited it, but at the same time, it seems like its roof must be rebuilt. Which gives the parents an idea of how the log cabin would be laid out, along with what a hidden forest hideout would require to become livable once more. And, of course, the talismans needed to ensure their safety in this area.

  For sure, I can take care of the talismans using letterism-borne magic. Personally, I would want the Muggle repellent and anti-theft talismans to be engraved on the ridge beam; Muggle repellents tend to be stronger with fog, or dust clouds. However, I can feel like the whole family has questions that must be answered, before we can get to work repairing the roof, or getting mushrooms and fruit from the forest! Nurcan seems to think of how to go around using the future roof to conceal their presence from Muggles. Especially bandits.

  “Can you tell me why you decided to have us hide so far away from Istanbul, and deep into the woods?” Vincent asks her, feeling his face turn red.

  “Because this place is further away from the main road than the distance you could hear Muggles yell, and is not worth collecting taxes from, it’s legally considered mewat, so the yeniceris or the tax collectors won’t come here. However, if I may, we might want not to cut down trees too close to one another!”

  “Yeniceris, yeniceris, why does it always have to be yeniceris?” Yusuf asks her parents.

  “What makes you think yeniceris would even want to go out of the roads?” Vincent asks her. “You seem to treat the yeniceris as if they were your mortal enemies!”

  “I spent the past twelve years fighting abuses of iltizam, muafiyets and esame! Even if, officially, I have nothing to do with the Irad-I Cedid to the yeniceris’ eyes, pay arrears are part of their griefs! Yeniceris are just breaches of the Firman waiting to happen, not to mention interested in plunder and banditry!”

  “Which is why most wizards stay out of Muggle affairs. You saw both worlds as linked, and you now know the dangers of getting too close to them!” Vincent clamors.

  “What should we do now?” Jannat asks.

  “Until such time when we need no longer fear them, here’s our plan if we need to go out: we only need to bring a few paras (Muggle Ottoman money, 40 of which constitute a kurus) on market days, get down to Surmene a little before dawn, get the carpet back in the horse pocket…” Nurcan turns to Vincent. “Honey, it might be a little weird to you, but should we need to get down to Surmene, it might be best for you to use Multicorfors on one set of clothes to make them look like peasant clothes!”

  “I guess, we have no choice. Also, it’s about to rain, we might need to get fruits and mushrooms, and put a roof above our heads!” Vincent starts looking for fruits, mushrooms in the forest, along with trees to make shingles and beams out of.

  “Just make sure we don’t cut trees too close to one another!” She turns to Jannat. “Jannat, stay close to me, but you pick fruit and mushrooms while I look for the right tree to chop down!”

  Nurcan starts wondering how to fit the beams and shingles on what is to become the roof of the cabin, while looking for suitable trees.

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  When looking around the forest for spruce trees or fir trees suitable for use as either shingles or carpentry beams respectively, she starts telling Jannat about properties of local plants that may not have been present back in Istanbul. Such as ligarda shrubs, producing black berries, and chanterelle mushrooms. And, of course, wild hazelnuts of a variety that differs from those grown elsewhere in the eyalet.

  “Mom, what are those mushrooms good for?” Jannat asks, a little concerned about their culinary or magical uses.

  “These chanterelles are good to be eaten, provided we clean them first. Pick them, but don’t eat them right away, please…”

  The pair then finds a spruce tree that seems to be good enough to be turned into beams capable of supporting a roof of spruce shingles with snow, and the letterism-borne talismans she feels are necessary to keep their cabin safe.

  Meanwhile, Vincent loses himself among the fog, and must look around to examine which spruce trees would make good shingles to repair their cabin’s roof, on top of trying to find his way back to the cabin. In fact, only one would suffice to get the shingles they need.

  When Vincent locates a spruce tree he feels is viable to make shingles out of, he whips out his wand to chop the tree down:

  “Diffindo!” Vincent then issues a warning as the spell acts on the spruce tree he deems usable as a template to make the magical shingles. “Odun!” (Timber!)

  Once the tree falls, Vincent gets to work cutting down the tree into a few sections of the length of the shingles on roof of the buildings in Sihirli Mahalle that don’t have ceramic tiles. He brings one of them back to the cabin by rolling it, so that he uses the Diffindo spell on the trunk section to split it into shingles.

  Once the base shingles are ready, and Yusuf has picked some fruit and mushrooms of his own, Vincent, once again, draws his wand to cast some spells:

  “Diffindo!” The trunk section then turns into shingles and residual wood, with sap dripping from the residual wood.

  From the trunk section, he gets ten shingles using magic, but he’s left wondering how many of these are needed to get the whole roof done and, from there, how many copies of the shingles to make using Geminio. He stacks all the base shingles before casting another spell to make all the shingles:

  “Geminio!”

  The stack of shingles starts multiplying and it becomes a mound of hundreds of shingles. After that, he starts collecting the residual spruce sap dripping from each of these shingles and put it into vials. Yet, his hands get stickier and stickier with each new drop of spruce sap he collects while waiting for Nurcan to get the ridge beam ready.

  Speaking of which, she locates a fir tree that she feels can produce a ridge beam.

  “Jannat, return to the cabin!” Nurcan asks her daughter while Jannat picks more fruits from the nearby ligarda shrubs.

  “Why?” Jannat’s face shows traces of confusion, holding a basket full of fruits and chanterelles.

  “This tree is about to fall! Odun!” Nurcan then draws her own wand, aimed at the base of the fir tree. “Diffindo!”

  As Jannat rushes towards the cabin, the tree, on the other hand, falls in the opposite direction and, even after cutting it into a five-meter-long log, she still needs to use magic on it to move it to the cabin.

  She then casts another Diffindo to square off the log, leaving a beam that could easily support the weight of shingles and the snow. That, knowing that snow falls at that altitude during winter and their survival depends on it.

  Once that is done, she casts another spell to bring the beam, reeking of fir sap, back to the cabin, with Jannat being back there already, and keeping the basket in the cabin:

  “Wingardium Leviosa!” Nurcan yells with the wand pointed at the fir beam that she will use Geminio on.

  But even maintaining the Wingardium Leviosa spell seems to drain her magical batteries so she must be cautious of not going too fast, and still have enough to use Geminio on it to have enough to rebuild the roof.

  So when she arrives close to the cabin, she feels her magical battery getting a little low. Yet she immediately smells turpentine around even when Vincent collects spruce sap off the duplicated shingles.

  “What’s that smell?” Yusuf asks, smelling that much spruce sap for the first time in his life.

  “Tree sap. The wood is still freshly cut, and bleeds!” Vincent explains to him while seeing Nurcan’s beam arriving.

  Because both wizards’ magic batteries are a little low, the two take a break and prepare a meal out of the mushrooms and the fruits, while keeping some for future duplication. And, of course, aware that duplicated food didn’t have the same nutritional value as the original.

  When the meal is ready, and prepared from Vincent’s collapsible cauldron:

  “It isn’t much, but it’s our first day in this mewat timar. It will take a while to get used to our new life, it won’t be anything like our previous one in Istanbul…”

  “You told me about the feeding part if we run out of food in the woods. But other than the fog, how does that change?” Vincent asks her.

  “Weather here is a lot rainier and colder. Speaking of which, rain is about to come soon, and the roof’s beams aren’t yet in place!”

  Once the meal ends, Nurcan tries to determine how many copies of the beam to make before pulling out her wand. However, she also realizes that there are two types of beams to install, so she uses magic to make a copy of the initial beam and, on the copy, cut the copy into the length required to build the chevrons with.

  “Geminio!” Nurcan waves her wand to copy the fir beams.

  Once the final copies of the beams are made, however, memories of the post-Acre immediate fallout resurface, freezing her in place as her magic is now drained. Of the urgency of multiplying the seizures of mahlul timars, and the seizures of abuses of iltizam and muafiyets after the Siege of Acre.

  It's also the time when Vincent casts the final spell as the clouds of rain are threatening their new abode as night falls above the forest:

  “Erecto!” Vincent yells at the piles of beams and shingles.

  The piles of duplicated beams and shingles are assembled by magic to form a roof over the cabin, but Vincent’s magic batteries are drained. Satisfied, the couple returns home to take the beds out of the horse pocket.