A Passion for Potions (Petalfall #1)

24. Twenty-Four - Bad Poetry

Twenty-Four - Bad Poetry

Viggo

“ Hair like an autumn spell ... no.” I scratch the words out and replace them. “ Hair spun from autumn’s sun . Perfect.”

I look up from the notebook and scowl at the clock again. The sun set hours ago, but Ana has previous commitments.

Penny had explained that Ana feared the lengths her mother would go to if she disappeared for yet another night. And so, I am trying to be patient.

It was never my strong suit.

Penny is the one who has always been good at waiting. He sits in his chair now, feet propped up on a footstool, reading the book I used as a decoy when I went to Kirra’s home.

I have gotten up from this desk a dozen times. I’ve started and given up on half as many letters and now, I am searching for the words that could possibly describe Ana.

I look down at the terrible start.

Anastacia

Sweet human, bold and bright.

Come to me every night

Siren, temptress, muse.

Hair like an autumn spell spun from autumn’s sun.

“It’s rubbish.”

“It’s a work in progress.” Penny says without looking up. “You always hate them before you’re finished.”

He flips the page, so he doesn’t see me scowl.

He’s right.

Of course he’s right.

When I stand and start to pace, he finally closes the book. “If you wear a hole in the carpet, Blicks may stab you in your sleep.”

He has only done that once. And that time, I deserved it.

But I sit down anyway.

“What do you think she’s doing?”

“Not obsessing over what we are doing, for a start.”

“I want to know everything about her, and I can’t do that if she’s out there while I’m in here.”

“And if you smother her, she may not give you a chance to know everything either. Find a useful method of employment and try to make the time pass more quickly.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“You could turn into a bat and roost in her rafters to eavesdrop?”

I glare at him and he smiles, even if he doesn’t look up at me. He knows very well that I can’t turn into a bat.

I’ve never wished I could before now.

It does give me an idea though…

I leave Penny to his book and by the time I reach the front door, Dorrian has formed a full face. The better to glare at me.

“You’re not leaving. The stem told me not to let you go.”

“I don’t want to leave.”

“Liar,” he says.

“Okay, fine. I do want to leave, but I know I can’t and I want something else.”

The overgrown bulges, like scars on a tree, cram together like he is squinting at me. “It’s not often a stone comes asking me for my help. What do you want?”

Dorrian can’t see any of us well, it’s why he calls me a stone—gray—and Penny a stem—green.

“I have an idea... one that I think you’ll like, but I don’t know if it’s possible.”

“Go on.” The face he formed slides to the far edge of the planks.

“You told me once... that if a piece of you was broken off, it would always come back to you.”

“I don’t remember telling you that.” I think he does, he just doesn’t want to admit that he told me something I didn’t forget.

“Is it true?”

He creaks and groans and reluctantly says, “Yes.”

“Okay, hear me out before you say no outright. What if you made another door knob?”

He starts to speak and I hold up my hand. “Please, just let me get to the end. What if you made another door knob and we gave it to Ana? If I remember what you said correctly, she could use it to make any door connect to you. And then, on nights like this, she could come to us when she goes to her room to go to sleep.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“That’s it. That’s my request.”

“It would have to be a very small door knob.” He creaks. “Something she could always have on her person. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with it.”

I’m just glad he didn’t say no.

He wanted to keep her. My hope that he still wants it sparks anew.

“Would it work?”

“Of course it would work.”

The scars shift and morph and reform until there’s a tiny, decorative hand reaching out from just beneath the doorknob.

“Take it.” Dorrian says, gruffly.

When I clasp the little hand, almost as if I’m shaking a baby doll’s, it falls away from the panel it was formed from.

“As long as the door is solid wood, she’ll be able to come to us. No glass, no fancy metal bars shoved through. Only wood.”

“I understand.”

“If you give that to anyone but your flower, you will have splinters every time you enter or leave this manor—if I ever let you leave it again.”

“There’s no one else in the five kingdoms I would trust with this, you know that.”

“Do I?” He glares at me a little harder. “It was a stony fellow like yourself who chopped me up and made me into this form I cannot leave.”

“That was a lich. Aside from the fact that I haven’t died even once, I like you. I think I would have liked you even more in your true form.”

Dorrian shifts and morphs and melts away, as if he doesn’t want to hear whether I would like him or not.

I slip the tiny hand into my pocket... no need to let Penny know about that quite yet.

But the clock hands aren’t high enough and I climb the stairs, only to come back down them again and check the clock again. No time has passed.

What is a reasonable hour to the daylight folk?

I used to know.

I used to care about that sort of thing…

I care now .