Chapter 7
seven
. . .
Solenne
Tansy does not move like something tamed.
She flits, shifts, fidgets … half sunbeam, half thunderstorm. She kneels over the soil. Her curls are piled on top of her head with the kind of haphazard elegance that seems accidental, but isn’t. Her amber eyes, bright as honey warmed by firelight, narrow with intense focus, then dart away again.
She hums.
It takes me a while to notice it. A tuneless, half muttered thing under her breath. At first I think it’s a spell, then a song. Then I realize it’s just Tansy, existing aloud.
We are crouched side by side just beyond the cottage.
Morning light dapples the clearing, soft and slanted.
The grove’s rhythm is slower than usual, like it, too, is tilting toward this strange new presence with curiosity.
We are meant to be weeding. Instead, Tansy is talking to a beetle she accidentally unearthed, apologizing for the disturbance and offering it a sugar crystal from her pocket.
“Did you know beetles are considered messengers in some covens?” she asks.
“No.”
“They are. It’s the shells, I think. Something about the shine.”
She glances at me, grins, then looks back down before I can decide how to respond. My throat tightens. I haven’t had to respond to anyone in decades. Not like this.
I watch as she presses her palm flat against the earth. “Like this?”
“Not quite.”
I place my hand gently atop hers.
She goes very still.
“You hover just above the soil. Close enough to feel it, not smother it.”
I lift our hands together. Her fingers tremble slightly in mine, and a blush warms her cheeks. I don’t comment on it. I’m too focused on the heat that curls from our skin into the air, not magic exactly, but something … a thread of resonance, a humming in my bones.
Tansy closes her eyes. I do too.
The rhythm comes slowly. A pulse beneath the dirt, the steady thrum of root and stone, the aching silence of the grove straining to hold its shape. It always settles this time of day. Usually.
But today … it flickers.
A sudden rush of wild mint creeps in from the northern edge. Uncalled. Unbalanced.
“Something’s off,” I murmur.
“Is it me?” she whispers.
The way she says it breaks something soft in my chest.
“Try to breathe through it.”
“I am breathing.”
“Slower.”
“I don’t do slower.”
I should reprimand her. Redirect. But instead, I listen. Her breath stumbles. Her shoulders tense. Then—
A sudden eruption.
Petals bloom along her forearms. Thorns curl beneath her boots. A wild knot of morning glory surges from the ground beside us and wraps around her ankle. She squeaks. I reach to untangle it.
“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—it just happens sometimes—”
“It’s alright.”
“But I ruined it.”
“No.”
“You saw that vine! It practically sprinted at me.”
I smile, despite myself. “It liked you.”
She scowls, hands on her hips. “You’re just saying that so I don’t panic again.”
“Yes.”
She snorts.
We sit in silence for a while, watching the garden resettle around us. The grove doesn’t fully settle, not with her here. But it’s not rejection I feel in the soil. It’s curiosity. Like the forest is trying to puzzle out a new language.
“She likes you too, you know,” Tansy says quietly.
“Who?”
“The garden. She’s just a little shy.”
“I’m not sure she knows what to make of you.”
“Same,” she mutters. “I don’t know what to make of me either.”
I glance sideways at her. The sun has brought out a dusting of freckles across her nose.
Her lips are pink and chapped. There’s a smudge of soil across one cheek.
And still, when she smiles, it lights something ancient in me.
A part that has been coiled so tightly for so long, I forgot what softness could do.
“Do you always hum when you garden?”
“Oh.” She flushes. “Yeah. Sorry. I can stop.”
“Don’t.”
She peers at me.
“I like it,” I say simply.
Her whole face softens.
We plant in tandem for a while, our movements falling into a clumsy sort of harmony. I watch her hands in the dirt … delicate, chaotic, and gentle. And I realize I’ve never gardened beside someone else before. Not like this. Not without rules.
Not with laughter.
Eventually, Tansy speaks again.
“You said you’ve been alone for decades.”
I nod.
“Why?”
“I made a pact.”
“What kind?”
“The kind that keeps you rooted.”
She leans in, dirt streaked and curious. “Were you in love with someone?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
She plucks a weed and adds, quieter, “Did someone break your heart?”
“No. I stopped wanting.”
Her brows knit.
“That’s not the same as peace,” she says.
“No.”
The silence between us shifts again. Not tense. Full.
Tansy’s voice drops low. “You don’t scare me, you know.”
I flinch.
I don’t mean to. But I do.
Because I do scare myself. Sometimes. When the trees whisper too loud. When the pact pulls too tight. When I forget the shape of my own hands in the dark.
But she just scoots closer.
Her hand brushes mine over the soil.
And something blooms.
A single heartbloom. White. Wild. Its petals shaped like breath and new beginnings.
We both freeze.
I stare at it. My fingers tremble.
“This is forbidden,” I whisper.
Tansy doesn’t flinch.
“So is half of who I am,” she says. Then reaches for my hand again anyway.
And the garden holds its breath.