Chapter 25 #2
Luna shot him a sideways look. The intensity of his feeling took her by surprise. She’d expect a man to react like this over a favorite dog perhaps. Not a rose. Not even a sort-of sentient rose. Especially not one he’d once described to her as “difficult.”
But there was no denying the despair on his haggard, sleep-deprived face.
She turned to the rose again. It did not look good. Most of the blooms were rather brown and wilted, and there was hardly an un-mottled leaf to be found. “Is there . . .” She hesitated and dropped her voice, as though afraid of being overheard. “Is there some sorcery you might try?”
“Never mind!” Debbie croaked, even as Mr. Grimm shook his head. “I did try. I only made it worse. Green Magic reacts so badly to sorcery most of the time. They’re naturally at odds with each other in essence.”
Luna took a step back, folding her arms. So, what they needed was a Green Magic cure.
Well, she was a practitioner of Green Magic, wasn’t she?
Sure, she wasn’t skilled like the aunties, never had that knack for it, that way they had of making everything look so easy-breezy.
But she knew a thing or two. She simply must lean into her own strengths.
“Did Old Mister Grimm use anything in particular to protect his roses from mottle-spot?” she asked.
Her employer shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Try to remember.”
The lines of his brow deepened in concentration. The poor man really looked quite done-in. Then his brow cleared slightly, and he sat up a bit straighter. “My father always made a point to plant Noxious Windwort around the rose beds. Almost like a protective hedge.”
Luna’s eyebrows rose. “Noxious Windwort is highly toxic, Mr. Grimm.”
He didn’t seem to know what to say to that. His blue eyes simply gazed at her with silent entreaty through locks of tumbled blond hair.
“But perhaps,” Luna added, “not toxic to roses?” She pursed her lips. Then: “Have you the key to Garden on you?”
Mr. Grimm plunged a hand into his trouser pocket, found the key, and deposited it into her palm.
Then he, with Debbie clinging to his shoulder, followed her from the kitchen, down the passage, to the boiler room door.
Luna stepped into Garden, smiling with relief to find that its atmosphere was as pleasant and balmy as ever, despite the gloom overcasting Ballycastle.
“Garden,” she called out brightly, “will you kindly take me to your best crop of Noxious Windwort?”
If a vast and rolling stretch of ground can be said to be confused, such was Garden for a moment. The wind picked up oddly, and the flowering trees seemed to shrug their branches and exchange glances of bafflement.
But when Luna stepped through the door, the path at her feet immediately straightened out and led her through a dense forsythia hedge.
On the other side, she found a patch of thorny ground where a tangle of old rose canes lay.
Mostly dead, unfortunately, and so very spiky and unpleasant.
Quite a gothic sight. But here and there, she spied small, fleshy purple flowers with spear-like yellow stamen and fat, juicy-looking leaves, protruding through the snarl.
“Never mind,” Debbie croaked warningly.
Luna looked back over her shoulder to see Mr. Grimm and the raven watching her—Mr. Grimm, anxiously; the raven with a distinct superciliousness.
Luna set her jaw. “Have you any gloves I might use, Mr. Grimm? I don’t want to handle these things directly.”
He nodded, then opened his mouth and called out: “Wheelbarrow.”
Luna yelped as a rusty wheelbarrow creaked out of nowhere, like a summoned spirit, and nudged her hip.
Pressing a hand to her beating heart, she laughed and stroked one of the wooden handles.
She and this old rust-bucket had met before, when it appeared to help her harvest her teas.
Peering into the barrel, she beheld a treasure trove of gardening equipment.
Trowels and hand rakes, weed-pullers, even little cushioned kneelers to protect one’s knees.
And, right at the top, a pair of positively primeval leather gloves.
They were so huge, Luna feared they wouldn’t stay on at all, but when she slipped her hands into their butter-smooth depths, she was pleased to find them extremely comfortable, as though made for her.
Green Magic, she thought with a smile. Her aunties would most definitely approve.
In short order, she’d gathered a small harvest of both fleshy leaves and plump petals. Turning to Mr. Grimm, she met his concerned gaze with a smile. “Not to worry,” she said. “Let’s get back quickly, and you put the kettle on, all right?”
He nodded and led the way back up the path, Debbie flapping her wings against his messy hair, but refusing to take flight.
Once in the kitchen, he set about filling the kettle and lighting the stove, while Luna dug through cupboards until she found what she sought: an old and long-disused spice grinder.
“This should do nicely,” she said, setting it on the counter.
“Only we must take care to wash it thoroughly after the fact!”
Mr. Grimm hovered around her, tapping his nails nervously on the countertop while Luna worked.
She ground up both leaves and petals into a mushy paste, transferred the lot into a metal bowl, then poured in the boiling water.
That last step was the worst—it seemed to unleash the lurking stench of Noxious Windwort, filling the room with a pungent flatulence.
Luna groaned and slipped the glove off her left hand so that she could pinch her nose with forefinger and thumb. Mr. Grimm pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and buried his face in it. “Are you quite sure this is a good idea?” he asked.
Luna shrugged. “Good or bad, it’s the only idea we’ve got.”
When the water in the bowl had taken on a sludginous (she invented the word on the spot; it was the only descriptor with teeth enough for the job) color and consistency, she poured the lot into the double-delight rose’s pot.
“If any of us were to drink this,” she commented, as the liquid hissed and bubbled, “we’d keel over dead in about fifteen seconds flat. ”
Mr. Grimm’s eyes stared at her from over his hanky. “Is it safe for the rose?”
“Well, roses aren’t people, remember.”
He looked for a moment as though he would argue that point, but then the last of the Windwort tea sank down into the potting soil, and the horrific stench abated. “Now what, Miss Talbot?” he asked breathlessly.
“Now we wait,” Luna replied.
She set to work carefully packing the rest of the toxic leaves and petals in a jar, marking the label with a sketch of a skull, complete with little lightning bolts for emphasis.
Then she set about washing the grinder with great care, though she suspected she might need it again before the day was through.
While she worked, she kept an eye on Mr. Grimm, who hovered around the rose like a fussy parent.
“Have you . . .” She hesitated before continuing. “Have you known the rose long, Mr. Grimm?”
“All my life,” he answered. The pure distress in his face was enough to wring her heart.
“You mightn’t believe it now, but this rose used to be the crowning glory of Garden.
By far the biggest, strongest, most powerful rose ever seen in Plym, possibly the whole world.
It was as large as a house by the time . . . well, by the end.”
Luna had certainly never heard the word powerful used in conjunction with a rose before. But there was real earnestness in Mr. Grimm’s voice when he said it.
He looked up at the rose again, his brow softening slightly.
“It was the only rose to survive the Shadowbane Lady’s assault.
When I found it, it was nothing more than a stub in the blighted dirt, barely clinging to life.
I’ve been nurturing it these last three years.
I’d hoped to transplant it back into Garden once it was strong enough. ”
“Oh, so it’s not for sale?” Luna queried.
“Not at any price.” He pulled out a kitchen chair, sank into it, and slumped his chin into his hand. “This rose was my father’s delight. I . . . I used to be quite jealous of it, if I’m honest. Dad seemed to prefer it to either me or my brother. Possibly because it didn’t give him as much trouble.”
Luna couldn’t help but think she was getting a rare glimpse into a distant past—a past where Mr. Grimm was a little boy, eager for the approval of a father, who never could give it. It probably explained a great many things about him, only she didn’t know him well enough to guess what.
“One day,” he continued, more to himself than to her, “Fabian—that’s my brother—and I tried to pluck some of its blooms. Just to teach it a lesson, you know. Well!” He chuckled ruefully. “It taught us a thing or two! I still have the scars to prove it.”
“Scars?”
He held up one arm, rolled back the sleeve, to display a rather vicious scar extending from wrist to elbow. “Here,” he said. “And, erm, other places.”
Luna stifled a little snort. A vivid picture appeared in her mind of two naughty boys being spanked by an angry rose. It must have been traumatizing! “I wonder you still care for it so,” she mused.
Mr. Grimm shrugged. “It taught me a healthy respect for my father’s magic.
That was the first time it occurred to me that Green Magic might be more than just .
. . gardening. Or that gardening itself might be more than just gardening.
” His jaw worked, chewing on some old, difficult thought.
“I wish I’d paid more attention to that lesson when I had the chance. ”
Luna’s brow knotted slightly as she considered him.
There was much more to this man than he let on.
She couldn’t forget that image under the Bruxley gate arch—that terrifying, seven-foot tall figure of whirling dark magic.
And his father had faced off against the Shadowbane Lady.
Did that mean Mr. Grimm had faced her too?
How involved was he in the business of the Dark Sorceress’s fall from power?
She probably ought to ask, but . . . depending on what answers he gave, she might have to leave. And the truth was, she didn’t want to leave. Yes, she’d been uncertain last night, frustrated over the ward spells, and more than a little frightened.
But she didn’t feel frightened in Mr. Grimm’s company.
Something about him made her feel safe. Always had.
Even that first afternoon, when he brewed her that godawful tea and picked up her soggy brassiere and let her borrow his dressing gown.
There was just something about him which set her at ease.
Perhaps it had to do with the manner of their initial meeting. It was difficult to be wary of a man one had literally knocked off his feet.
She set the washed grinder on the draining board, dried her hands on a kitchen towel, then moved to inspect the rose again.
The mottle-spot patches were as bad as ever, but was she mistaken in thinking the stink less severe?
Or maybe the far worse stink of the Windwort had simply seared her nostrils.
“You needn’t stay, you know,” Mr. Grimm said from his place at the table. “I cannot open the shop today, not while she’s . . . Not until we . . . Not until I know. So if you want to go, I’ll still pay you for the full day, and—”
“Tell you what, Mr. Grimm,” Luna said, planting her hands on her hips and turning a smile his way. “How about I just pop the kettle on and make us a spot of tea?”