Chapter 10 Monroe
MONROE
The following Monday, we slip off our shoes, and I mourn my floral combat boots the moment they disappear. Tugging my pink bomber jacket over my fitted black dress, I follow Cherri down the Conservatory’s stony path for our first day of class.
The program is less than three months long and we’ll run with a regular weekly schedule with our weekends free until it’s done.
The magic in this place lingers like its very own breeze, warm and welcoming and tingly against my skin and under my bare toes. Unfortunately, none of it flows through me. At least not yet. Even if it did, I’d still have no clue how to harness any of it.
Whether it’s watering the plants strewn about the cottage, summoning the kettle to the stovetop, or warming our blankets before bed, my roommates make it appear seamless. Simple.
“You may wonder why we don’t allow shoes within the Conservatory grounds,” Kitt, our Botany professor, says from the front of the classroom.
“That is because it is easier to draw your magic from the dirt. Once you have mastered the basics and graduate, you may not need to do this, but while you study here, you will always practice in bare feet.”
I frown. What’s the point of cute floral boots if I never get to show them off?
We stand in a circle around the table where a handful of empty pots are scattered, each filled two-thirds of the way with soil.
Cherri listens with rapt interest, and a harbinger with a gelled-back mulberry-hued ducktail named Dani is on my other side.
They keep their arms crossed, wearing a black leather jacket and an expression of annoyed boredom.
Dani hollows their cheeks, blowing out a huge pink bubble they meet my stare and wink.
Shoving their hands into their jacket pocket, they continue chewing and popping.
Guess I’m not the only one who’s not thrilled to be here.
I skim the back of Dani’s jacket as they twist over their shoulder to glance at the clock. It’s adorned with patches, a skull surrounded by blossoms and a dusky rose ribbon weaving across it with Rescue Riders in blocky white letters.
“Now, I want you to flatten your toes into the earth, one at a time.” Kitt demonstrates, wiggling his toes against the dirt.
How the walls of this place aren’t coated in a film of it eludes me.
“Now close your eyes and imagine pressing the balls of your feet into the ground, rooting yourself in place.”
I shift on my heels and tap my fingers against my thighs. Everyone else is already closing their eyes, so I follow suit, inhaling and exhaling. Dani smacks and pops their gum beside me.
Pressing my toes into the dirt, I twist the ball of one foot, then the other. This should be easy. I’m used to grounding myself and teaching my patients how to when they do breathing exercises and body scans.
I wait.
And wait.
Glance around at my classmates, close my eyes again, and wait some more.
Moments pass, or minutes, and the only sounds are the brush of feet across dirt, the shifting of fabric, Dani’s obnoxious gum habit, and a few quiet comments from Kitt as he walks around the circle.
“Good, good.” Even though he’s been murmuring this whole time, his voice is so close it makes me jolt. “Excellent form, Cherri. Have you been practicing already?”
“Just a bit with my roommates. I’m a quick study.” Even with my eyes shut, I can feel her preening under his attention.
He moves on without a word to me, and I frown, whispering to my friend. “Are you flirting with him? He’s our professor.”
“That’s half the fun of being back in school.” Her elbow nudges my side. I open one eye and peek at her. “Think of all the things they could teach us.” She waggles her brows with her eyes still closed.
I groan.
Kitt glances in our direction, catching me. “No peeking.”
I shut my eyes, and Cherri’s breath warms my shoulder. “Don’t act like you weren’t gawking at Professor Briar during orientation.”
Heat spreads from my cheeks, down my neck, and across my collarbones.
“I can’t help it if he’s easy on the eyes.”
To be fair, everyone is pretty attractive in this realm. The fact that we are all in abnormal hues only draws my eye to each harbinger and their distinct features even more.
“See—”
“That’s all it is.” I cut her off with a hiss. “Looking.”
She chuckles. “For now.”
“For always.”
Kitt’s voice halts my train of thought. “Something distracting you, Monroe?”
My eyes snap open, and Cherri is smiling and shaking from stifling a laugh, despite remaining in her grounding stance.
More like someone—
“No. I’m good.” I clear my throat. “Don’t mind me. Just a city girl trying to get used to the whole…outdoor barefoot thing.”
I glance down at my toes to sell it.
“If bare feet in the outdoors makes her squirm…” Dani snorts between gum chews, and the rest of the class laughs—clearly at my expense.
Dani spits out their gum, and it gets caught in the viny tendrils hanging around the table.
A few of them fight over the piece and then disappear beneath it. “Whoopsie.”
What the hell?
The instructor shakes his head and waves Dani over while everyone else returns to practicing today’s lesson. Once he sends the asshole back into the circle, this time as far away from me as possible, Kitt rounds the students and places a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t pay attention to them.” The vise around my chest unclenches a touch. I shoot Dani a death glare that they unfortunately can’t see with their eyes shut.
Screw them. If they want to goof off and play class clown, then fine, but they won’t rattle me. Meanwhile, I’ll master my magic, graduate this training, and find a way to check on everyone back home. I dig my heels into the dirt and return my attention to the lesson.
After Botany, Kitt leaves, kissing Tess deeply as their paths cross. I almost feel like I’m intruding on their privacy, but no one else blinks twice at them.
For Bloomology, we learn that all harbingers started as humans. “Harbingers are those who Fate claims for herself, whose lives have been unfulfilled somehow.”
Well she couldn’t have been more wrong about me. My life was full. Brimming, in fact. I couldn’t have filled it with anything else.
Tess flips to the next slide that projects onto the rose-covered wall.
The top is titled Bloom Seasonal Cycle and beneath it are a series of arrows and labels.
“Each year, Blooms bring spring twice. Once in the northern hemisphere and then again in the southern hemisphere. However, our seasons do not align with those you may have been taught in your previous life. We begin bringing spring in early March and September, where we have a few weeks of overlap with winter’s Frosts.
At the end of the season, around mid-May and November, we slowly phase out as summer’s Storms take over.
In between those seasons, it is imperative that Blooms recharge through a process called rejuvenation in order to regain enough magic to do their duty the following spring.
We will talk more about each part of the cycle at a later date, including solstice—which happens at the close of the season and works as a magic boost for depleted Blooms before they restore themselves with rest.”
With a twitch of her nose, the slide disappears, replaced by a flower-shaped map with City Hall at its center.
Tess drones on about the various parts of Florezca’s map and I find myself sketching George beneath my notes.
He’s behind the reception desk in his signature noise-cancelling headphones, lips parted, their corners upturned as he sings along to the music.
I miss seeing him each day. He’d probably love it here, everything’s bubbly just like him.
Rain pelts against the windows, slipping down the glass in long streaks, plummeting toward the soil.
The professor pauses her description of The Fluffle and gestures toward the glass pane embedded into the ceiling.
“The afternoon rains are necessary to keep our work hydrated. By the end of this course, you will learn how to do this as needed in the mortal realm. Here in Florezca, the rains are powered by off-season Blooms. Each of them is responsible for a week of rain so as to not deplete any one harbinger.” She points to City Hall’s tallest tower on her map.
“This is where Blooms report when they’re tasked with hydration duty. ”
I continue drawing, eyes still on Tess so she believes I’m taking notes.
My strokes come in jagged lines, cracks, and fissures.
It’s mindless, a whirl as I take in her tour of the map.
The rain’s pouring echo vibrates through the room, and the soil beneath my toes cools, becoming moist, preparing for our magic.
Not that I have any yet.
I screw the ball of my feet into the dirt and zone out. However, my ears perk up when Tess points to the one area Roxy and Kendrick didn’t talk much about. “Beyond this are The Nestling Fields where—”
Her words are drowned by the thundering purr of an engine. Everyone’s eyes snap to the side of the auditorium where a tall rider gets off the strange motorbike. As he walks toward the door, the rain obscures him, turning him into a moving oil painting, blurring when he passes the row of windows.
Professor Briar enters, rich-lavender strands plastered against his forehead. His feet are bare and he shakes his head, droplets spraying in all directions before his hair flops over to one side, perfectly mussed.
Tess’s still talking about the map in the background, but I’m too entranced by the wayward droplet snaking down Briar’s Adam’s apple.
It slips beneath the V-neck collar of his fitted T-shirt.
His white, currently semi-sheer T-shirt, the material clinging to every inch of muscle, leaving nothing to the imagination.
He’s got the abs a human only achieves from extremely long days at the gym, and he’s soaked…
Pretty soon I’m going to be too.