Chapter 3
Dresses are a girl’s best friend’s best friend.
Town wagons neatly lined my garden gate, all of them bursting with the fruits of my labor—literally.
A mountain of carrots balanced precariously atop one, a heap of bright flowers of all kinds in another, and of course, particularly plump, yellow squash adorned the final wagon like a mound of gold.
Quincy Knoll, Moss’s mayor, stood at the helm of it all, wearing an approving, open-mouthed grin.
He didn’t do much by way of leading, as Moss has always favored a more participatory democracy, but he excelled at making everyone feel special.
Townsfolk loved to invite him to their family dinners and games evenings simply because he adored everything.
“You outdid yourself this year, Clara!” he exclaimed in his lilting, Idle Groves accent.
A land so full of earth magic, the trees strolled about from time to time.
I had never made it farther than the Idle Woods, but their main street was home to baker shoppes run by flowers doling out dandelion delicacies—which is not cannibalism (so they say).
Quincy clapped his hands together so violently that his long, blue hair frizzed out for a moment. “I mean, good gracious! I know you have garden magic, but all of this in just a few months? You should be so proud.”
Warmth bloomed in my heart at the earnestness in his turquoise eyes, the familiar guilt following soon after.
“Moss is magic,” I said lightly. Quincy cocked his head to the side.
“You are magic!” he said, all smiles. I didn’t quip back.
Not quite, I thought. But I did my best planning for it always to turn out well in the end.
Months of meticulous garden plotting, singing growing songs at all hours of the day, weeding for hours on end, writing and rewriting the best soil composition.
Backbreaking work that, on the outside, looked like what any other Town Gardener could do.
That’s what garden magic was most useful for, after all.
Growing good gardens fit for a village. One snap of a Town Gardener’s fingers, it was said, and a garden bed would be seeded and sprouting in no time.
It never worked quite that way for me. My meager magic was nothing compared to someone with proper garden magic. Other folk could walk out into their garden, armed with seeds, proverbially snap their fingers, and sprouts really would appear in a matter of moments.
I, on the other hand, have to listen to the land, search deep for what’s underneath, and pull on the power already there—always and forever reaching, never channeling. My magic is and has only ever been the initial spark for the garden; it was that coupled with the earth that started the true fire.
There were times when it was quite easy, my magic bubbling happily in my chest like soup, the land ripe for harvests.
Other times, though, I would be having a bad day, and it would be the dead of winter, so neither the earth nor I were in much of a mood to grow anything at all.
That’s when I would have to resort to singing growing songs, humming and warbling away to get my magic to budge even a bit, to fan the flames.
But no matter what people thought or how, the job was done and done well. The tension that had been building in my body for months finally released, and I knew I could fall asleep right there on the soft, upturned ground if I wanted to.
My heart pinched as I looked at the empty garden beds all around me.
Home didn’t feel the same without green everywhere.
But summer had barely begun, and once I received my new batch of seeds from Farmer Gristle, I’d be singing them to life in just a few weeks.
The garden beds would be overflowing once more, and the town would pick and choose their daily bounty.
But that was another day’s task. Because today, I needed to prepare myself for the Goddess Celebration.
Perhaps the best part of being the Celebration Gardener was that all my work was complete by the morning of her arrival. And once my work ended, the town’s began. The bakers, the cooks, and the florists all toiled away, making their delectable and magnificent creations from my crops.
“Any plans after the Celebration? Grand travels? Towns begging for you to take a look at their gardens?” Quincy asked, raising his eyebrows with each question.
A stack of unanswered post from all over Nestryia sat on my fireplace mantel with inquiries as to my interest in traveling to them for a short period of time.
“Not this year,” I said with practiced ease, a curated smile. “Moss keeps me busy.”
“I’ve never heard of a Town Gardener staying in one place for so long; we are lucky to have you with us.
” Quincy didn’t mean anything by it, but pain nevertheless pierced my heart.
He didn’t know why I chose to forgo the adventures that usually accompanied the title of Town Gardener.
He only knew that I chose to stay, and that was a rare thing indeed.
Almost every village of the realm had a Town Gardener, and while there are plenty of folk with garden magic, there aren’t many who wish to take up the gauntlet of providing food for an entire town.
There are always vacant positions needing to be filled.
Thankfully, most Town Gardeners love to travel, bringing the seeds from their homes to other places, learning from the folk around the realm, perfecting garden beds plumb full of flora from all of Nestryia.
Most Town Gardeners only stayed in one spot for five years at most. After that, they headed to a new horizon.
Many even opted to remain traveling Town Gardeners for years, spending a few weeks in different villages year-round.
They say garden magic is the only requirement for the position, but a penchant for adventure certainly seems to be part of it as well.
I have neither.
Moss was home, and home was where I would stay. Even so, I worried if Moss would one day want another Town Gardener. Someone who could bring new things from places I’ve never been. Someone more than me.
“Well, I’d better be on my way! Patti Larkthorn is going to have my head on a silver platter if I don’t get these flowers to her shoppe before too long.
” Quincy snapped his fingers, and the wagons began rolling their way back to town.
The mountain of carrots wobbled dangerously, but before I could call out in warning, another snap of Quincy’s fingers had everything in its proper place once more.
Folk with tidying magic… they had it so easy.
With one quick motion, they could have the entire cottage organized, everything in its rightful place.
What must it be like to simply call upon one’s abilities without thinking? I’d never know.
I watched the wagons meander up the hill that led into town.
The sun rose right as the last wagon crested the highest peak and disappeared over the other side.
Just yesterday, I’d worried my life would be irrevocably damaged.
But a shadowy stranger had saved me after all, Sylvie’s salve healing my wounds. And hope lived on.
I’m home. I’m safe. All is well.
I heard a familiar squeak and looked down to see Warty running circles in between my boots.
“We did it!” I squealed, scooping him up and nuzzling his nose. “What should we do to celebrate?”
Warty looked at my dress, then back up to me.
“What? Do I have something on it?” I asked, searching for a more egregious stain than the typical dirt covering my clothes. Nothing to be seen. Warty repeated the gesture and after years of deciphering his chirps, squeaks, and the like, I finally understood what he was angling at.
“Fine.” I huffed. “But that is the last change I’m taking part in. Forever. I’ve had enough adventure for a lifetime.”
“You? You are getting a new dress?” Rosie stared at me in disbelief as we made our way through the town square.
Everyone took to the town today, hanging their Celebration decorations on shoppes and cottages.
Tulips adorned window boxes, delicate moss sculptures of Eldrene and her Forest Train sat sentinel by doors, and enticing smells came from the bakeries: rich spices, roasted meats, sautéed squash pies, carrot cakes.
“And why is that so surprising?” I asked, bending down to smell a tulip.
“Just the simple fact that I have known you for fifteen years, and I’ve seen you purchase possibly two dresses that entire time.” Her long red hair looked particularly magnificent today, blowing in the soft breeze.
“I hate too many options—you of all people should know that—and besides, I generally have no need for such attire. Everything I own is doomed to get torn and dirty out in the garden.” We passed by the first dress shoppe, which had an array of fabrics hanging on a rack outside.
I turned away from Rosie, inspecting the woven textiles in the discount pile tucked underneath the racks.
“It’s about Goddess-damned time!” Rosie squealed behind me. I sighed in exasperation. Yes, it had been years since I’d bought a new dress, but did she need to make such a fuss?
“I like my regular clothes—”
But before I could say anything more, it became abundantly clear who’d garnered Rosie’s excitement.
Ludwig Gudling had taken up position on the town stage—a raised wooden slat that was usually home to our Bard’s theatrics—and today, apparently, Ludwig.
The shoppe-goers kept to their business, their intermingled conversations a cacophony of sound.
No one could bear Ludwig, and they had no intention of paying him heed today.
Ludwig was Moss’s… fanatic. He constantly told tall tales of Irk Road, the Witherings, dragons ravaging towns, the death of the Gods, et cetera.
Essentially, any story that might ruin your day and fill your head with fear.
He used to be a world-renowned storyteller, but his acclaim fell with his growing proclivity to share the darker sides of Nestryia.