Chapter 26
Her tongue tasted like beginnings and ends, and I was stuck in the in-between.
I hastily scrawled the line out, crumpled the page, and threw it into the growing pile behind me.
Edge sat on the windowsill, peering outside. He had just finished his flyover of the surrounding area, reporting back all good news. There was no sign of the Prince regathering any forces. It seemed he had depleted what small legion he had back in Lore. We were safe for now.
Warty had plopped himself right next to Edge as soon as he returned and was now nibbling at today’s scone delivery. They had officially taken up full-time residence in the library, which was now my room. The red floral armchair made for the comfiest of beds (once it was properly dusted, of course).
I sucked on my teeth, pondering what to write next. It wasn’t like going out in the garden would do much good; I might as well give writing a hearty shot. Maybe I could pen a great book in whatever prison Eldrene would throw me into once I failed this quest.
Only a few days had passed since the Sprout Fiasco.
Hesper and I were at odds with each other yet again—the relative peace we found in fixing up the cottage evaporated like morning dew.
She was annoyed at my using the sprout’s death as proof that it must have just been a weed or a bit of growth I had missed in my work.
I was perplexed at her insisting that I grew the seed with this magic I apparently possessed.
Also.
Nothing had grown.
Of course nothing had grown. What did I expect?
A full cup of tea to be poured from a dry, empty pot?
Still, I pressed on. I would not become a pitiful, weeping mess and cite that failing people was my greatest fear.
No, that was for me to cry about by myself as I washed in the mornings.
I wallowed in self-pity only then, metaphorically slapped myself back into reality, and then set to work.
Though the last few days had been nothing short of an absolute flop, there were bright moments.
Dwindlers stopped by each day—some to chat, some to drop off a gift or food.
Hesper and I never had to go into town if we didn’t want to.
And I certainly didn’t; there was so much to be done.
But whenever folk did pop by, I found myself dropping what I was doing, leaning against the garden gate, and chatting the afternoon away.
There was an ease in Dwindle that I hadn’t felt in Moss—which was my own doing.
I had always believed deeply that keeping my hurt in the past and never speaking of it would kill it.
Instead, the hurt sank its way into my very bones, poisoning me bit by bit.
It thrived in my solitude; the only person who could combat all the pain inside of me was myself.
And then, I’d told Hesper everything that evening in Lore.
Ever since, the fissure in my heart has turned into a waterfall—all the dammed-up memories fighting not just to get out but to be heard.
Dwindle wanted to listen; I wanted to share.
The second afternoon, I met Mabel, a sweet ogre who ran Dwindle’s library. She had a particular penchant for sourcing the best children’s books, she told me.
“The ones that put the children to sleep with the sweetest of dreams and have the caretakers wondering about bits of the story, too,” she told me in her sweet, singsong accent. “Good pictures, of course.”
“That’s a must,” I agreed.
“It’s been quite lonely for me for a long time. No new books have come in ages, and the library can only be open one day a week. Even then, not many people stop in. They’ve already read everything I have, and—well—I’m just lonely for company,” she said, her eyes glassy.
She spoke of the hardships she’d endured before stumbling upon Dwindle.
An ogre wasn’t always treated with kindness in Nestryia, but this place offered her a home.
My heart ached at her story. I could never understand it in full, but I did understand the feeling of finally finding a home after so long without one.
I learned she was the kind person who had rubbed my back the first day I arrived here, when I had a case of the “the dreads.” I tried to thank her profusely, but she shrugged it away.
“We’re all just trying our best. It is a hard, odd, wonderful thing to be alive. Everyone needs a bit of dread to have the joy, I s’pose.” She smiled easily, then bowed her head before setting off toward town.
Thus, the days eased by. The garden was dormant, but my heart was certainly not.
Today, just as the sun dipped low in the horizon, the famously private Giddy stopped by.
I hadn’t realized she was at the garden gate until I heard the softest clearing of someone’s throat.
Thinking it was Hesper, I ignored it at first. But then the clearing turned into a cough, and I looked to see a petite, delicate woman covered in flour and bundled up in a fraying pink sweater.
She had a bun plopped atop her head that reminded me of Sylvie’s, only instead of a honey pot, Giddy’s was shaped like a cinnamon bun. The white streak running through her auburn hair certainly finished off the pastry illusion.
“I thought I should introduce myself,” she said breathily, thrusting a large linen parcel into my arms. It smelled like spices, hazelnuts, and… was that chocolate? My stomach growled. “I’m Giddy,” she chirped. “You’re Clara, I think. And the unseen other must be Hesper.”
“Yes.” I smiled. “She’s currently in the kitchen fixing the sink.” As if on cue, a loud metal clank emanated from the cottage followed by the words Goddess damn it! “Thank you for stopping by. These will be gone in a matter of hours, I promise you.”
“I know you’re a gardener so I—well, I took some liberties with the pastry shapes. Been wanting to do something like that for a while but didn’t have a good reason to, so…” She wiped her clean hands on her apron over and over again.
“Do you mind if I look now?” I asked. I often hated people opening the gifts I’d brought them in front of me. Because if they didn’t like it, then they’d feel quite obliged to say otherwise, so I’d really just prefer if they opened them in peace. But pastries were a time-sensitive matter.
“Please, I’d love your thoughts.” She nodded vigorously.
I opened up the parcel. Inside was an array of biscuits shaped like leaves, buttery pastries that looked like the gardener’s cottage, and delicate swirls of chocolate biscuits fashioned to resemble willow leaves.
“Giddy, these are marvelous.” I beamed.
Her shoulders relaxed, her hazel eyes blown wide.
“I think my baking is best with fresh fruits and vegetables, but we haven’t had any for a long time.
So I’m confined to shelf-stable materials and butter.
Lots of butter. You like them, though?” she asked as I bit into a chocolate-hazelnut willow tree and sighed contentedly, my eyes fluttering closed at the rich flavor coating my tongue.
She gave the most adorable elated clap and then walked off without another word.
She and Angus would make a good pair. As odd and kind as they come.
Speak of the devil—Angus came down the lane just as Giddy was leaving. They had a stunted, strange conversation where both tried to say hi but accidentally did so simultaneously, and repeated the process twelve times over until Giddy shook her head and left with a strained smile.
Angus—who visited at least three times a day now—turned toward me with a pained smile and then held a tankard of mead high in the air.
Work was officially done for the evening, and we gathered around the hearth, drinking merrily.
Hesper and I, somehow, without speaking, had agreed to set aside our mutual differences for the night and opted to entertain Angus in an undivided household. I didn’t quip at her; she didn’t accuse me of magic.
’Twas nice—until the peace broke.
The fire cast the room in a syrupy glow, and the newly dusted armchairs gave each of us ample room to cuddle in deep as we talked of everything and nothing. We laughed until I’d surely wheezed myself into some health issue.
As the night came to a close, a comfortable silence settled into the room.
“What’s it like to have garden magic?” Angus asked, taking a swig of mead.
My blushing cheeks went sallow. Hesper paused just as she brought her glass up to her mouth.
“It’s—uh—it’s…” He saw you have an all-out meltdown only a few days ago. The truth can’t be worse than that. “I don’t really have any.”
I shrugged as nonchalantly as possible. “Well, I did. Back in Moss. Magic was there, but I struggled with it always.” I hiccupped, as did Angus. We were all entirely spent, but my head was clear enough to say the rest. “Then it goes poof when I leave. It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
I looked to Hesper for agreement.
“Not even close.” She finished off her bottle and began a new one.
“Oh, don’t listen to her.” I shooed her words away with my mead-free hand.
“She thinks I have special magic. It’s so special that I can’t use it, nor find it, and my parents hated me as a child because I didn’t have it.
” I laughed like only someone who has one too many drinks running through their veins can.
Or, more aptly, as someone who finally started letting others peer behind the veils of her heart.
Mabel’s words had stuck with me, even through the heady mead: It is a hard, odd, wonderful thing to be alive.
It was only natural that a little girl who’d grown up the way I did would keep the ones she loved the most shut out of her heart.
That was what she knew to be safe, to be true.
But I supposed somewhere along this odd, wonderful quest, I was learning different things about what hearts could do when love was let in.
“Huh” was all Angus said. He’d forget it in the morning, I was sure.
But the mead made me loose tongued, the comfort I felt with Hesper and Angus opened up my heart, and the words kept tumbling.
“There is this feeling I get, though.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees.
“It’s happened just a few times—like there’s this tiny ball of light in my chest, and it seems like magic.
But I can’t grasp hold of it. Flowers pop up here and there, and I think that maybe it was…
me. Then I feel so foolish because I know better than that, right?
I know better.” I chuckled to myself, taking another swig.
“Then maybe I think that I don’t know much at all. ”
“Who does?” Angus raised his glass for a cheers. Hesper and I raised ours. “To not knowing everything!”
“Now, shall I tell you a secret?” He hiccupped.
“It’s only fair.” My words slurred together.
He leaned back in his armchair and let out a great sigh. “I am in love with Giddy Gertrude, the pastry shoppe owner.”
“You are?” I asked excitedly.
“Yes!”
“Are you two together?”
“Not at all!”
“But why?”
“I’m too scared.” He smiled sadly, taking a swig.
“You see, I have loved her ever since I met her. And she’s so busy with her shoppe, and she has the loveliest hazel eyes.
She smells like cardamom seeds, and—well—Clara, she’s just too good for me, you see.
If you love someone, Clara, don’t do what I do. Don’t be scared.”
Just then, Warty fell off the armchair and rolled dangerously close to the fire. Angus had been slipping him sips without my noticing. The conversation devolved into all things hedgehog care and town gossip.
Angus did not, in fact, remember our conversation the next day. Or at least, he didn’t bring it up. But I remembered.
And Hesper certainly remembered.
“Tell me about this kernel,” she inquired as she painted the cottage honey yellow, and I dug a fifth garden bed.
“No,” I said for the umpteenth time because there was work. To. Do.
“You’re going to learn to let go one day,” she teased.
“You first,” I bit back. She was the one hung up on the nonexistent magic.
“Ever think that if you didn’t try to grasp it tightly, it might come willingly?”
“Nope, never, not once.”
“One day.”
“One day.” I wiped the sweat off my head and looked her in the eye. “And one day, you’ll return to Eldrene’s Train, and we’ll never see each other again,” I said it lightly, my tone practiced. My heart raced.
We’d edged around this conversation but never had it fully.
Hesper stood still for a moment, a muscle in her jaw ticking. “One day, that is what will happen.”
“And one day, all of this”—I motioned to the garden, to myself—“will be just a memory.”
“A good one,” she offered. Almost as a condolence.
Is that all I was then? Just a good memory? A memento to take back with her as she spent her endless days in servitude? And even if she felt a modicum of what swirled inside of me, there was nothing to be done about it.
“I see,” I said, my voice still airy, even though my stomach plummeted.
“Clara,” Hesper said beseechingly.
“Never mind,” I said, shaking my head and setting back to work. “It doesn’t matter.” I swallowed a lump down my throat. “I just—it doesn’t matter.”
No matter how hard I reached for her, she couldn’t stay. Just like magic. Just like everything.
So I doubled down on barricading my heart, reining it all back in to focus solely on the job at hand.
Yes, these last few days of getting to know Dwindle had been lovely, but they were a distraction.
I had a quest to do, a home to get back to, and only twenty-four more days to achieve the insurmountable.
I did what I do best. I shut everything and everyone out.
I toiled all day in the garden where nothing grew.
I did not speak to Hesper, didn’t speak much to anyone.
I reached for magic, desperately clawed for it, day and night. Nothing.
And then, the day came when it all blew to shreds.