Chapter 27
Sometimes, the most miraculous things in life spawn from a single insignificant moment of… utter rage.
Not even weeds grew outside.
After four days of digging out new garden beds in feeble hopes that I’d fill them with plants seemingly out of the ether, I had given up for a single morning. That’s right. I let myself give up. How’s that for letting go, Hesper?
I barricaded myself in the library (with Edge and Warty, of course) and planned to spend the day wallowing.
What else was there to do?
Hesper had repaired the cottage. I had cleared out the entirety of the garden.
What work I could do was done. And if I spent one more moment singing to the ground as if I had magic until I was hoarse, only for Hesper to come out shaking her head in disappointment, I worried I might commit an illegal act.
Of murder.
In the highest degree.
So I lounged in my giant armchair, welcoming the familiar soreness of fruitless work. And wrote.
Her tongue tasted like beginnings and ends, and I was stuck in the in-between.
There once was a girl who loved another girl with stars in her eyes and nighttime in her hair.
What the hells was wrong with me? I ripped the page so hard that three more pages tore along with it.
I swore loudly, rousing Edge from his reading and Warty from his nibbling.
They stared at me unblinkingly and then resumed their mutual morning routine.
Luckily, there was an entire shelf full of journals and blank paper—plenty of future kindling.
A knock came from the bottom of the stairs. Hesper’s way of giving me privacy. She had taken up residence in the mushroom bedroom in the end. The library was all mine. But there was no door, so we agreed she wouldn’t cross the first step without me knowing first.
“What?” I called down grumpily.
“We need to go into town today,” she said curtly.
“Why?”
“Because we’ve been holed up at this cottage and we need to get out.”
“No, you need to get out. I have work to do.”
“You either come with me willingly, or I carry you into town, Clara,” she replied coolly.
“I’d like to see you try.” I set my feet firmly on the floor, hoping the stomp said enough about how exactly I would be spending my day.
I didn’t even hear her come up the stairs, but suddenly, she was in front of me, wagging her finger in my face and shooing at me to get out of the chair. I hit her hand away.
“I’m not going into town today.” I stood up to look her in the eyes. My nightdress was falling off my shoulders, skirting the tops of my breasts. She didn’t seem to care.
“Yes, you are going into town,” she threatened.
I balked at her tone. Hesper might vex me daily, but she still maintained a modicum of warmth. Today was different. She was different.
“Why are you acting like this? You know I have work to do, a garden to grow, a town to save, and we are already ten days in. Do you remember how little time we have? Or have you conveniently forgotten that?” I said impetuously, stalking up to her.
Even with sunlight beginning to pour into the room, shadows bathed her.
She came right up to me, pressing her nose down onto mine.
“You’re going into town with me today, princess. Suck it up.”
“No!” I shouted.
“Yes,” she said in a low whisper.
My heart lurched in my chest. What a traitor.
I attempted to argue more, but Hesper was too close, her breath on my mouth. My thoughts were erratic, my heart more so.
She gently swiped my hair off my shoulders and tugged me in closer by my neck. I swallowed a whimper at the gesture. She leaned down to my ear, her nearness igniting me.
“We are going whether you like it or not. You’re not the only one who can take control,” she rasped.
I shoved her hard, but she didn’t budge an inch. She expected an onslaught, and she was as unmovable as the cottage itself. Then, she hoisted me over her shoulder like a rag doll. I beat on her back, but it did nothing at all.
“Are you just going to sit there and do nothing?” I called to Edge and Warty. They both looked entirely unbothered by the whole scene.
“This is none of our business, My Lady,” Edge said, his elegant head turned down toward his book. What an almighty coward.
I screamed and kicked and bucked the entire way down the stairs, but Hesper kept on going.
“You can fight all you want, Clara, but you’re not winning this one,” she seethed, her grip on me hardening. “I’m done wasting my time with you.”
She burst through the front door into the peaceful morning that awaited our riot.
“Wasting your time?” I screeched.
Dew hung heavy on the ground, and birds chirped happily in the trees. The perpetually gray fog wasn’t present this morning. I interrupted it all with animalistic roars.
To my horror, Angus and Murt were at the garden gate. Their arms were full of more gifts from the town. But at the sight of us, they calmly laid their packages down and backed away silently before hightailing it down the road.
“See what you did?” I screamed. Embarrassment and brash anger mixed together until my body boiled with emotion.
“Good for them to know what they’ve gotten themselves into with you.” She shifted my body, digging her shoulder right into my stomach. I jerked and clawed, but she paid no mind to the gremlin attacking her.
“I hate you, I hate you, I mean it!” I raged on.
“Join the club, princess. I’ve killed people before. Do you think I’m going to care whether a gardener who can’t even grow a single thing likes me or not?” she said right back, the timbre of her voice matching mine.
What the hells was going on? Hesper and I had bickered, but she’d never been like this. She was distant and unkind in a way I’d never experienced before.
Fine then; it was a fight she wanted? A fight she would have.
“Maybe if I weren’t stuck around a washed-up soldier day in and day out, I might be able to grow something,” I said, goading her. The words were harsh and pointed.
“Or maybe if you stopped working for two minutes and looked at the world around you instead of focusing on your Goddess-damned failures, then you wouldn’t be one,” she shouted. “But no, you refuse to let yourself live. At all.”
She set me down then, hard. I tried to run, but she grabbed my hand, holding me firmly in front of her. I struggled against her, but it was no use.
“And what do you know about it? You don’t know me; you don’t know my life. Just because we fucked doesn’t mean you get to tell me about myself.” What had happened? We hadn’t spoken for days; how could I have done something so dire as to result in her turning on me so viciously?
“We didn’t fuck,” she said with deathly calm.
“Excuse me? Were you not there in the wagon?”
“We didn’t fuck, Clara. I. Fucked. You. And then you went to sleep.”
Killing her might be my only option. Yes, this woman would meet her end right here, right now. Proper brawl be damned. This was war.
“Maybe I went to sleep because I was bored,” I replied with that same calmness, even though my insides were ashes blowing in the wind.
“Yes, you were positively dripping with boredom.”
“You didn’t seem to mind when you drank my boredom from me with moans,” I said through gritted teeth, getting as close to her as I dared.
Hesper let out an incredulous laugh.
“I hadn’t fucked in a while. I wanted a good time before I returned to Eldrene’s Train.”
My heart bucked in my chest—the carefully constructed walls I’d built these last few days burned up in an instant. All that was left was the pulpy, beating thing I’d fought so hard to protect.
She tore it all down. Over and over again.
“So it’s true then—” My voice was breaking, but I didn’t dare look away from her. “I was never anything more than just a good memory.”
“Who said it was good?”
“I don’t understand.” Hot, angry tears sprung up, my heart burning brightly in my chest. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t Hesper. “Why are you acting like this? What have I done?”
“Look around, princess.” I did, at the empty garden beds, at the cottage that awaited life. “You’ve. Done. Nothing.”
Nothing?
There were many things I had done in this life; nothing wasn’t one of them.
My heart screamed in my chest, seething. How dare she?
Yes! I want to explode, I shouted back. I want to go up in smithereens, I want to be everything.
Finally, my heart murmured.
The hollow place in my chest filled up to the brim. The kernel of light finally erupted. Something in the deepest parts of me unlatched, and a torrent fled through me all at once. My knees buckled at the sensation, but Hesper caught me before I could hit the ground.
The earth quaked below us, a shudder so deep that the neatly stacked, freshly repaired terra-cotta garden pots toppled over, sending shards everywhere. Bits of hay rained down on us from the roof. Even the windows in the cottage shook, rattling violently in their wooden frames.
Hesper held me away from her, her eyes going wide. My bones were burning, my chest was exploding, and she was smiling. Why was she smiling?
The quaking ceased, eerie silence following in its wake.
What the—
Thorny bushes erupted from the ground, the sheer force causing clumps of dirt and rock to catapult into the sky. Hesper covered me with her body, shielding my head from falling debris.
But the force was so powerful, not even Hesper could hold her balance. We both fell to the ground, holding on to each other for dear life. Was it the Prince? Was that why Hesper was acting so strangely? He was near and the withering magic was taking hold again?
No, my heart chided.
Well, what was it then?
Finally, the eruptions ended. Stillness fell onto the cottage once more; the birds picked up their morning song as if nothing had happened. Hesper hoisted me gently off the ground, and I was met with the most astonishing sight.