Addy Tinklebottom's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The pink bud held for one breath. Then its edges curled brown and it sank back into the cold dirt. Addy stared at the empty spot where her magic had died. She poured a second thread of dust. Another bud rose, trembled, and failed the same way. Rhommie laughed from the statue's stone hand. "Oh, sweetness. Watch that little heart of yours flicker." She twirled a finger. "Your magic climbs, then remembers it wants to be somewhere else. And down it falls. Every single time." Addy said nothing. She knew the pixie was right, and she hated that. Her dust was strong. Her aim was true. But her focus split each time, pulled toward the meadow past the far ridge. She had felt it since the first bud. The magic bloomed only as far as her heart would follow it. "You can't finish what you won't want," Rhommie said. She leaned forward, delighted. "So which is it, dear? The forest that holds you, or the field that calls you? Choose, or watch every flower rot in your hands." Addy looked at the dead ground. Then at the withered tree beside it, its heart-shaped branches gray and brittle. She thought of the meadow. She had wanted it for years. She had told herself roots came first, and she had swallowed the pull until it choked her. But the pull was not the problem. The lie was. She had been forcing dust into this earth while pretending she felt nothing. The magic knew the truth even when she would not say it. So she said it. "My heart's not here," Addy said. "It's over the ridge. It always has been." Her voice shook. "I planted myself in the wrong place. That's the whole embarrassing truth." Rhommie's smile thinned. This was not the squirming she had come to watch. "But I'm here now," Addy went on. "And this corner needs me. I can want the meadow and still do this. I don't have to choose one root and kill the other." She pressed both palms to the dirt. She let the pull stay. She stopped fighting it. Dust flowed from her hands, steady this time, no longer split against itself. A stem shot up. It thickened, budded, and opened into a broad flower. The petals ran from misted purple to deep gray, then softened to sage at the fringes. It did not curl. It did not fall. Around it, green crept back into the dead grass. Rhommie rose off the statue's hand, wings ticking. "Well," she said, no endearment now. "You spoiled my afternoon." She flew off toward the ribbon pole. Addy sat back on her heels. Her magic held because she had stopped lying. But the meadow still called, louder now that she had named it aloud. She had settled the wavering. She had not settled where she belonged.