Amanita Sporewell's Arc

Chapter 10 of 14

Three nights after the fern took root, Amanita woke to a green glow pouring through her window. She went out barefoot. The willow branch she had cut and stuck at the edge of her patch as a marker was burning bright as a lantern. It had been dim when she planted it. Now it lit the whole garden. She would have been proud, except for the moths. Dozens hung in the air above her spore patch. Their wings were the size of her hands, dusted pale, and their mouths worked like slow scissors. Two had already landed on a new green sprout. When Amanita ran forward, they lifted, circled the branch, and came down again a foot away. By dawn, six sprouts were chewed to the stem. The sprites huddled under the fern, too small to fight wings that wide. Amanita counted what was left. Eleven sprouts. One more night like this and she would have none. She ran to her great-aunt's cottage. Myrtle Sporecap was already at her door, leaning on her staff, mushrooms bobbing on the brim of her hat. She had seen the glow from her window. "You cut a living branch from the willow," Myrtle said. She did not sound angry. She sounded tired. "A cut branch keeps drinking light for a while. Then it gives the light back all at once. Moths follow it. They always have." "Can I put it out?" "Water won't. Dirt won't." Myrtle tapped her staff once. "Take it back. Lay it at the willow's roots before the sun sets. The tree will finish it. If you wait one more night, the moths will strip every sprout you have." Amanita ran home, wrapped the branch in her apron, and carried it to the grove. It was hot through the cloth. She knelt where she had cut it and laid it against the trunk. The willow's long leaves swung down and closed around the branch like fingers around a coal. The glow dulled, then died. The apron came away cool. She walked home slow. The garden was dim again, only the fern giving its soft blue-green light. The sprites climbed out from under the fronds and touched the chewed stems, chirping low. Amanita counted the sprouts once more. Eleven. She knelt and pressed her palm flat to the damp loam. Something crackled under her hand — not a moth, not a root. A thin white thread ran along the soil, then another, spreading out from the fern. Mycelium. The spore had taken hold underground. She smiled, then her smile fell. The threads did not stop at the loam ring. They pushed straight past it, into the pale dead dirt beyond, and stalled there. Her garden was alive. It also wanted more ground than she had.