Amanita Sporewell's Arc

Chapter 4 of 14

Amanita set the bottle on Myrtle's kitchen table and stepped back. The two goblins waited by the door, spooning soup. The sprout inside the glass had doubled since the walk home. Its stem pressed against the neck. One thin leaf had already curled up into the spout and locked itself there like a green cork. "Aunt Myrtle," Amanita said. "It's growing." Myrtle Sporecap set down her ladle. She crossed the room in three short steps, mushroom cap hat wobbling, and bent to peer at the bottle. Her painted fingernail tapped the glass. The sprout twitched toward the sound. "Fast little thing," Myrtle said. "It wants out." "I need the water. For the garden. If it fills up the spout I'll get nothing." Myrtle straightened. Her brown eyes were sharp under the brim of her hat. "Then you have to choose, child. Pour the water now and lose the plant. Or plant the plant and lose most of the water." Amanita's stomach tightened. She had chased this bottle through ferns. She had traded her honey biscuit and her spare room for it. She was supposed to carry endless water home, not a weed. She looked at the sprout. It was small and pale and reaching. The roots inside had already threaded down through the painted soil at the bottom of the glass. "If I dump it out," Amanita said, "does the bottle still fill again?" "It should. But that sprout dies the moment its roots hit air." Amanita picked up the bottle. The gold bracing was warm. The leaf in the spout wriggled against her thumb. She thought of her garden patch, the seeds she still had to feed, the ingredients she had bled for. Water she could get again. This sprout she could not. She carried the bottle out the back door. Myrtle followed with her staff. The goblins trailed behind, curious now, still chewing. Amanita knelt at the edge of her garden patch. She dug a shallow hole with her fingers in the loam she had earned from the willow sprites. Then she pulled the stopper. Water rushed out in a green flood. It soaked the dirt, ran between her knees, filled the hole and overflowed. The sprout slid free with the last of it and landed in the wet loam, roots first. Amanita packed the soil around its stem. The bottle in her hand was empty. She tipped it. Nothing came. She shook it. Nothing. "Aunt Myrtle. It's dry." Myrtle crouched beside her. She turned the bottle in her hands and frowned at the etched patterns along its side. "Broken?" Amanita whispered. "Sleeping, maybe. Or spent." Myrtle handed it back. "You traded your endless water for one green shoot, child. I hope it's worth what grows." Amanita looked down. The sprout stood in her loam, tiny and stubborn. Behind her, the goblins had gone quiet.