Aster Alloway's Arc

Chapter 22 of 26

The city gate opened at last. Aster pushed the cart through wet streets while Zinnia wound the music box and sang. But relief died fast. Aster's flower shop stood open to the air, doors and windows wide for customers. The pollen needed steady sound and shelter. Her shop had neither. Set the fridge on an open counter, and the first quiet gap would let the spores fade. Six years, lost at the finish. "We can't stop here," Aster said. Her throat still ached. "The moment a customer leaves the door open, the song leaks out. We need a closed room." Zinnia kept singing and winding, but her arm shook. "I can't do this all night. Where do we put it?" Aster remembered a shop tucked inside the inn nearby, one shaped like a bright star. A woman there sold disco dresses. Aster had passed it a hundred times. She pushed the cart toward it, hoping the woman knew fabric that held sound. Stella Nightshine stood in her doorway, running a shimmering skirt through her fingers. She was the dress dealer who tested cloth by touch alone. She watched the skirt keep swaying after her hand stopped. "Real dress moves after you do," she said, not looking up. "That one on you is singing. I can hear it." "It is," Aster said. "But I can't feed it forever. I need a room that holds sound. A place that hums on its own." Stella set the skirt down. She stepped inside and came back with a mirrored ball, small enough to cradle. Light spun off it in every color. "This one doesn't need winding," she said. "It hums by itself. Doesn't stop." Aster stared. "How?" "Spins on its own shine," Stella said. "I don't ask why. It just works." She held it near the cart. The mirrored ball turned slow and gave off a low, steady hum. The dress caught the sound. The peacock feathers shivered. The fridge chimed back to full, bright and even. Zinnia let her arms drop. The music box slowed and stopped. The glow held anyway. Aster breathed for the first time in days. "But I can't keep this in an open shop," Aster said. "One draft and it slips." Stella pointed past the inn. "There's a small potting shed. Lavender walls, pom-pom curtains. Closed and dry. Flower keepers store their stash there." She pressed the ball into Aster's hands. "Take it. Put both inside. Shut the door." Aster wheeled the cart to the little octagonal shed. She rolled it in, set the mirrored ball beside the fridge, and closed the door tight. Inside, the hum filled the small space. The pollen glowed steady, safe, sealed away from every open window. Aster leaned against the lavender wall. The pollen was home and it was safe. Now she needed a way to open a bloom of her own from a single canister of borrowed light.