Aster Alloway's Arc

Chapter 25 of 26

The wind hit the shed at dusk. Aster had just packed the last soil around the shoot when the boards began to rattle. Nell had warned her, days ago on the trail, that a real storm was coming. Now it had reached the city. Rain slammed the roof. A cold draft slipped under the shed door and crossed the floor. The mirrored ball hummed in the corner, its song feeding the glowing spores. But each gust pulled the sound out through the gap. Aster watched the pollen bud dim, just a little, then a little more. She pressed a rag along the bottom of the door. The draft found the sides. She stuffed twine in the cracks. It was not enough. The little octagonal shed, with its cheerful pom-pom curtains, had never been built to hold air. Cold leaked from every seam. The bud kept fading. She had carried this song across the whole grove. She would not lose it under her own roof. She needed to seal the room with something thick and soft. Cloth. Aster grabbed what she had. A quilt in warm tan tones, stitched in careful patterns, and a wild patchwork one covered in mismatched squares. She hung the tan quilt over the door and pinned the patchwork one across the drafty window. The gusts pushed. The quilts held most of them. But wind still slid through the gaps at the edges, where cloth met wood. The edges needed to be sewn shut, tight to the frame. Aster looked at the hot pink sewing machine on the bench. Benny had left it days ago, bright and cheerful, in case she needed to mend the singing dress. Now she dragged it to the door. She fed the quilt's edge under the needle and stitched it straight onto a strip of scrap wood. Then she nailed the strip flush against the frame. She did the same on the window. Stitch, nail, stitch, nail, until every seam sat tight. The humming grew louder inside the sealed room. Aster knelt by the pot and listened. No draft crossed the floor now. The song stayed where it belonged. The bud brightened, then held its glow steady under the eternal light. She let out a long breath and pulled a puffy coat over her shoulders, one stitched from bolts and screws, warm against the chill still soaking through the walls. The storm raged on outside, but the shed was quiet and lit. The pollen was safe. Aster sat against the sealed door and watched the bud shine. She had beaten the wind. Yet as she rested, she felt the cold press through the walls, deeper than a draft. The room was sealed tight now, but it was growing colder by the hour. A living shoot could not survive a freeze. She had kept the song in. Now she had to keep the warmth from leaving.