Clover willow's Arc

Chapter 9 of 20

For two days Clover jumped at every sound. She healed a robin, fed the star-speckled creature, and swept the fox-house floor. But the debt sat in her chest like a stone. Thorne could ask for anything. She could not tell if she had traded the grove's safety for its ruin. She needed to know the price before it came due. On the third morning she found him at the edge of the grove, one wooden hand pressed to a young oak. Gold lights blinked in his branchy hair. Green veins glowed under his bark. Thorne Wildroot had sealed her trail and named no cost. Now she meant to force his hand. "Tell me what you want," Clover said. "I can't live not knowing." Thorne's amber eyes lifted. His mouth curled. "Impatient. Most people wait and hope I forget." "I won't wait." Her rabbit ears stood straight. "If your favor hurts the guardian, tell me now. I'd rather break the deal than let him pay for it." The smirk faded. Thorne studied her a long moment. Then he lifted his hand from the oak. "Come. I'll show you my price." He led her down through the trees to a meadow's edge. Myra Sporecap knelt there in the damp grass, pink braids over her shoulder, spores clinging to her hands. Around her, a ring of mushrooms had gone gray and slumped. Beside her stood Theo Ellison, the carpenter from below. Sawdust flecked his dark curls. He held his hat in both hands, out of place among the glowing plants. "The blight came up through the roots," Thorne said. "It spreads toward the grove. I sealed your trail, but I can't heal what's sick. You can. I've watched. Your hands are steadier than mine." He nodded at Theo. "He followed the last open root path before I closed it. He came looking for you." Clover's stomach turned. Theo raised his eyes to her. "Folks below said you vanished," he said. "I didn't believe it. Your porch swing still swings true. I fixed it in spring." He looked at the sick mushrooms, then back. "You're needed here. I see that now. I'll tell them you're gone for good." The favor was this: heal the blight, and keep the grove hidden by the one hand that could still reach it. Clover knelt beside Myra. She pressed her palms to the gray earth. Warmth ran from her hands into the soil. Slowly a new cap pushed up, then another, small and pale and alive. "That's the whole price," Thorne said. "Nothing more. The grove owed you a healer. I only made you pay it." Clover let out a breath she'd held for days. The debt was named. The guardian was safe. But Theo would walk home carrying her name, and the world below would close behind him like the trail. She had bought the grove for good. Now she had to be sure the guardian was worth the door she'd shut.