Fennel Thistledown's Arc

Chapter 8 of 21

Three days after Marisol left, Fennel knelt in her garden and pinched a feverbloom stem. It came away thin and pale. The plants had given all they had. She walked the rows and counted. Two dozen weak sprigs where she needed hundreds. Word had spread. More sick would come, and her garden could not grow fast enough to meet them. A wagon creaked up the path. Cornelius Goodwain climbed down, the same merchant who once held her remedy water at the right heat while she taught her girls. He tipped his wide hat and looked at her wilted rows. "You're short again," he said. "The garden won't catch up," Fennel said. "Not before the next crowd." Cornelius unhooked a brass scale from his belt and set it on his wagon rail. "I don't sell herbs. I sell what moves them." He pulled back a cloth. Beneath it curled a creature the size of a large dog. Its legs were long and graceful. Its dark body glowed with bright cracks of heat, like coals under a black crust. Fennel stepped back. "A lava beast. In my garden." "Found it up the mountain," Cornelius said. "Warm ground helps things grow. Your beds are cold. This one fixes that." The creature stepped down. Where it walked, the soil steamed. It settled among the feverbloom and folded its long legs. Warmth spread through the beds. Fennel pressed her palm to the dirt and felt it turn from cool to summer-warm. "It won't burn them?" she asked. "It's gentle," Cornelius said. "Warmth, not fire. Watch." Fennel watched. A weak sprig, half bent, lifted its leaves toward the heat. Within an hour the pale stems darkened. New buds swelled where none had been. The garden that could not keep pace now grew before her eyes. She thought of her knees, her fading memory, her two students. "I can't pay much," she said. "Not asking money," Cornelius said. "The beast eats scraps and coal. I ask you keep it fed and let me pass through when I need a bed." Fennel took his rough hand and shook it. That night she walked the warmed rows with a lantern. The beds glowed faintly. Feverbloom stood tall and green, more than she had grown in a season. She filled six jars before dawn and had leaves to spare. But the full jars showed her the harder truth. She could grow herbs now. She could not stand at the beds all day to tend them, nor cut and dry them fast enough alone. Her knees would not last the season. The garden's cure had bought her time, and time was the thing she most needed to spend teaching. She could grow the herbs. She still had no one trained enough to run this garden when her hands finally failed. That was the work that could not wait.