Grampy Fernside's Arc

Chapter 14 of 16

Grampy came out at first light with the empty jug in one hand and a small trowel in the other. The bed showed twelve green hooks and seven flat stones. The dawn deadline he had set himself was here. He knelt by the nearest pink stone and set the trowel on the soil. If the seed under it was dead, he needed to know so he could replant the spot with a common bloom to fill the bouquet. If the seed was alive, one wrong dig would end it. He could not tell by looking. He pressed a thumb near the stone. The soil felt the same as every other patch. He sat back and rubbed his beard, and the flowers his wife had tucked in that morning brushed his wrist. A small crunch came from the grass. Delphine walked up in her red hat and strawberry overalls, a beetle riding on the brim. She stopped at the edge of the bed and counted the stones without being asked. "Seven left," she said. "You're going to dig." "I have to know," Grampy said. "If they're gone, I need the room." "Don't dig." She crouched and lifted the beetle off her hat. Its shell threw green and pink in the light. "Pip finds things. Roots, mostly. He can smell if there's anything under." She set the beetle on the soil beside the first pink stone. It sat still, then walked a slow half-circle and pushed its head into the dirt. A small mound turned up beside the stone. The beetle climbed out and went to the next stone on its own. Grampy watched it work its way down the row. At six of the stones the beetle dug a shallow scoop, sniffed, and moved on without lingering. At the seventh, the beetle stayed. It circled the stone twice and would not leave. Delphine picked it up and set it on her palm. "Six alive," she said. "One's not." Grampy lifted only the stone the beetle had refused to leave. He scraped a careful thumb of soil aside. A dark husk lay just under the surface, soft and split, no root, no shoot. He pinched it out and held it in his palm. Then he moved to the six mounds the beetle had made and pressed the soil back flat. Under each, he knew now, a pale seed sat with a thread of root and a stem still climbing. He replaced six stones and pocketed the seventh husk. Eighteen of nineteen. Not the full count he had promised, but close enough for a bouquet. He would need one more bloom to round it out, and he had a day less than he wanted to find it.