Iris Thornwell's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Iris Thornwell knelt in the mud at the edge of Frog Hollow and counted three blossoms she had never seen before. Any one of them could be the rarest bloom in the hollow. She had spent four years planning a hidden grove for that flower, clearing a patch of high ground behind the alders, hauling in loam by the bucket. She had soil enough for one transplant. Choose wrong, and the grove would grow a common weed while the true rarity died in the fen. The first blossom was pale blue, no bigger than her thumbnail, growing from a cracked log. The second was a red bell hanging over black water. The third sat on a tuft of moss, white with a yellow throat, and it smelled like nothing at all. Iris had two books in her satchel and neither one named any of them. "You're going to pick the pretty one," Nessa Mudwren said behind her. "People always pick the pretty one." Iris did not turn. Nessa had followed her from the trailhead, boots squelching, arms crossed against the damp. Buzzford stood farther back under the alders, hooded and quiet, watching the water. He had warned her that morning that the fen shifted its flowers every spring and that last year's rare thing was this year's nuisance. Iris had ignored him. She was ignoring him now. A heron waded past the red bell and struck. It came up with a frog and the bell shivered on its stem, untouched. Iris marked that. Then a painted turtle climbed onto the cracked log and settled its weight directly on the pale blue blossom, crushing it flat. The turtle did not seem to notice. Neither did the log. Iris marked that too. The white flower sat alone on its moss and nothing came near it. "Myrtle," Iris said. Buzzford's head turned. "I need Myrtle Bogwater." They brought Myrtle out from her cabin an hour later, leaning on Buzzford's arm, twigs in her hair. She looked at each blossom in turn. She spat into the water beside the red bell. "Weed," she said. She tapped the pale blue with one knuckle. "Weed." Then she bent close to the white one and did not touch it. "That one. Grows once in nine years. Fox won't cross a patch of it." She straightened and squinted at Iris. "You dig it wrong, it dies in your hand. I'll dig it. Costs you the second bloom, whenever it comes." Iris looked at the white flower on its moss. Nine years. One bloom for the grove, and the next one, whenever it came, promised away before it opened. She held out her trowel. Myrtle took it. "Dig," Iris said.