Linnea's Arc

Chapter 12 of 14

The next morning Linnea walked into the empty barn and stopped. The shelves were bare. Yesterday she had pressed her last pale petal to a sick baby's mouth. Every plant she once grew had gone out the door in a stranger's hands, scattered across the province to keep them safe from the lord. She had saved the cure by giving it all away. Now she had nothing to stock a hidden shelf. She had two geckos and a plan for a door with no name, and no medicine to put behind it. She knelt by the wall and searched the dirt for a dropped cutting. Nothing. Not a seed pod. Not a root. She had been thorough, and thoroughness had emptied her. A cart rolled up outside. Mia stepped down in her dark suit, pearls at her throat. She was the broker who once charged the sick to stand in line, then lied to the lord's captain to keep Linnea free. Linnea braced for a price. "You gave them all away," Mia said. She looked at the bare shelves and did not smile. "Every last one." "To save them," Linnea said. "Now I can't heal anyone." Mia set a clay pot on the shelf. It held a plant Linnea had never grown. Soft purple and blue blossoms opened over layered green leaves. Painted symbols wrapped the pot. "I bought this off a farmer three villages over," Mia said. "He said a stranger gave it to him. Said it eases the shaking sickness. The falling fits. Bodies that don't work the way others do." She tapped the pot. "It's yours. One of your own cuttings, grown into something new." Linnea touched a petal. The plant was healthy, rooted, alive. Her scattered cure had not died in strangers' hands. It had spread and changed and come back to her. "You're giving it to me," Linnea said. "For free." "Consider it stock," Mia said. "One plant. You'll need more." "Why help me?" Mia buttoned her jacket. "Because a healer with nothing is worth nothing. And I found where the others went." She pulled a folded paper from her coat. On it were names, villages, marks. "Every person you handed a plant. I tracked them. You can gather cuttings back, one house at a time, and stock a small room no lord will find." Linnea took the paper. Her hands were steady now. The cure was not gone. It was out there, growing in kitchens and gardens, waiting to be brought home in pieces. "A hidden shelf," she said. "Filled slow. One plant at a time." "Quiet," Mia said. "Small. The way you wanted." She climbed onto her cart. "But the farmer talked. He knew where the plant came from. Word travels down that list too." The cart rolled off. Linnea looked at the single blooming pot, then at the list of names. Her shelf had one plant. Someone else was following the same trail.