Lunar's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

The fairy with the deed doesn't speak much while she works. Lunar finishes the third row of Silver Needle White and watches her set boundary stakes in a careful line. The fairy moves like someone who's done this before — measured, precise, no wasted motion. She doesn't ask where anything should go. She just claims her space and starts building. Lunar recognizes the rhythm. It's the same way she used to plant: fast enough that leaving wouldn't hurt as much. The fairy pulls a photograph from her pack while she rests. It slips from her fingers and lands face-up near Lunar's boots. Two fairies stand in a garden thick with sunflowers and climbing vines, their wings catching light through the leaves. The edges are worn soft, the colors faded to gentler versions of themselves. Lunar picks it up to hand it back, but the fairy's already walking away toward the forest edge. Lunar follows without thinking. Beyond the tree line, stone planters sit empty in rows. Pink flowers grow wild between them, tall and twisted, but the planters themselves hold nothing but dirt and dead roots. A fountain stands at the center, its basin cracked, bioluminescent fluid leaking slow through corroded pipes. The fairy stands in front of it with her arms crossed. "I planted here first," she says quietly. "Three years ago. I built the fountain. I filled every planter. Then I left before anything bloomed." Lunar looks at the photograph still in her hand, then at the empty planters. She knows this feeling — the garden started with hope and abandoned before it could ask anything of her. She's done it half a dozen times. The fairy turns to face her. "The deed isn't about this clearing. It's about trying again. I promised myself I'd stay this time." Lunar hands the photograph back. She thinks about the river bend garden, the lavender she never saw come up, the person who arrived and made staying feel possible until it felt too real. She's been running from gardens that looked exactly like this one — half-built, waiting, full of her own failure to commit. Lunar walks back to the clearing and kneels beside the chest of seeds. The wounded fairy's garden burned, but she brought the seeds here anyway. Someone else's refusal to let go. Lunar opens her pack and pulls out the small bag of river bend soil she's carried for two seasons — the only thing she took when she left. She pours it into her palm, then scatters it over the planted rows. The fairy with the deed watches from the forest edge. Lunar doesn't look up. "I'm staying until these seeds have a garden," she says. "Even if it means sharing the ground." The fairy steps back into the clearing and picks up her trowel. They work in silence, two fairies who've run before, planting side by side. Lunar knows she can't promise she won't leave again. But she can plant the next row. She can stay today. That's something she couldn't do before.