Moonpetal's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

The seedling had outgrown its little fence overnight. Its stalk stood tall now, thick as Moonpetal's wrist, red mouths snapping at the slats. A pouch of grubs no longer filled it. To spread new fertile ground, she had to move it out to the blight patch itself, where it could eat the poison at the source. But her flimsy wooden fence would never hold a plant this size out in the open. Moonpetal dug her trowel around the roots and lifted the whole plant free. The mouths thrashed toward her fingers. She wrapped the stalk in cloth and hurried to the dark, cracked ground near her cottage. Green ooze bled from its seams. She set the plant down and jammed her old slats into the poisoned earth around it. A mouth lunged. The slats cracked and toppled. The seedling swung loose, snapping at the air, hunting anything warm. She stumbled back. "It's too strong," she said. "I can't cage it here." Wings snapped overhead. Sage dropped beside her, the dragon-woman who'd guarded this ridge for years and given Moonpetal the draught that started all of this. She took one look at the loose plant and grabbed Moonpetal's arm, pulling her clear of a striking mouth. "That fence was built for a pup," Sage said. "This thing's a wolf now." "Then I need a stronger pen," Moonpetal said. "And it's starving. It'll break out to hunt." A new voice cut in, calm and dry. "Then feed it more than grubs." An old snake-woman slid from the shadow of a nearby cottage hung with drying herbs. Her lower half was thick green coils; her ginger curls caught the light. She was a wandering beast tamer, and Sage's shoulders eased at the sight of her, so Moonpetal trusted her at once. The stranger held out a bubbling amber-green vial. "Grub tonic. Pour it on the blight. The crawlers swell fat and plump. One tonic makes a feast." From her pack she pulled a heavy wooden pen, sturdy slats bound in a solid frame. "And this will hold what your slats couldn't." Moonpetal worked fast. She dripped the tonic across the cracked soil. Grubs heaved up from the taint, swollen fat as thumbs. The seedling's mouths snapped toward them, greedy. While it fed, Moonpetal and Sage dropped the strong pen over the plant and drove its posts deep. A mouth struck the slats and held. The frame didn't budge. Moonpetal sat back, breathing hard. The seedling gorged inside its new cage, rooted now in the blight itself. Around its base, the green ooze had already begun to fade to brown. "It's eating the poison," Moonpetal said. "Right here. On its own." The snake-woman nodded. "It will. But a plant that eats this much grows fast. By tomorrow that pen may be small too." She coiled back toward her herbs. "You'll need more than one patch to keep it fed."