Rosalie Bloom's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Rosalie knelt at the hedge and pressed a hand to the nearest rose. The stem was cold. Black had crept from the tips down to the second joint. She had six dying roses and no cure, and if they fell, the blight would come through by nightfall. She needed help she did not have in her own basket. She went back to her pink cottage and pulled the small dragon-winged creature from its perch by the door. "Find the warlock at the tree stump," she said. "Tell him I'm coming. Tell him it's the grove." The creature launched from her wrist, wings quick, and vanished over the butterfly-leafed tree. Rosalie cut a length of thorn from the hedge, wrapped it in wet cloth, and started walking. The warlock's home sat under a cap of red-and-white mushrooms, its door carved with runes and hung with two lanterns. He opened before she knocked. He was old and did not waste words. She showed him the black-tipped thorn. He turned it under a lantern, sniffed it, and shook his head. "I can't pull blight from a living thing," he said. "Not without killing it faster. You need a keeper who works with stones. Try the rose keep at the edge of the willows. Ask for the one who studies chakras." Rosalie ran. The keep stood wrapped in rose vines and set with colored crystals along every beam. A woman met her at the herb beds with sleeves rolled to the elbow. Rosalie showed her the thorn and told her about the six roses and the hedge. The woman listened. Then she led Rosalie inside to a tall wooden cabinet with stained glass doors. She opened it and pulled out three books and a cloth roll of stones. "Plants have centers like we do," she said. "If the root center holds, the plant can shed poison. But you have to sing the stone open. And singing draws things that hunt singers." Rosalie thought of the pink dragon-winged creature and of the small musical fae that lived among her lotus pond, the one with antlers and monarch wings that trailed notes when it flew. "I have a singer," she said. "One that isn't me." The woman met her eyes. "Then the hunter won't find you. It will find your singer. Choose." Rosalie chose. She walked home with a red stone tied at her wrist and the woman beside her. At the hedge, she set the stone against the root of the first dying rose. The small antlered fae landed on her shoulder and sang the note the woman named. The stone warmed. Black drained from the stem into the soil and burned off in a thin curl of smoke. One rose stood green again. Then a second. By dusk, all six had cleared. The fae kept singing after the work was done. Rosalie watched the eastern trees and knew something out there had heard.