Rose's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

Rose held the steady feather and turned from the pool. The wish was almost hers, but Luna hovered at her shoulder, wings flicking with impatience. "You promised me a garden," the fairy said. "Real plants. Your hands in the dirt. Show me now, or I stop believing you." Rose looked at the ground past the black pines. She had no seeds. No soil turned or ready. She had promised a garden she could not begin. "I need time," Rose said. "Seeds don't grow in an hour." "Time is what you don't have." Luna drifted higher. "The spirit wants more beauty. You'll spend all your effort feeding it and forget me. I've heard promises before." Her light dimmed toward the pines, ready to leave. A rustle came from the ferns. The small gnome stepped out, red cap bright, boots crunching leaves. He had sent Rose after the blue flower once, deep in the dark roots. He looked at the two of them and grinned. "A garden, is it? You're standing on one and don't see it." "There's nothing here," Rose said. "Bare dirt and stone." The gnome crouched and pushed aside a mat of dead leaves. Underneath sat tight coils of green shoots, curled and waiting. "Fern crowns," he said. "Wild seed the spirit's magic feeds. They only need a hand to open the ground." He tapped the soil. It was black and soft, richer than any field. Rose knelt. She dug her fingers into the earth. It gave easily. She lifted a coiled shoot and set it upright, packing dirt around its base. Her cut palms stung, but she kept working. She freed a second shoot, then a third, spacing them along the pool's edge. Luna sank lower, watching. "You're really doing it," she said. "I said I would." Rose pressed the last root firm. She wiped her hands and stood. A row of green shoots ringed the water now, small but planted by her own hands. "It's a start. I'll tend it. Every day, if I must." The fairy landed on a fern crown. She touched a curled tip. For once she said nothing sharp. "Then I'll stay," she said quietly. "I'll hold you to it." The gnome nodded and tugged his cap. "Good. But mind this." He pointed at the pool. The water stirred, and the air went cold. "You woke the ground with your digging. The spirit felt it. It tastes the green you planted, and it wants that too." Rose looked at the dark water. A pale glow rose beneath the surface, reaching toward her new shoots. The spirit's hunger had found her garden. She had secured Luna and kept her promise. Now the thing she planted for the fairy had become the next thing the spirit meant to take.