Rose's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

By morning the row of fern crowns had drooped. Rose knelt at the pool's edge and lifted a leaf. It hung limp and gray in her fingers. The pool sat in deep shade, and the cold water soaked the soil past the point where roots could breathe. Her wish lived only as long as these plants did. If one died, the spirit's promise was gone forever. "They're too cold," Luna said. The fairy hovered low, wings tight. "You planted them where the sun never reaches. Move them and you break the roots. Leave them and they rot." She did not offer help. She only named the trap. Rose pressed the wet soil. Ice water rose between her fingers. She thought of digging the ferns up, but a broken root killed a plant as surely as the cold. She needed to warm the ground without moving it. She did not know how. A low whistle came from the dead leaves behind her. The gnome stepped out, the same small fellow who had shown her the wild ferns beneath the rot. His red cap flopped as he walked. He crouched beside her, sniffed the soil, and clicked his tongue. "Drowning, that's what they're doing," he said. He dug two fingers into the muck and pulled out a fistful of black slop. "Water can't leave. It just sits and freezes the feet off them." He looked up at her with a bright, crooked grin. "You want a drain, girl. And a blanket." "I have neither," Rose said. The gnome laughed. He pointed to a slope where the ground fell away from the pool. "Cut a small channel there. The bad water runs off. Then heap dry leaves over the roots. They hold the day's warmth through the night." He was already scraping a line in the earth with a flat stone. Rose took the stone from him and dug. The channel was shallow but the cold water began to move, sliding down the slope away from the ferns. Her hands went numb. She did not stop. When the soil around the roots turned from wet black to damp brown, she gathered armfuls of dry leaves and banked them over each crown. By dusk the drooping leaves had lifted a little. One crown, the smallest, unfurled a new green tip. Rose touched it. It was no longer cold. It was faintly warm, like a thing that meant to live. Luna landed on a root and stared. "You kept them," she said. "All of them." Rose sat back on her heels, filthy and shaking. The garden was alive, and so was her wish. But the gnome frowned at the drained channel. "The water's leaving the ground," he said. "Trouble is, it's running straight into the pool. Fills the spirit's water with mud." Below the surface, the pale glow stirred, and it was not pleased.