Rosie Roo's Arc

Chapter 1 of 10

Rosie Roo held one spore in a glass thimble, and it was the last of its kind in the whole world. The legendary pink mushroom grew from spores like this one, and folks said a single grown cap could grant one impossible wish. Rosie had counted on that wish for years. Now she stood inside her pink mushroom cottage, staring at the thimble, and she had no idea how to keep the spore alive. The trouble was simple and cruel. She didn't know what soil the spore needed. She didn't know how much water. Too dry, and it would shrivel. Too wet, and it would rot into gray mush. One wrong guess and her only chance was gone. Rosie set out three clay pots on her table. She filled one with dark garden dirt, one with pale sand, one with soft moss. Her hands shook. She lifted the thimble over the dark dirt, then stopped. She couldn't risk it. A guess was still a guess. On the windowsill sat a fat cluster of hydrangea blooms, purple and blue and dotted with tiny pink flowers. Something moved among the petals. Four small shapes lifted their heads. They were the strawberry fairies who lived in her garden, no taller than her thumb, with red berry bodies and glittering wings. They had watched over her flowers since she was small. "Careful," the tallest fairy squeaked. She flew to the edge of Rosie's table and pointed a green arm at the pots. "That spore drinks fog, not rain." Rosie leaned close. "Fog?" "We've seen the old ones grow," the fairy said. "They wake in cool mist. They rot in a puddle." The other three nodded fast, wings shedding pink glitter across the table. Rosie's heart pounded. She swept the three pots aside. She grabbed a shallow bowl and packed it with the soft moss. Then she carried the hydrangea cluster from the sill and set it beside the bowl. She flicked water onto the big blooms, not the moss. Droplets clung to the petals and rose as a faint cool haze. "Now the spore," the fairy said. Rosie tipped the thimble. The single spore dropped onto the damp moss, small as a grain of sand. She held her breath. The fairies hovered close, glowing. By nightfall the spore had not rotted. A thin white thread pushed up from the moss, thin as a hair. Rosie laughed and covered her mouth. It was alive. It was growing. Then the tallest fairy stopped glowing. She stared at the sprouting thread and her small face fell. "What?" Rosie whispered. "The mist won't last," the fairy said. "Not from a bowl. A true cap needs the fog that rolls off the deep marsh water. Three days. No more." She pointed past the window, toward the dark trees. "And no one goes to that marsh and comes back the same."