Iris Thornwell knelt in the mud at the edge of Frog Hollow and counted three blossoms she had never seen before. Any one of them could be the rarest bloom in the hollow. She had spent four years planning a hidden grove for that flower, clearing a patch of high ground behind the alders, hauling in loam by the bucket. She had soil enough for one transplant. Choose wrong, and the grove would grow a common weed while the true rarity died in the fen. The first blossom was pale blue, no bigger than her thumbnail, growing from a cracked log. The second was a red bell hanging over black water. The third sat on a tuft of moss, white with a yellow throat, and it smelled like nothing at all. Iris had two books in her satchel and neither one named any of them. "You're going to pick the pretty one," Nessa Mudwren said behind her. "People always pick the pretty one." Iris did not turn. Nessa had followed her from the trailhead, boots squelching, arms crossed against the damp. Buzzford stood farther back under the alders, hooded and quiet, watching the water. He had warned her that morning that the fen shifted its flowers every spring and that last year's rare thing was this year's nuisance. Iris had ignored him. She was ignoring him now. A heron waded past the red bell and struck. It came up with a frog and the bell shivered on its stem, untouched. Iris marked that. Then a painted turtle climbed onto the cracked log and settled its weight directly on the pale blue blossom, crushing it flat. The turtle did not seem to notice. Neither did the log. Iris marked that too. The white flower sat alone on its moss and nothing came near it. "Myrtle," Iris said. Buzzford's head turned. "I need Myrtle Bogwater." They brought Myrtle out from her cabin an hour later, leaning on Buzzford's arm, twigs in her hair. She looked at each blossom in turn. She spat into the water beside the red bell. "Weed," she said. She tapped the pale blue with one knuckle. "Weed." Then she bent close to the white one and did not touch it. "That one. Grows once in nine years. Fox won't cross a patch of it." She straightened and squinted at Iris. "You dig it wrong, it dies in your hand. I'll dig it. Costs you the second bloom, whenever it comes." Iris looked at the white flower on its moss. Nine years. One bloom for the grove, and the next one, whenever it came, promised away before it opened. She held out her trowel. Myrtle took it. "Dig," Iris said.

Myrtle worked the trowel around the white flower's roots while Iris watched the two blooms she was leaving behind. The red bell still hung over the black water. The pale blue was crushed flat under the painted turtle's shell. Iris had chosen, but choosing wasn't enough. If she planted the white flower in her grove and fed it wrong, the loam would sour. Nine years of waiting would rot in a season. She needed to know what the white one drank and what it starved on, and the only clues were the two flowers she was walking away from. She pulled out her notebook. "Nessa. Come here." Nessa squelched over, arms still crossed. Iris pointed at the red bell. "The heron passed it. Struck a frog right beside it and never touched the stem. Why." Nessa squinted. The slate heron was still there, one leg up, yellow eye fixed on the shallows. "Bitter, maybe," Nessa said. "Or poison. Birds know." Iris wrote it down. Then she pointed at the log. The turtle had not moved. Its cracked olive shell sat squarely on the blue blossom, and the log beneath was dark and wet with rot. "And that one grows on rotten wood. Wants acid. The turtle sits on it and nothing happens to either." She wrote that down too. "Why do you care about the ones you're not taking," Nessa said. "Because they grew here. Same water. Same air." Iris tapped the page. "If the red one is poison and nothing eats it, the soil here runs bitter. If the blue one wants rot, the soil runs sour. The white one grew between them and touched neither." She looked up. "So the white one wants the middle. Not sour. Not bitter. Clean loam. No rotted wood. No standing water." Buzzford came out from under the alders. The hood turned toward the moss where Myrtle was lifting the white flower free, roots trailing threads of pale soil. "Sniff the dirt," Buzzford said. Iris took a pinch from the root ball and held it under her nose. It smelled like nothing. Same as the flower. She almost laughed. Her grove was clean high ground, hauled loam, no rot, no seep. She had built the right bed by accident four years ago. A grey shape watched from across the water, ears forward, gold eyes steady. It did not cross. Myrtle had said the fox would not cross a patch of these. Iris marked that too. Clean ground. No predators near. She had it. Myrtle wrapped the roots in wet moss and pressed the bundle into Iris's hands. "Plant it before dark," she said. "And remember what you owe me." Iris nodded. She had the flower and she had its rules. What she did not have anymore was time, or a second bloom of her own.