When I fell asleep that night to soft Christmas music, I dreamed of sugarplums and dancing leaves.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
When students began to return to Evergreen Academy after winter break, I met Professor Tenella in the flower garden. The blooms stretched their faces toward me as I walked past. Goose bumps pricked on my arms as it happened, and I wondered if I would ever get used to the sensation of being followed.
Over the break, I’d found myself grateful all this had occurred in winter, when my aunt’s flowers were all dormant, so I wouldn’t have to avoid the balcony on the off chance she noticed any errant flower behavior around me.
Professor Tenella reassigned the affinity test of planting a flower, and I went through the motions just as I had last fall. But this time, the tiny plant I buried in the soil shot up and bloomed within seconds.
“Let me see your notebook again, Briar.”
I handed it to her, and she scratched out her originalNon parand wrotefortis compositusin her loopinghandwriting.
“Strong match,” she explained. “Non par, as you know, is no match.Infirmi paris weak match, andFortis compositusis a strong match. Florals are likely going to be your lead affinity.”
A little ripple of excitement went through me at her words. I truly had an affinity. I had aleadaffinity. Professor East’s insistence about me had been right all along. I really was a magical botanist.
I visited Professor Variegata next, who was gathering fruits with a group of students, her vine snaking around her wrist. When she directed me to touch the prickly pear cactus again, I expected the usual sharp poke, but instead, my hand felt like it met smooth glass. I pulled back in shock.
“Interesting,” Professor Variegata mused. I collected a handful of legumes, and they softened and faded slightly in my hands, a sign that I’d inactivated the lectin. We went to the grassy fields next, and as I walked through them, the grasses paved a way for me, bending lightly so that I could easily pass. A shiver ran up my legs as I seemed to physically feel the presence of the grasses making way for me, like a gate creaking open with a sound you felt rather than heard.
“Well, you’re sailing right through these this time. Last up is the storm resilience test.” I remembered the not-quite-hurricane-level storm Professor Variegata had put me through in the fall, and I braced myself when we entered Mendel’s Atrium. But this time, when she flipped the switch on the wall, the storm seemed to move around me. Wind and water brushed my cheeks and hair but then flowed right past, as if I were coated in sealant. When the storm ended, my hair was as untangled as when I’d first brushed it that morning.
Professor Variegata smiled and took my notebook. “Fortiscompositusfor all. And the same with Professor Tenella? Professor East wasn’t joking when he said we were looking at an unusual case.”
I thanked her, trying not to let the words “unusual case” echo around in my head as I hurried to find Dr. Lemna before lunch. The greenhouse by the lake had a few second-year students inside, conducting research. When Dr. Lemna saw me, she nodded. Apparently, she’d been warned about my second affinity test. “Let’s get this over with.”
We went to the pond, and I conducted the chemical tests. This time, when I finished, the water in the mason jar whipped into a whirlpool and changed colors.
Dr. Lemna assessed me carefully, as if seeing me for the first time. “I didn’t believe it when Professor East said we should test you again.” She looked at me more closely now, her sparkly blue eye shadow seeming to reflect in the late morning light. “Let’s have you walk across the glass.”
As soon as I stepped onto the glass that covered a portion of the pond inside the greenhouse, several plants seemed to rush over and position themselves under my feet, as if I were a magnet for their lush green limbs.
I looked at Dr. Lemna, and her eyebrows rose nearly to her hairline. “Fortis compositus. You are quite the enigma, Ms…?”
“Whelan,” I responded. So now I was interesting enough for her to learn my last name.
“I’ll be seeing you at Affinity Studies. We start at eight a.m. sharp. You have a whole quarter’s worth of studies to catch up on.”
And with that, I was dismissed.
“You’ve testedfortis compositusfor all of your tests so far?” Yasmin asked, eyes wide as we met for lunch. Coral and Aurielle swiveled their bodies toward me, eager to hear the answer.
“Yeah.” After the initial euphoria from my florals test, I was beginning to feel nervous about everyone’s reactions. People kept using terms like “interesting” and “enigma.” Those labels didn’t exactly evoke reassurance. “And Dr. Lemna assumed I’ll be in her affinity studies class for aquatics, but I also tested strongly for florals, harvesters, and grasses. How is the decision made on which is my lead affinity?”
“Usually, it’s quite obvious. I think that’s going to be a question for Professor East.”
“Lovely,” I said, drowning my sarcastic response with a bite of warm leek soup that was bursting with spicy flavor.
Aurielle reached into her bag then and pulled out three mason jars. She passed one to each of us, and I examined the glowing fern inside mine with a shiver of amazement.
“Fern lamps. They’ve been genetically engineered to glow. Fresh from the fern conservatory in Tongass National Forest, just for my best friends. And your cuttings are magically connected to the ferns at the conservatory they were taken from. As long as that fern is healthy, these will be too.”
Yasmin’s smile grew wide, and she hugged the jar to her chest. “You remembered! This is even better than I imagined. Thanks, Aurielle. It’s going straight on my nightstand. I want to hear every detail of your trip. But first, I’ve been dying to tellyou all about my trip to San Antonio. I saw Jordan, that guy I was telling you about.” Yasmin filled us in on her winter break, and Coral and Aurielle shared their stories afterward.
As I ate my soup, I tried to let my mind relax and enjoy the stories my friends shared. But while I attempted to give them my full attention, the phrasefortis composituscontinued to float around in my mind like lily pads on the pond, and a feeling that something wasn’t quite right tugged from deep within me.
That afternoon, I tested for tree affinities with Professor Bowellia and then the mosses and ferns with Professor Sato. I passed withfortis compositusfor all. It had been the strangest thing to be able to move through the trees as if I were walking on steady ground, the trees forming a path before me as I stepped. I was still afraid, but I had to admit that everything about the climbing and maneuvering in the trees now felt… comfortable. I was already thinking about ways to surprise Callan when he returned.
