I nodded, unable to speak. Callan had successfully calmed the anxiety of my thoughts, though he’d sent my heart rate spiking for a whole other reason.
We stayed like that for a moment longer, my breath stalling in my chest, everything in the room blurring so that all I could see were Callan’s eyes, and all I could feel was the sensation ofhis warm skin on my face. Callan gently removed his hands, closed my notebook, and handed it back to me.
“I’ve got to go do some research with Eli. See you later, local.”
Before I could blink, he was back on the ground, but my heart was beating as if he were still right next to me.
Chapter Fifty-Five
On the morning of the vernal equinox, I sunk my hands into the dirt of one of the planter barrels on Main Street in Weed. The students of Evergreen Academy were starting the day’s festivities with a planting party in the local community under the guise of being SCC college students doing volunteer work.
I busied myself filling my barrel with sweet peas, tulips, and begonias, trying to distract my mind from thoughts of the verdant shield. Despite our best efforts and late nights, we’d made no progress on my family history or powers. Professor East hadn’t been able to make any connection from me to any of the founders, and Callan and I had had no luck with determining what might have triggered my powers.
Two days earlier, Professor East had made the call to the Board of Regents, and three of their members were scheduled to join the equinox celebrations. They were continuing to test the property, but so far, they hadn’t been able todetermine the source of the excess salt and cadmium, which did not bode well for the strength of the shield.
Despite Callan’s assurances, I couldn’t help feeling that I had let everyone down, and I was approaching the evening’s festivities with a sense of melancholy and a slight creeping dread that I couldn’t explain.
The flowers perfectly situated themselves in the soil, their roots already beginning to stretch out under the guidance of my hands. A little thrill of delight went through me at the feeling of connection between myself and the flowers, easing some of my worried feelings.
The flowers had been pre-enhanced at the academy and were both weed resistant and drought tolerant but not in any kind of obvious way. Down the road, a handful of students were passing out packets of wildflower seeds to those strolling along the sidewalks.
Spending a few hours planting at a regular human pace—since we weren’t allowed to use any noticeable magical botanist powers in front of the townspeople—helped me to settle down and get lost in the rhythm of digging and planting. The earthy scent of the soil grounded me, a potent reminder that working with my hands was healing for the spirit.
At some point, my shoulders relaxed, and thoughts of the verdant-shield recharge settled into the back of my mind.
Before I knew it, our service project was wrapping up, and we were all to return to the academy grounds to clean up and change. I gazed down the street through the iconic Weed arch—the town’s quirky name emblazoned across the entrance to Main Street on a painted backdrop of trees and the mountain—to the row of barrels and hanging planter baskets spanningeither side of the street, each overflowing with different color combinations of bright, happy flowers. The street had been transformed in a matter of hours.
Yasmin caught me admiring them. “The real party begins at sunset,” she said, linking her arm through mine as we walked to the academy vans. “We’re entering the most productive time of the year for plants in the Northern Hemisphere, and they like to show off a little.”
“Show off?” I quirked an eyebrow at her.
“With the temperatures rising, the plants will enter their rapid growing phase, and we’ll see new stems and leaves everywhere. With the flowers, it becomes a bit of a competition to see which ones can bloom biggest and brightest early in the season. The floral affinities are helping them along, of course. Starting now and through the rest of the spring quarter, the campus is about to be the greenest, most vibrant place you’ve ever seen.”
I’d felt that way about the campus all along, especially since the plants were able to bloom year-round due to the verdant shield. The reminder of what was at stake with the verdant shield tonight crept into my mind again, but I forced myself to stay in the conversation.
“And what about the humans? Do they show off for the vernal equinox too?”
“The florals are always showing off, so that will be nothing new. Remember the Floral Fete? But the herbals and harvesters will be bringing their best dishes out for a potluck competition and tea party, and the aquatics usually have some kind of surprise planned. Plus, all the second-years put the research they’ve been working on this year on display.”
“How about the ferns?” I asked, thinking of her lead affinity.
“We will be in charge of making you feel like you’ve stepped into an enchanted land. And fortunately, ferns don’t need much help to provide that kind of ambience. There’s a reason fern fever swept England in the 1800s.”
When we returned to the campus, we took showers then dressed for a spring party, Yasmin in a dress with a tiny fern pattern and me in a corduroy skirt and floral top that hung off my shoulders. We took turns magically braiding vines into each other’s hair and dusting some glitter across our eyelids.
Finally, all dressed up and ready to welcome in spring, we approached the clearing next to the pond, and my eyes lit up. The shoreline was lined with glass-bottom boats, and some of the aquatics were already standing by, ready to give tours of the pond.
“Sign me up for that. And Dr. Lemna is nowhere in sight, so maybe I’ll be able to relax around the water for once.”
“Amen to that,” Yasmin said. We approached a blooming trellis, where Professor Tenella was admitting students one at a time. Yasmin let out a loud sigh. “I wasn’t on the winning team for Capture the Roses, so I’m going to have to answer a plant trivia question to be admitted. You go ahead. This could take a while.”
I didn’t want to leave her, but she joined Aurielle to wait their turns, and Coral spotted me and pulled me through the fast-track line for winners.
“I’ve heard that sometimes it takes people all night to get in. The difficulty of the question depends upon how muchProfessor Tenella likes you. If you’ve been a pest in her class this year, you might be in trouble.”
I turned back to glance at Professor Tenella with a newfound respect.
“Come on, let’s get drinks while we wait.” I followed Coral to the drink stand, taking in our surroundings as we went.
