But what in my life has ever been fair?
And I must be getting used to all this surreal stuff. Because this morning, instead of freaking out again, I simply walk past the statues, weaving a path through them with the eerie calm of someone long past shock as I search for something that might be a kitchen.
I keep my steps soft and stealthy as I creep forward on my food-finding mission, but it doesn’t even feel necessary.
Where is everyone?Unlike last night, when we returned from Elephim to a front hall full of bustling servants, the castle now feels… empty. Too quiet.
Quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Or the rustle of leaves in a gust of wind.
I turn toward the sound. And that’s when I see the thing I’ve really been looking for without knowing it.
A garden. A black-and-gray garden, unlike any I’ve ever seen before.
The hall’s entire back wall is made of glass, and it showcases a view of a large garden, sitting in front of a meadow’s worth of gravel.
My feet carry me toward it, like someone under a trance.
And when I get to the other side of a heavy glass door, I find it’s not so much a garden… as some kind of plant-based nightmare.
Black evergreens tower like sentinels, dropping their dark needles onto a terrace choked with brambles vining out nearly to the edge of the mountain cliff, so thick and tangled, it’s impossible to tell where one thorned vine ends and the next begins.
Everything looks drained. Colorless. Dead, but not quite.
Like something waiting to be mourned.
Or…
Or reawakened.
My chest lights up with that strange mix of analysis and healing purpose that all gardeners get when they see ailing plants.
Three days. I only have three days left.…
In the end, it’s not even a decision.
One moment, I’m just standing there, looking over my new find.
And the next, I’m on my knees, clearing a patch of bramble with my bare hands.
The thorns bite me as I work, protesting my invasion. Doesn’t matter. I need to see what’s underneath, what kind of soil I’m working with.
And, yes!
Just as I hoped, it’s good. Damp, dark brown, and nutrient-rich, despite the cover of thorny vines.
Another feeling only gardeners understand: the certainty that this soil has been waiting for me to come and rescue it. Possibly for centuries.
“I’m here,” I whisper, working a minor introduction spell with my fingers as I sift through the dirt. “Do you have anything I can use to help you?”
As if in answer, a flash of green catches my eye. A single sprout, hidden under the nearby bramble, but somehow still clinging to life.
That’ll do it, as my father always says when he finds just enough plant life to magick up a new garden.
No, I don’t need food.
Three days…
I get to work.
