The crowd went into an uproar.
And my heart split in two.
Reader, things can always get worse.
—opening line attempt 19
I can’t do it, I can’t do it.”
I was shaking. Numbness in my fingers, mind buzzing like honeybees, my body too hot then far too cold—the Clearing was a riot of too much sound, too many people trying to talk to me, too many smells, too much of everything.
Rosie knelt in front of me, rubbing my shoulders, willing warmth back into my body.
“I can’t,” I panted.
“You can, love. You can,” she said imploringly. “Hey, I’m right here, okay?” She patted the side of my cheek, a gentle reminder to tap back into reality.
But my heart was fracturing. I could feel magic seeping away like tea in my cracked cups at home. Myhome. I’d have to leave it behind. I’d have to leave Rosie. I’d have to leave my entire everything.
“Clara, listen to me,” Rosie said, holding my face in her hands.“You can. You will. You have garden magic, for Goddess’s sake! Just grow a garden like you do for us and then come back home.”
“It’s not that simple, Rosie.” The words came out harsh and spiked, their barbs landing right into Rosie. Her eyes faltered. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, I understand. I would be upset, too. But Clara, this quest is going to be simple for you.”
No, it won’t.
Because if I took one step out of Moss Wood, my magic evaporated—sucked dry right from my soul like the earth in a long drought.
The first time I’d left for the Idle Woods to retrieve the pine needles for the Celebration, I foolishly thought my magic would go with me. I hadn’t yet left Moss since I’d arrived, and there was a part of me that thought the magic might be mine after all. But then I saw the sign that told me I had left Moss; my heart crunched in, and the magic drained out of me.
As soon as I returned to Moss, magic rushed back into me—filling a hollow place in my chest. I knew then, I could never leave. Without my magic, I didn’t have much to offer the world. And Moss was my world, so why leave? I felt like a fraud each Celebration, each harvest, each day, really. But I did good work and fed an entire town. Surely, that was enough to absolve me of not having true garden magic?
The only real thing about me was my love of Moss, and my fear of losing it all.
And to complicate matters more, Moss’s magic was only as strong as my heart. When heartbreak came along, things withered around me. I’ve killed entire harvests overnight just from one memory of my life before all of this. Yet anothersecret I’d kept squirreled away, the shame festering deep in my soul.
What would happen now with my heart ruined beyond repair?
“Oh, darling.” Sylvie rested a hand on my shoulder now. I had no idea when she’d found her way over here from Remi, but she offered her signature words of comfort: “You’ve done harder things before, eh?” She nuzzled the top of my head.
“Sylvie, I don’t know if that’s what Clara needs to hear right now,” Rosie offered kindly.
“Sorry, sorry!” Sylvie said and helped me to my feet. “Hon, you are going to be okay. I know this is a shock—to you and to us all—but you have garden magic, Clara. You’ll get that job done before the month is even up! Hells, kid, it really won’t be that hard!” With that, Sylvie walked away and back into the group that had re-upped the party once more.
My heart actively crumpled. Sylvie and Rosie had known me for fifteen years, and still, I’d never unearthed this secret to them. A fraudulent gardener, a fraudulent friend.
“We are going to figure this out together, all right?” Rosie swiped a stray curl out of my face, and I let my cheek rest in her giant hand.
“But we won’t be together. You can’t come with me.” Despite her best efforts, Rosie did look forlorn at that. She couldn’t come along; this quest had been assigned to me and only to me. “I’m going to have to travel into the Shadow Woods and Irk Road by myself.” I didn’t even mean to say it out loud, but the realization hit me in the gut. This quest was impossible, and the likelihood I would die on my way there was high.
“You will not be by yourself,” a calm voice said behind me.
I whirled around, ready to deck whoever could manage to be this composed at a time like this.
Agnus stood before me, utterly disgusted at my display of… every emotion a human could experience at once. She looked me up and down as if trying to pinpoint what the earth, Fates, and Eldrene could possibly have seen in me.
“Eldrene has bestowed you with a Goddess-given protector to aid you on your journey. From this night forward, they will stay by your side until the very end of the quest. Eldrene’s orders.”
