She could have stoked a fire, but I didn’t hear any crackling. And even if she did, I didn’t see a bedroll or blankets on her person. All she had was that cloak, and I’d soaked that through.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I gathered up my worst, but still warm, quilt and threw it down through the floor’s opening. It landed with a soft thud on the floor below. I waited by the opening, seeing if she would notice. Maybe she’d already drifted off to sleep on the hard floor below. If she had, I would suck up my pride and cover her up.
But I heard muffled footsteps make their way over to the ladder, so I headed back to my warm bed, satisfied to have taken care of the stranger downstairs. Maybe that quilt would be itchy…
A softly whispered “Thank you” was the last sound I heard before darkness claimed me.
In order to protect the sanctity and sanity of all, the Queen declared that, henceforth, no one would ever be allowed to chop wood ever again.
—opening line attempt 27
Grow a garden.
The words jolted me awake, sending shock waves through my shivering body. Damn, it was frigid in here.
I did not, in fact, have a dreamless sleep. That would necessitate more than a few minutes of sleeping. In between my sheets, freezing my arse off, my night had gone miserably. I could feel my eyes drying up in my skull, awaiting my eyelids to give them the sweet reprieve of nothingness. Instead, I just kept staring upward.
Warty snored, Hesper snored. I wanted to jostle them both for rubbing it in my face that they could slumber while I sank so far into self-wallowing, I thought I may never see the light of day again. But somewhere between snotting into my pillow in utter despair and experiencing out-of-body despondency, I got a hold of myself.
Either try and figure out what to do or rot in bed.
Gentle, kind words in my time of need, yes, that’s what I was known for. Even so, the sentiment snapped me out of my hazy purgatory. A taskanda deadline had been dumped on me—two things that I thrived on (much to my chagrin at this particular moment). Was it ruining my life? Yes. But would I fight tooth and nail to achieve the impossible? Also yes.
I blinked up at the ceiling waiting for any solution to come to me.
And then, one did.
A feeble hope at best, like starting a small fire in a rain-drenched wood. But the embers caught nonetheless, and a meager ray of hope took hold in my heart. Just enough to push away some of the fear and make room for this plan.
Could it work?
Well, it had to.
Ideas were a finite resource and there were no other means to make this quest successful.
I had one chance, and one chance only.
Grow a garden.
One month.
She did not say I must use garden magic to grow the garden in Dwindle, nor did she mention magic at all. Thank Goddesses—that would have been impossible to work around. Of course, any sensible, nonmagical gardener would know that growing anything in just a month is, frankly, unfeasible. I would have needed to start those sowings at least six weeks ago. Sure, there were the few token plants that might sprout up in no time: spinach, herbs, some radishes. But that was barely a harvest, let alone a full-on garden.
The fact of the matter was that I needed magic.
And I had two weeks in Moss. The place where I did havesomemagic. If I could get my heart together, squeeze out any hope in me left, then my idea might just work.
I shot up out of bed, but I forgot that I’d drunk last night. A lot. A pounding headache and roiling nausea hit me as soon as I went vertical. No matter; I’d have to deal with it.
I needed to acquire seeds.
And find a new Town Gardener.
And avoid Rosie.
And avoid looking at myself in the mirror because I could feel dried slobber encrusted around my mouth and my hair sticking up at all angles.
A bath. I needed a hot bath and a cup of tea before I did anything.
