I tensed, waiting for the inevitable crunch that accompanied shooting pain and broken bones.
It never came.
Instead, I fell right into the arms of Hesper. But even her physical prowess couldn’t stop us from tumbling the rest of the way down the hill. We rolled down together, her entire body enveloping me as she took most of the hits, her arms shielding my head from any stones. The only way I knew she felt pain was through her grunts each time a bony part of her hit the hard ground. We landed right at Rosie’s feet, who looked down at us with a mix of amusement and terror.
I fought my way out of Hesper’s arms. My back ached from the tumble, but I wasn’t in too much pain. Rosie lifted me up from the ground with ease, but when she offered a helping hand to Hesper, it went unused.
Hesper had taken a beating. A split lip, oozing blood, painted her teeth red. One of her eyes had already swelled shut, and the other had a cut right underneath the socket. Her knuckles and elbows were bloody as well from protecting my head from hitting anything.
She spat the blood out on the ground and wiped what remained with her torn tunic sleeve.
Rosie let out a low whistle. “Let’s get you to a healer.”
“Yes, good idea,” I replied.
“No,” Hesper said flatly.
Rosie and I looked at her in confusion.
“But you’re bleeding and probably have a broken bone—or two—after a fall like that,” I chided.
“No,” she repeated. “You need a new Town Gardener. We are getting a new Town Gardener. I’ve had far worse than this, trust me.” She’d had far worse than this? What life had Hesper Altanfall lived before now?
“All right then!” Rosie replied with an attempt at cheeriness, but she sounded wary. She motioned for us to follow her to the very last shoppe on Moss’s main street.
Brambles & Ivy.
Pattie Larkthorn’s flower shoppe.
Shewouldbe perfect for the Town Gardener position, so perfect the town might opt for her to continue even if I were to survive and come back home. She was knowledgeable, magical, and, most importantly, loved her work.
But she had a shoppe she couldn’t leave.
“Rosie, have you talked to Patti about this?” I asked.
“What? Oh, uh, no, I haven’t. I got the idea and then found you, and now we’re here.” She rubbed the back of her head.
“But she has a shoppe.”
Rosie turned toward me, her eyes beseeching me to give her idea a try. This whole thing might have been an elaborate excuse for her to talk to Patti. And if that were true, then I should help my best friend. There were only two more weeks that I could play perpetual wingman anyhow. And I was all out of leads for the position. If anything, maybe Patti knew someone who might be interested.
Brambles & Ivy was unassuming from the outside. It had the typical thatched roof, wooden beams crossing over white plaster, and plain wooden shutters. It was the smallest and squattest building in town, barely taller than Rosie’s full stature at seven feet. Rosie opened the robin’s-egg-blue door, and Hesper and I were transported into Larkthorn’s world.
Gnarled tree branches covered the walls and the ceilings, not a hint of plaster peeking from beneath the bark. Soft moss and woodland grass carpeted the floor. To our left were flowers native to Moss—some bunches peeking out of wooden branches, others sitting in vases fashioned by tree bark. To our right were flowers from other lands: iridescent cobweb-lace flowers from the Witherings, blood-ruby ivy from the mysterious Lore Isles, and even a single spikewood flower (notorious for killing an entire crop with its root system despite its miniature appearance) from Irk Road.
Overhead was my favorite part of the whole shoppe. Thousands of red mushrooms dotted with white hung from theceiling. It was Patti’s most popular item: plant a Larkthorn mushroom in your flower garden, and the petals would be protected from anything that meant them harm.
“Hiya!” Bright, turquoise eyes peered at us through a gap in the root-covered wall. It would have been terrifying had I not already been used to Patti’s preference for literally being a wallflower.
“Hi, uh, hi, Patti. We need to, uh, sorry to bother you. We just need to talk to you about uh—”
Poor Rosie, she was so smitten that she didn’t even remember how to speak.
“Okay!” a voice said through the tree, the gleaming eyes disappearing.
Suddenly, the bark and vines began to swell. Their grooves and etchings gave way to a body slowly starting to take shape. Patti didn’t just emerge from the vines. Shewasthe vines.
The flowing green moss decorating the walls morphed into long black hair. Rough bark transformed to a petite, willowy frame, her arms resembling twigs, her legs like roots. She was starlight pale, with a smattering of freckles that looked like stars against her beaming skin. And her giant, twig-made round glasses only added to her already moonish appearance.
