Shite.
The days began to fall into each other, the sun and moon rising before I’d had the wherewithal to grasp either. I was trapped in the middle of an hourglass—drowning in the sand, hoping it would pass, and longing for it to go back up again.
More time, I needed more time. I needed to clear my head, hear my own thoughts, but I couldn’t even manage to snag one second alone. My thoughts were scattered seeds in the wind,and my attic room became a den of every gardening theory imaginable that might grow a harvest in one month with no magic. And bytheory, I mean deranged scribblings plastering my walls that easily could have pinned me as someone interested in creative ways to mince up not-for-eating mushrooms and have an outer-realm experience.
Townsfolk began coming by at all hours of the day. Some to wish me farewell, others to look upon me as if I were in my casket. Ludwig, of course, dropped by, leaving behind parting words: “You will meet your end in Dwindle.”
I very well might have met the “end” right here in Moss.
Then there was the Hesper of it all.
Always asking questions, always insisting I try something else, alwaysthere. At first, I thought my hatred of her was a tad misdirected. I should have hated the Fates and Eldrene, but Hesper was right in front of me and sent from both of them, so she would do. But now? Oh, Idespisedher. She needled me. She had to have known by now that she had been sent to protect a fraud, that our quest was doomed. No magic worked the way mine did.
And the magic wasn’t working at all now. The seed pack lay dormant in the middle of the room. The magic was a leaking cup; the more I looked for it, the less I could find.
I could feel every emotion I had decidedlynotfelt these past days bubbling up to the surface. Hesper butting in where she shouldn’t, me being entirely ill-equipped to handle anything, needing help and not asking for it, not seeing Rosie, passing the time away without anything to show for it at all, leaving Moss. Everything frayed at the edges, too lost, too broken, too new. Too much of everything all at once.
Then the day came when I finally broke.
I frolicked out into the garden like the whimsical, magic creature inside of me always longed to.
Just kidding.
I had turned into a feral, warped hag—chanting, spiraling, clawing at my heart, praying to unknown deities, weighing how poor of a decision it would be to make a deal with a demon, or conversely, to run away. I was unsure when I’d last brushed my teeth. Undoubtedly, I smelled of radishes and regret.
And Hesper justhadto say something.
“Rosie stopped by yesterday,” Hesper said, emerging out of nowhere. I grunted in response, which was actually more than my average reply to her. “She dropped off some food for you.” I kept ignoring her, staring at the dirt. It had been a lovely twenty-four hoursnotspeaking with Hesper and instead hacking at the earth. It was too risky to work with Gristle’s seeds in such a state, so the garden beds became sacrificial offerings. “She said she misses you.”
My heart crunched in, my legs went wobbly.
Rosie came to my door daily only to be turned away with some stupid excuse: “Sorry, I’m packing today,” “Sorry, I’m cleaning the floorboards today,” “Sorry, I’m testing the soil compounds today.”
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
But today, she hadn’t come yet. I doubt she would.
And come sunrise tomorrow, I would leave.
I had been so foolish not telling her after all this time. She probably wouldn’t have cared that I only had magic in Moss. Ifeared the failure, not her. I worried that, if I wasn’t enough, she would leave. But she was not my life before Moss; she was nothing like those people.
“Clara, why don’t you stop already?” Hesper finally said, crossing her arms.
“Stop what?”
“You’re overworking yourself, you barely eat, you barely sleep, you haven’t spoken to a single soul. You’ve turned away your best friend every day—”
“I don’t need you to tell me what I should or should not do,” I bit back.
“I’m well aware that you don’t need anyone, that’s abundantly clear. But your stubbornness is going to kill you before we even get on the road.” Her voice was calm, but her words were sharp.
“It doesn’t even fucking matter!” I met my end. All my edges were dulled, my patience shot to hell. Too tired to keep any more secrets, too tired to not say exactly what was on my heart—even if it terrified me to do so. “This quest was over the moment it was given to me.”
“How’s that?” Hesper asked.
“Do you not see this?” I asked with a bitter laugh, motioning to the empty garden beds, the dead rosemary bush, the state of myself covered in dirt. “I’m pointless.”
“Don’t say that.”
