“No, I will say that, and you will stop telling me what to do. I didn’t even know you existed a month ago and now, here you are, breathing down my neck at all hours of the day. Asking me questions. Telling me I should ‘try.’ Well, Hesper,I’ve tried. I’ve been trying. My whole life. You said to try something different with my magic. Guess what? I don’t have magic.”
And even though I’d just exposed my worst fear, the thing I’d buried so deep inside of myself I thought it would take uprooting my soul to say it out loud, I felt strangely relieved to let it pour out of me.
There was nothing left to lose.
“That’s right. Not a drop. When I came to Moss, the town seeped into me or something. I don’t know how—I don’t know, I just don’t. I don’t have answers, I don’t have a plan, I don’t even have a home.” My voice gave a pitiful crack, but I’d cried out all my tears. “I don’t have the option to stop, I don’t have the choice to stay. I don’t have anything. And I certainly don’t have magic.”
“I know you don’t have garden magic,” Hesper said, almost warmly. Almost like she was trying to say,It’s all right, you’ll get ’em next time.
“What?” I asked, partly shocked, mostly dazed.
“Ever since the Goddess Celebration, I knew,” she said, never breaking eye contact with me, her voice as even as ever.
“How?” Iknewshe knew.
“Garden magic smells like dirt. Your magic doesn’t smell like that.”
Before I could ask her what I smelled like, a torrent of fury hit me.
“How dare you?” I shook my head in disbelief.
Hesper’s eyes grew wide.
“You spent the last weeks torturing me, asking after magic that you knew I didn’t have? Do you realize how awful that hasbeen? How worthless and stupid I’ve felt every day knowing everything you asked, I couldn’t manage, and all along youknew?”
“Clara, I am so sorry, I never meant—”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant! That’s what happened.” Tears streamed down my face. “I have to go,” I said, running for the garden gate. “Do not follow me.”
“I’ll always follow you,” I heard her say. But even so, she stayed and let me go.
I ran all the way down the garden path and into the fields beyond. No companion, no small talk—just me and the rolling fields I loved so well. A single crow flew overhead, the only living being for miles. I soaked in the moment to breathe by myself.
The summer air flooded around me, and I lay down in the warm grass, feeling the earth beneath and the sun above. I closed my eyes, letting everything about the last few weeks wash over me.
Grow a garden.
A few words had changed my life in an instant. Ever since, I had been living and breathing my futile idea. And it wouldn’t even work.
The bright sun painted my vision gold even though my eyes were shut. The day raced by, but the viscous need to not waste a drop of time had vanished. All I was left with was the hollowed-out feeling of failure and the heat of the sun.
Just focus on all the light.
Almost immediately, the gold vanished, replaced with a murky gray.
Of course, a cloud…
“Clara?” a voice asked.
“Rosie?” I opened my eyes, and there she stood, hulking over me. “Hesper told me you were out here,” she said, then lay down beside me. “I’m surprised she let you out of her sight.”
“Well, perhaps she sensed it was either leave me alone or die,” I said, and I meant every word. Rosie chuckled. We lay in silence for a while, watching the clouds drift by the way only two people who have seen storms together can.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she said gently. No hint of pain in her voice. Her kindness lanced my heart right open. Not talking to her these last few weeks was ruinous, ripping open and scabbing up my heart in all the wrong ways. I didn’t want to hold anything from her. If it meant she would be mad at me forever, so be it. Hesper knew, Rosie should, too. She deserved to know the truth—she deserved to know all of me.
“I’m not magic, Rosie,” I said. “I never have been.”
“I know you’re upset right now, Clara, but you do have magic—”
