“No,” I said for the umpteenth time because there was work. To. Do.
“You’re going to learn to let go one day,” she teased.
“You first,” I bit back. She was the one hung up on the nonexistent magic.
“Ever think that if you didn’t try to grasp it tightly, it might come willingly?”
“Nope, never, not once.”
“One day.”
“One day.” I wiped the sweat off my head and looked her in the eye. “And one day, you’ll return to Eldrene’s Train, and we’ll never see each other again,” I said it lightly, my tone practiced. My heart raced.
We’d edged around this conversation but never had it fully.
Hesper stood still for a moment, a muscle in her jaw ticking. “One day, that is what will happen.”
“And one day, all of this”—I motioned to the garden, to myself—“will be just a memory.”
“A good one,” she offered. Almost as a condolence.
Is that all I was then? Just a good memory? A memento to take back with her as she spent her endless days in servitude? And even if she felt a modicum of what swirled inside of me, there was nothing to be done about it.
“I see,” I said, my voice still airy, even though my stomach plummeted.
“Clara,” Hesper said beseechingly.
“Never mind,” I said, shaking my head and setting back to work. “It doesn’t matter.” I swallowed a lump down my throat. “I just—it doesn’t matter.”
No matter how hard I reached for her, she couldn’t stay. Just like magic. Just like everything.
So I doubled down on barricading my heart, reining it all back in to focus solely on the job at hand. Yes, these last few days of getting to know Dwindle had been lovely, but they werea distraction. I had a quest to do, a home to get back to, and only twenty-four more days to achieve the insurmountable.
I did what I do best. I shut everything and everyone out.
I toiled all day in the garden where nothing grew.
I did not speak to Hesper, didn’t speak much to anyone.
I reached for magic, desperately clawed for it, day and night. Nothing.
And then, the day came when it all blew to shreds.
Sometimes, the most miraculous things in life spawn from a single insignificant moment of… utter rage.
—opening line attempt 444
Not even weeds grew outside.
After four days of digging out new garden beds in feeble hopes that I’d fill them with plants seemingly out of the ether, I had given up for a single morning. That’s right. I let myself give up. How’s that for letting go, Hesper?
I barricaded myself in the library (with Edge and Warty, of course) and planned to spend the day wallowing.
What else was there to do?
Hesper had repaired the cottage. I had cleared out the entirety of the garden. What work Icoulddo was done. And if I spent one more moment singing to the ground as if I had magic until I was hoarse, only for Hesper to come out shaking her head in disappointment, I worried I might commit an illegal act.
Of murder.
