Cobweb-like moss that sparkled with twinkling lights.
A rainbow waterfall that poured down a white quartz cliff.
Countless creatures that Kiela had only read about, like the shy bird-foxes who could fit in the palm of your hand or the tiny golden monkeys who guarded ruby-red fruit or the squirrels with emerald tails.
She felt dazed and drained, and all she wanted to do was flop onto her bed. Maybe eat something first; ideally anything that didn’t need to be cooked or prepared. Maybe just raspberry jam. And then she’d sleep.
The cloud bears left them at the clearing in front of their cottage, and even after all the spectacular wonders she’d seen since dawn, Kiela thought it was a magical sight: their home, tucked between the bushes and trees, covered in ivy and flowers, with the sign she’d painted, “Kiela and Caz’s Jam Shop,” over the door and the new counter that Larran had built under the window. She wondered if they’d missed any customers today, and decided that next time they went traipsing off into the forest with magical beings, she’d leave a “come back tomorrow” note on the door.
She opened the front door, and they both went inside. Caz scooted himself out through the back door to the garden. “I’m going to check on the cactus,” he told her.
“Mmm,” she said. It was the most conversation she felt she could manage.
Going from lantern to lantern, she lit a few candles, and then she sank into a chair. She thought about not standing up again. She could sleep sitting, couldn’t she? No, she had to eat, and then she could drag herself to bed.
Caz hopped back inside. “You have to come see!”
“Unless it’s as good as a unicorn, I’m not moving,” Kiela said.
“Just come,” Caz said.
She pried herself off the chair and shuffled out to the garden. All around the garden, the tree guardians had left gifts: nuts, mushrooms, wild edible roots, as well as the ingredients needed to replenish her basket of remedies (pine cones, leaves, even a chunk of pine sap) and then some. There was also a tiny mountain of blueberries that she could use for another flavor of jam. And best of all, next to the house was a bush whose branches had been woven together to form an enclosure—a homemade chicken coop.
Within the coop was her errant chicken.
The hen clucked at her once and then settled placidly onto a nest of grasses and hay.
Chapter Sixteen
The next day, Kiela checked the garden before she opened the front door to the shop. She fed the chicken, located the wandering cactus (it was busy chasing a bit of dandelion fluff), and picked a couple tomatoes for breakfast.
There were no tree spirits that she could see.But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.“Good morning,” she called to the garden and to the forest beyond.
She waited for an answer. After a few seconds, she heard the whisper of a breeze that wasn’t a breeze. Smiling, she returned inside. While she ate a bit of Bryn’s bread (with jam) for breakfast, Kiela considered the bucket of blueberries. She’d make more jam today, she decided. And open the shop properly, without disappearing into the forest to frolic with a unicorn.
Did I really see one?
It felt like a dream today, but the blueberries were real, the remedy basket was empty (though they had a full supply of fresh ingredients, thanks to the cloud bears), and the chicken was in the backyard. She wondered if it would harm the garden to have a chicken wandering through it. How much could one hen eat? Did they eat tomatoes? What about raspberries? She thought they just ate worms and . . . She didn’t know. What had Larran said to feed them? Scraps from her food?
Thinking about Larran again, she rinsed the blueberries and then poured them into a bowl with a heap of sugar. She left them to macerate while she opened the window with the counter and flipped the sign on the front door to “Open.”
Had he ever seen a unicorn? She wondered what he’d say if she told him about what she and Caz had seen and what they’d done. She could picture him listening and smiling before talking about his merhorses. Or maybe not.More likely, he’d be appalled,she thought. What they’d done was indisputably spellwork—unicorn-approved but very, very illegal, unless the revolutionaries had changed the laws and decommissioned the imperial investigators already, which of course she had no way to find out without exposing herself and risking losing the books, the shop, the cottage, and even her life.
I can’t tell him.
But she could bring him some blueberry jam. And a jar for Bryn too. Kiela was eager to visit the bakery again, which was funny because she’d never sought out people to talk to before, but after a day that felt so dreamlike, she wanted to hear real voices and see real people.Am I becoming an extrovert?That seemed unlikely. It was more that her brush with so much enchantment made her want to reach out and touch something solid.
A trip into town, stopping at Larran’s on the way,she decided. It would be good for her. She could bring her new flavor to Bryn, buy a loaf of bread, and see actual people. Sitting at the table, she began sorting the ingredients to make more sticky pine cone remedies.
Caz waddled into the kitchen. “Morning, Kiela. So, yesterday . . .”
“Not a dream,” she confirmed. She waved at the piles of raw ingredients as proof. They had everything they needed for several dozen more tree remedies, and they hadn’t had to gather any of it themselves.
He pulled himself up onto the table by his tendrils and began sorting leaves with her. They’d just finished organizing everything when she heard a voice at the front window.
“Hellooo? Are you open, dear?”
Kiela wiped the excess sap from her fingers and scooted around the shelf-wall. “Eadie, hello, welcome. Nice to see you again.” She was surprised to discover she meant that.
