“Yes, and a ship will come.”
Walking out to the flagpole, she noticed a box affixed to the dock beside it. She opened it and took out a flag—the fabric was white, and it had been embroidered with silver thread in the shape of a lily. She touched the design lightly and wondered who had created such a beautiful piece. Did Yarrow have yet another skill? Or was this made by one of his relatives? She wondered what his family was like. Did they miss him? Did they worry about him? What would they do when they got the letter? She hadn’t specified which relative should come, and she’d asked for the letter to be shared. Any gardener would do. Presumably they’d pick whomever could be spared. If she were lucky, maybe two or three would visit for long enough to make a difference.
Terlu clipped it to the line on the flagpole and raised it. A breeze made it dance, and she shielded her eyes from the sun to watch the silver flash as the flag flapped.
She wondered how long it would take for a ship to come this way. Yarrow hadn’t said how often they came by, only that they watched for the flag. If Belde was on a popular shipping line, it could be soon. But she didn’t think Laiken would have built his enchanted greenhouse anywhere well-traveled.
Terlu watched the ship with silver sails on the horizon and waited to see if they changed direction, but she didn’t see any noticeable shift.It could be days.She couldn’t just stand here and wait. She could, however, watch from within the sorcerer’s workroom, if she repositioned the desk a bit. She liked that idea.
She kept the letter and the pouch with the sailor’s payment with her for now, though Yarrow had said she could simply leave it in the box. “I’m going to watch from the workroom,” she said to Ree. “Do you want to join me?”
“I’d rather wait here. Feel the sea breeze in my leaves. Don’t you think the crash of waves is the most beautiful sound in the world?”
She smiled. “I’ll come back outside when a boat docks.”
As she headed toward the tower, she heard a sound behind her, like a trumpet. Ree gasped, and Terlu turned back toward the sea.
Beyond the dock, between the island and the sailboat, a sea serpent breached the water. She gasped, transfixed. She’d never seen one outside of illustrations in the older library books. Its scales were mother-of-pearl, and its featherlike fins were spread to catch the wind. It was singing like a trumpet as it arched through the air. It dove into the waves with a flick of its broad feathery tail.
It felt like a sign: she was doing the right thing.
Comforted and awed, Terlu went inside.
She was halfway through translating a spell thatmightbe for window glass, or could possibly be for cleaning used jars, when she heard Ree shrieking, “A sailboat! It’s coming!”
Looking out the window, she saw a boat with silver sails sailing toward the dock. Closing the notebook, Terlu darted for the door and grabbed her coat. She was outside before she had it pulled halfway on.
Waving to the sailboat, she skipped down the steps to the dock. The wind had picked up since she was last outside, and she hugged her coat closer as she stood on the dock, barely keeping herself from hopping from foot to foot. Ree was already at the end of the dock, quivering with excitement. Terlu didn’t pause to consider why she was so excited too until she could see the face of the sailor:
Another person!
More than that, it was a person from beyond the island of Belde. Itwas easy to believe that the rest of the world was only a distant memory, not a thing that currently existed, while you were surrounded by impossible greenhouses.
The sailor was a woman with silvery skin, the same tone as her sails. Her white-and-black striped hair was tied back with a silver ribbon, and she wore all blue with black boots up to her knees. She grinned at Terlu as the boat slid beside the dock. “Tie it off, would you?”
She tossed a line to Terlu, and Terlu (to her relief) caught it. She knelt to tie it to one of the clamps on the dock—she’d tied off canoes often enough on Eano that her fingers remembered how to shape the correct knot, despite her years in the library.
“You the one who raised the flag?” the sailor asked. “What do you have for me?”
“Hi,” Terlu said. “Thank you for coming. It’s really nice to… Well, lovely to meet you.” She pulled the letter out of her coat pocket.
“I’m Ree,” the shrub said. “And you… wow. Hi. You’re asailor.”
The sailor laughed, not unkindly, and said, “Hello, Ree. Yes, I am.” To Terlu, she said, “You could’ve just left the note in the box. That’s what the gardener does. You the new gardener? What happened to the other one? He okay?”
“He’s fine. I’m…” She had no idea how to describe who she was or why she was here. She held out the letter, as if it was a viable answer. “I’m a friend. I’m helping with the greenhouse.”
“Huh. Good for him.” The sailor grinned. She had a friendly smile, broad and open. She glanced at the letter before tucking it into a pouch at her side. “Not a supply list? He usually leaves a list of what he needs—flour and wax and yeast and such.”
“It’s a letter to his family in Alyssium. Do you know how long it’ll take to reach them?” She wasn’t certain how to say she didn’t know where she was without it sounding too odd. She knew Belde was far from Alyssium, but was it north, south, east, or west? How many miles? She didn’t think Belde was one of the outer islands, given the lack of storms—the outer islands were known for wilder weather, atleast according to the stray bits of news she’d heard in the library—but did she really know? “Not to pressure you, but if I could give him an idea of when to expect a response…”
Ree blurted out, “I love the sea.”
“Me too, my new friend,” the sailor said. “Me too.”
Terlu grinned at the little shrub, who seemed awed by the sailor. “Ree would like to accompany the letter, to make sure it reaches its destination. If you don’t mind the company.”
“This won’t be a short or easy jaunt. I don’t know that the open ocean is any place for an inexperienced, um…” She trailed off, clearly not certain what Ree was.
