10:21
Silence followed Siobhan’s word explosion. Why she’d thought they’d miraculously be given cheats or a lifeline, she just didn’t know. Manic energy making her veins itch and frantic heartbeats loud enough to drown out her thoughts made for a real lack of sense!
Her jaw was hurting from clenching. Afraid her teeth might chip or outright crack, she fought to form a tiny space between them. She shifted her jaw left to right, her breaths panting over the exposed teeth edges.
It was all she could do to not press her fists to her temples and just scream. And scream. But in the state she was in she was so afraid she wouldn’t stop until she passed out from the lack of air.
She had to… She had to…
“That was weird.” Kim’s slow and dreamy voice broke Siobhan out of her panic. She shifted to look in the direction of the flower bed Kim had been engulfed by in time to watch Kim emerge from the earth, lifted on a pad of dirt that was sparsely covered by dianthus.
At first Kim was completely covered in dirt but between one blink and the next the dirt receded, flowing back into the shallow hole around the pad, and the dianthus crept over the dirt. It took a moment but then the flower cover lay lush over the earth, so no hint of dirt remained. The bed was back to the state it had been in before Dempsey crashed into it, the flowers showing no hint they’d been crushed by his weight or sucked into a sinkhole.
The dirt receded from Kim’s face, revealing a beautific smile and half-shuttered eyes. While Siobhan watched Kim drew a short breath and released it on a sigh. Her eyelids closed fully and her smile widened. The expression confused Siobhan’s brain. If she’d been eaten by the earth for even a mikro she would not emerge with a dope happy smile.
“Weird.” Kim gave a soft laugh and pressed her head back into the flowers, her eyes still closed. “And cryptic.”
Gwen rocked back on her heels then sat down with the a plop next to Dempsey. She rested a hand lightly on his chest. The touch seemed to soothe her if the gentle smile that transformed her face was any indication.
“Weird,” she said. It was not a question.
Siobhan looked between them. Weighing the level of weird in her head, she turned to Gwen. “I feel like your weird is easier.”
“He’s happy. Not deliriously happy. Or whacked out on skunk weed happy. Just content. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that from him before.”
“Happy like Patti and Ben?”
Gwen hesitated a mikro, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay. So probably an effect of the hedge. Fix one we fix them all.”
That settled for the moment, she looked back at where Abe was deftly dancing about blocking random berry barrages and keeping the hedgelings largely at a distance. She picked up her skirts and walked carefully across the dianthus, doing her best to think light thoughts and translating that to her feet. She came to a stop next to where Kim continued to lay, sprawled out in the flowers, and sank down to sit next to her friend.
“Now your weird.”
“No,” Kim’s smile was slow, her head turn even more so as she looked at Siobhan with half-open eyes. “You’re weird.”
“Ha!” Siobhan made a show of a fake close-mouthed smile, then leaned in to peer at Kim’s eyes. As best she could see Kim’s pupils were entirely blown. Not that she was one to really talk but she’d say Kim was probably close to as blissed as she’d been when the potion kicked in. “Did you inhale dirt? Do you need resuscitation?”
“No,” Kim’s voice was drifty, dreamy. “And no.”
Siobhan threw a quick look over her shoulder to ascertain Abe and Prairie’s state. They seemed to be doing fine. Or as fine as they could be in a stand-off with a bunch of shrubs.
A look to the right showed Dan and Ivan gaining their feet. Ivan snapped out his shield and strode across the bed to take up Dempsey’s spot protecting Patti and Ben. Dan back-pedaled, book in one hand with the other held out like a crossing guard. For reasons known probably only by the cosmos or the hedge, the hedgelings hovered a distance from Dan’s outstretched hand, swaying slowly. If they’d had shoulders Siobhan would have said they were shifting them side to side in a motion that felt vaguely liquid.
They sort of drifted both in place and subtly across the ground, like seaweed in a gentle tide. And they seemed to be utterly indifferent to the fallen. In fact, they made a wide berth around them in their subtle back and forth gyrations, one going so far as lifting its leg like structure to step over Ben, trailing white roots over his still form as it scuttled closer to the hedge wall to avoid him.
Huh.
“Are you good?” she called in Ivan and Dan’s direction.
Ivan turned to flash her a grin. “I am very good. All the ladies say so.”
A short laugh burst from Siobhan. Siobhan looked quickly between where Ben, Patti, and Dempsey were sprawled. “Maybe move them closer together so they are easier to defend?”
“Good idea.” Ivan nodded then looked to Dan. “Help me move them?”
Dan looked intently at the hedgelings then slowly returned his book to his pocket and strode over to where Ben lay. “I’ve got him. You get Patti. We’ll move them to where Dempsey is.”
Satisfied Dan and Ivan had the process in hand, Siobhan shook her head and looked down at Kim then reached over to brush away a little dirt that still streaked Kim’s blond hair. “Cryptic?”
Kim closed her eyes then opened them a mikro later. Very quietly, so quietly Siobhan had to lean in to hear, she said, “Work with. No.” She frowned a tiny bit then moved to rub her head into the flowers under it. The scent of vanilla grew stronger. “Not quite. Communion not coercion.”
“Huh?” It was starting to feel like the word made up half her vocabulary.
Kim continued in her seemingly stream of consciousness ramble while Siobhan desperately tried to make her still fuzzy brain make connections between the words flowing from her friend.
“To not at.” Frowning, Kim rubbed her head harder into the plants and probably the earth beneath them. “Let me. I need.”
A conversation Siobhan couldn’t hear was clearly taking place as Kim paused between words and appeared to be listening. Then she suddenly opened her eyes and stared at Siobhan. Siobhan’s stomach jumped and she almost stumbled back at the sudden change.
“Smell? Rot? Eggs? Sulfur?” When Siobhan didn’t immediately make a move to respond to Kim’s words she said with force, “Can you smell?”
Siobhan sniffed. Instantly she was overwhelmed by the smell of the plants in the garden, particularly the dianthus crushed under them. Rather than shutting her mind to the smells she let them enter, let her nose and brain translate them, then pulled more scent until her nose twitched as it encountered a very, very subtle scent below the strong plant smells. Was that? Sulfur? Coming from–
She rose on a rush of skirts and intent and strode towards the hedge. The wall of hedglings, rather than reaching for her or doing some other kind of aggressing, parted, making a path for her to stride through them like soldiers forming a path for a regent. Siobhan spared a mikro to look at them, confusion creasing her brow, then kept to following her nose towards the hedge.
On reaching the hedge, she knelt then leaned forward so her nose was within a twitch of being buried in the cherry laurel’s spear tip-like leaves. A rustling behind her drew her eye. The hedgelings had stopped their movement and stood now as a mini-hedge wall behind her. If they had actual faces she’d think they were looking expectantly at her.
With a shrug, she turned back to sniff at the hedge. There was something there. Something light.
Plant Magick seeped into her knees through her skirt, distracting her. She shut it out and leaned in more so her nose was closer to the earth the hedge grew from. Something settled on her head and she started, looking up with wide eyes.
Branches of the hedge reached out, pulling lightly at her hair. She brushed her hand over her head, disturbing them. They retreated a mikro then came back, the tugging more insistent. Encountering her flower crown they wove into it, pulling small strands of her hair to weave in as well and anchoring themselves and the crown to her head.
Plant Magick seeped into her scalp, tingling and distracting. She separated herself from the sensation and focused on the smell of the ground. Was it sulfur?
Clearly sensing her lack of attention, the branches rustled and the Magick from the hedge grew more insistent against her legs and scalp. Siobhan kneeled in harder and sniffed more aggressively at the ground while sending the invading Magick a sharp ‘get off’. She was not going to be tempted by it. Again. Her nose and her brain should be enough to figure this out.
She startled when she felt a hand settle on her shoulder. Turning she started to give a firm glower to whatever was touching her only to stop as she met Kim’s vacant stare. First, Kim usually avoided physical contact. At best, when she did touch there was hesitation before contact. There was no hesitation in the hand on Siobhan’s shoulder. Second, did she mention vacant stare?
Also, the hedgelings must have let her through because Kim was right there next to the hedge where everyone else was screened off by the moving, or not moving, hedgeling wall.
“No.” If there was any question that Kim was not ‘at home’ in that moment the voice that spoke was definitely not Kim’s. And calling it a voice was a stretch. It sounded more like noise through static. Or a landslide. Maybe a landslide with the sound of falling dirt and rocks tumbling and every few mikros a word leaked out.
“Fight. Stop.”
Wait. Kim’s mouth wasn’t moving.
Siobhan darted a look back to see if anyone else could see this but, of course, hedgelings. She could hear muffled cries from outside the hedgeling wall. Clearly the others were responding to the change in circumstance, but it didn’t seem like they could get past the hedgelings. Nor did Siobhan want them to try too hard or the hedge might respond with more pollen and they might lose more of their group. So, it was just Siobhan and Kim and some weird stuff.
Pretty much an average Derby night. Siobhan snorted at the thought. Then she carefully took stock of her mental state. Was she hallucinating? Would she know if she was hallucinating? If you questioned you were crazy was it like a clear indication you were, in fact, sane?
Thankfully the slow and steady trickle of words from Kim gave Siobhan plenty of time to have a small mental break.
“Fight.” Kim continued. “Listen.”
Wait? Siobhan squinted at Kim whose mouth was very clearly not moving. Not moving at all. The slow, grindy voice was definitely in Siobhan’s head. Which meant she was crazy. Or, did it?
Gah!
Was it the potion? She took another mental check. Her thoughts were ordered. Not too fast. And her blood wasn’t itching. And she didn’t want to run around doing twenty-eight things in the course of a mikro. So, probably not potion-based.
“To.” The word came through the static and the slide of dirt and the tumble of rocks. “Voices.”
Oh, she was listening to voices! Only maybe she could just not listen to the voice in her head and maybe she could focus on calm and all this would be not a thing.
What had the voice said so far? No. Fight. Stop. Listen. To. Voices. Right?
Siobhan stared into Kim’s opaque eyes, like she could find reason there. But, no. And the voice that wasn’t quite Kim’s and maybe wasn’t a voice continued to slowly grind out words in Siobhan’s head.
“Without. Voice. They. Speak. You. Listen. Not Listen.”
For a moment Siobhan was so focused on parsing the words from the noise that she almost missed Kim shaking her head, lowering her brows, and clearly trying to focus her eyes. Once she stopped shaking her eyes crossed and she blinked rapidly a few times.
Siobhan stared intently at Kim.
Kim said, “Earth,” but no more, instead going quiet and rubbing her throat. Then she gulped and said, “Listen.”
Siobhan leaned in. “To?”
Again, Kim gulped then she said, “The plants.”
She stopped. Visibly gulped then rubbed her throat again. “I don’t think this was a test for Grace.” Her voice was rough. Not as rough as the dirt and gravel fall of earlier, but rough. “I think it’s a test for us.”
“Us?” Siobhan blinked.
Kim nodded. “You and me. Earth said.” She stopped, waved her hand in a vague way, “Thought. Was.” Again she shook her head then took a deep breath and grimaced. “Earth conveyed a sense of frustration at me for resisting.” The more she talked the closer her voice sounded to what Siobhan expected it to. “And, you too.”
Siobhan pressed a hand to her chest. “Me?”
“We’re both holding back. That has to change.” Kim wet her lips. “Earth and the plants that grow from it are things of slow change. Their energy is slow.” There was still a rasp in her voice. She stopped and cleared her throat. Grimaced again. Gulped again. “Feel like I swallowed rocks.”
“I think you swallowed rocks.”
“That would explain it.” Kim rubbed her throat again then barred her teeth. “Where was I?”
“Slow change?”
“Oh. Yeah. Earth and the plants energy is slow. They can’t be forced. Or they can be. For a time. But then they fight back. Both you and I need to learn to ask not demand. Be partners not predators.”
“Predators?”
Kim frowned. “That’s how I interpreted what Earth thought at me. I don’t think I’m a predator either. Fire, air, and water don’t act like I am, but figure they all flow.”
“Flow.”
“Move in a fluid motion even if not fluids?”
“Okay.”
“I think they flow with me, adjusting to my changes and just kind of adapting? But Earth has no flow. It has its own way of adapting, but it’s really not fluid.” She shook her head. “But that’s my lesson to learn here, I think. What’s yours?”
For a moment Siobhan’s mind spiraled. What was hers? Her lesson? How was she supposed to know? Why wasn’t there something in her universe that would engulf her and give her answers like some fairy godmother arriving at the best possible moment? I mean a fairy godmother that swallowed you then spit you out all full of trippy knowledge was a pretty awful fairy godmother, but she’d take one that just, she didn’t know, poofed in with all the good stuff and laid it out for her.
Poofed. Poofed.
Siobhan’s gaze slid to the main hedge wall. Poofed?
She looked at Kim and held up a finger. “If this goes really wrong be ready to knock me out.”
It was a testament to their relationship, and possibly Kim’s general crazy level, that she didn’t ask any questions but instead stooped down and dug a fairly large rock out of the ground. Siobhan squinted. Did it raise to her friend’s fingers? It looked a bit like it did. That was an improvement? Right?
Kim lifted the rock in her fist and held it at shoulder height. “Got it.”
Siobhan shook herself. “Okay. That’s good. Uh,” she looked at the hedge again. “Going in.”
Steeling herself, she dropped to her knees and shoved her face directly into one of the clusters of flowers. The tiny shooting fronds of the buds tickled her cheeks as she shoved her nose directly into the cluster and took a really big whiff. As if drawn by her breath the flowers shivered against her skin and then released a big poof of pollen.
Her Magick surged. Not to counter the pollen but to… parse it?
Instantly her mind and her Magick broke down the components of the pollen, separating organic matter from the plants’ intrinsic Magick. She closed her eyes the better to concentrate and strange alchemy equations floated, golden and obscure, in her mind’s eye as her brain sought to place order on something that was almost pure chaos.
That, she’d always thought, was what the equations and symbols were for. To let the brain think it had control over the vastness of the potential within the Magick of matter.
Suddenly the smell of sulfur was in her nose. Strong. As sulfur was. And under it was a smell of rot.
Something like root filaments tickled her brain from the inside. Rather than fighting it or trying to control it, to force it to the equations and the symbols and the structures of control alchemy sought to attain, she just let the Magick flow through her and an image of roots rotting in stagnant water lit the insides of her eyelids.
“It’s drowning.”
“Drowning?”
“The hedge.” She kept her eyes closed, flitting her thoughts over the image of the roots. “The roots. It’s drowning. The sulfur is the key.”
“Can we undrown it?” Gwen’s voice in Siobhan’s ear had Siobhan opening her eyes on a startle.
First, she saw Gwen’s face very close to hers where Gwen crouched next to her and the hedge. She had a moment’s fear that the hedge would poof Gwen but a quick look at the branches and leaves showed no movement to them. Perhaps because their message was delivered?
Second she saw the hedgeling wall was gone. In fact, a quick look to the left and the right and behind showed no hedgelings at all. “The hedgelings?”
“Is that what they are?” Gwen asked.
Siobhan lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “It’s what I called them in my head.”
“They went back into the hedge. Like,” Gwen grinned, “Magick. So, drowning?”
“Yes.”
Kim frowned. “Can you explain better?”
“Maybe?” Siobhan frowned at the base of the hedge. “There’s a big pool of water that has formed around and under the roots of the hedge. It has anaerobic bacteria growth.”
“Anaerobic? I’m assuming that isn’t like jazzercise?” Gwen made push, push, push motions with her fists in front of her chest.
“No. Germs that grow without oxygen.”
“This is bad?”
“This is not good. It means the soil is saturated with water and lacks oxygen. Waterlogged soil kills roots and poisons the soil.” She looked to Kim, “We need to drain the excess water.”
“What caused the excess water?” An excellent question, Siobhan thought as Kim asked it. “I can remove the water. I’m pretty sure I can remove the water, but won’t it just go back?”
“Maybe we just have to do it for long enough to get out?” Dan had wandered over and he was now staring at the hedge wall.
Once more Siobhan’s heart jumped, ready for the hedge to dust Dan but it didn’t. Again probably because it had gotten their attention and didn’t need to keep hitting them literally over the head.
The thought called to mind Ben, Patti, and Dempsey, still laid out from the hedge’s effects. She looked at them. The dendrons remained attached to their faces and those faces retained their placid expressions. Gwen followed the direction of Siobhan’s look.
“They are still content. But, how are we supposed to get them free?”
“I’m hoping if we fix the hedge it will release them.”
“And we fix the hedge how?” Ivan crouched next to Ben and stared at his relaxed features. There was something about the lack of animation in his face that made him seem empty. He looked a bit like a wax figure. A carving of Ben.
“We need to move the water from the roots, which Kim said she can do, but she’s right in that it will probably migrate back.” Siobhan frowned and forced the last of the fuzz, both potion and hedge linked, from her brain. “We could just fix the hedge for the moment but I have to believe that isn’t the point of this test. I think we have to find a solution to heal it. Maybe.” She frowned. “Probably. I think.”
Dan nodded. “That makes sense. We need to approach this,” he waved his pencil to include the garden and hedge, “as more than a test that we’ll move on from. We should approach it as a lesson.”
Kim and Siobhan snapped looks at him. “Lesson?” Siobhan asked. “Could you hear us through the hedge.”
“No. Why?”
Siobhan turned to Kim and they shared a look. Then she turned back to Dan. “Kim thinks these aren’t tests for Grace. But for us. And they are meant to teach us lessons.”
“About?”
“Ourselves?”
“Interesting.”
Abe walked over. “What can we do to help?”
Siobhan looked at the hedge. Looked at the ground. Looked at her friends. Looked at the ground again. “I don’t know?”
“Okay.” Ivan stepped up and in, taking the lead. “We have a problem and we have a partial solution. What do we need to do to implement it and what challenges do we have?”
Siobhan’s shoulders sagged slightly as he took some of the weight. “There is water around the roots causing them to rot. It is pooled. Kim can move it but unless we have somewhere to put the water it will probably just go back to the roots and back to killing the hedge.”
“And we want to stop that?”
“We do.”
“Are we looking for somewhere for the water to go?” Prairie called from where she stood near one of the fountains in the adjoining path.
“Yes?”
“Or, maybe are we wondering where it came from?”
“Why?”
“Because the fountains in the other gardens had water. This one doesn’t.”
Abe darted over to the other path and looked at the fountain there. “This one is completely dry.”
Why hadn’t they caught that before this? Siobhan frowned. You’d think one of them would have? Well, maybe it was because they had been being attacked? Maybe?
Still!
Ivan walked over to peer at the fountain near Prairie. He leaned over and poked his finger into it. Then leaned back and crouched down to look at the base. Eventually he rose and looked over at the rest of the group. “Dry as a bone. If this is where the water is supposed to be that is under the hedge instead maybe we have to get it back here.”
“Which,” Kim wandered over to look at the fountain. “I can do. But will it stay? Why did it leave?”
“Good questions,” Ivan acknowledged. “It’s possible the fountains are part of an irrigation system.”
“This helps how?” Kim asked.
“If we figure out where the diversion of the water is occurring and why we can maybe get the system working and keep the water where it belongs.”
Gwen looked around the garden. “Not seeing any excavation equipment. How are we supposed to do this?”
Dan turned to look around the garden. “If we assume this is the test then the means of doing so should be available here. Somewhere.”
“Do we have the time to excavate?” Abe pushed away from the other fountain and moved over to where Ivan, Kim, and Prairie stood next to the first fountain. “I know that’s seems like a simple question. Maybe too simple. But it feels like excavating and fixing an irrigation system seems like it would take a lot of time.”
Siobhan gave the hedge a quick look to confirm there was no more movement from it. It seemed pretty steady. She still felt a trickle of its Magick, coursing along her skin and making her shiver a bit, but it didn’t seem like it was preparing any major actions.
She looked at Gwen and then at the group around the fountain. Gwen nodded and they both moved over to be closer to the others.
They reached the fountain in time for Siobhan to hear Prairie’s quiet voice. “I think we’re overthinking. Again.”
“Okay?” Siobhan looked at Prairie.
Prairie gave a small shrug then dug her hands into her pants pocket and rocked back on her heels while sweeping the group with a measuring gaze. “If these are tests for us and we are supposed to be learning something then what abilities do we have that can be applied to this problem?”
Oh. Smart. The corner of Siobhan’s lips twitched on a small smile. “Smart girl.”
Prairie slanted her a glance but didn’t acknowledge the comment. Instead she picked up the thread she’d cast out. “What are our skills that might apply here?”
Ivan lifted a hand. “I fix things. So, maybe the fountains are my thing.”
“I can move the water,” Kim added.
“But,” Dan asked, “what is it that made the water divert?”
“I’d have to know what kind of system it is to be sure.”
“What if there is no system?” Everyone turned to look at Abe who looked down at their toe scuffing the earth. “I learned about these kind of fountains in art class. Ancient ones that kind of just moved water around in a cycle?”
“Heron’s fountains?” Ivan suggested.
“Yes!” Abe looked up and beamed at Ivan. “I thought the name had something to do with birds!”
When Siobhan looked at Ivan he sketched a cylindrical column between his two hands. “A Heron’s fountain is made up of a cylinder broken into two, really three, parts. A lower chamber that builds a vacuum, a middle chamber that is a cistern, and at the top is a basin.”
He turned and gestured at the fountain’s fairly deep bowl.
“It has a series of different height tubes in it that move the water between the chambers. To get it started you have to migrate water to the central chamber. Once it’s full you add fluid to the top basin, it flows into the bottom chamber. Displaced air in the bottom chamber forces water up through the tube. In theory it isn’t a perpetual motion machine but it can appear to be. Especially if, as I suspect, Magick is employed in its mechanism. I’ve seen Magick-enhanced ones that seem to flow indefinitely.”
As an alchemist, schooled in scientific method and theory, Siobhan was able to follow a portion of the explanation although she did get a little lost in the details. Next to her Gwen was practically scratching her head while looking at Ivan and Kim was staring at him with her head cocked in a gesture that Siobhan had seen her friend do before when pretty much completely lost. Prairie on the other hand seemed to be following pretty well and Dan was making quick notations in his book, either just taking notes or actually expanding on ideas Siobhan didn’t know. Abe just bounced on the balls of their feet and looked eagerly at Ivan.
Dan looked up from his book. “How does it break down?”
“Pretty easily. If the water level in the top basin drops low enough the fountain stops.”
“When that happens.”
“The bottom container has to be emptied of water and the central chamber has to be refilled. Then add water to the top basin again.”
“Well,” Gwen looked at the empty bowl. “The top is definitely empty.”
Kim stared at the ground under the fountain. Possibly, considering the far-away look in her eyes, literally stared into the ground.
“So, empty the bottom container which is under the ground. Refill the middle one. Also under the ground. Fill the top. I can do that. But why did it stop working to begin with?”
“Maybe one of the parts is damaged?” Ivan offered.
“How do we tell?” Siobhan asked.
Ivan shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“So, if we can’t see the mechanisms because they are under the ground and so can’t determine if they are in working order we have to assume they are not. What are the chances they’ve broken or disconnected or, I don’t know, corroded?”
Everyone looked blank at the question. Ivan frowned at the bowl of the fountain. Something niggled at the back of Siobhan’s brain. Something from right before she took the potion. She pushed at her memory, straining to recall what it was poking at her. Oh.
“I had a theory that the The House is enhancing our Magick. Making it stronger. Ben can’t camouflage with shadows outside of here,” she vaguely waved her hand to indicate the environment, “Right?”
“Not that I know.” Ivan answered.
“Plants respond to me. A little. Out of here. In here.” She stooped down and trailed her fingers through the closest bed of flowers, letting a trickle of Magick flow from her and into the foliage. The pale lavender flowers of the catmint blossomed and their strong scent filled the air. Not just right near the plant bed but the entire air, like a cloud that enveloped the group.
Prairie’s eyes widened and Abe gave a delighted laugh. “Wow!”
“So,” Siobhan shifted her gaze to Ivan. “What can you do in here? Can you feel the structure of the fountain?”
Ivan’s eyes widened and then a delighted smile stretched his lips. “You think?”
“Maybe?”
Ivan walked over to the fountain, bent, and clasped two sides of the top bowl in his hands. He looked down into the bowl and his expression went blank. One mikro, two. Siobhan was fairly sure he wasn’t breathing. And then he took a huge gulp of air, straightened, and turned like a hound on the scent to look at the group.
“I could.” He stopped. Grinned. Stared down into the bowl again with a look of wonder then back at the gathered team. “I could actually feel the structure. It is a Hedron’s fountain. Magick is laced into the entire structure so, yeah, my theory it could be a ‘perpetual motion machine’,” he made air quotes, “seems viable. If it wasn’t damaged. Which it is. Something has jabbed through the walls of it and is blocking up the central chamber so no water is in there.”
“Something?” Dan asked.
Ivan shook his head. “I don’t know. Something.”
A thought niggled at Siobhan but she wasn’t sure. She didn’t know how to be sure. The catmint under her hand nuzzled her skin, drawing her gaze. Kim’s, or really Earth’s, admonition that she didn’t listen played through her mind. Biting her lip, she looked down at the flowers and let out a trickle of her Magick. It connected like a magnet drawn by a lodestone. She actually felt a click as the connection was made.
I’m listening. What can you tell me?
As if it had been waiting for exactly that question, the plant grew, twining around her fingers then jabbing between them. The mass of the foliage expanded, thrusting Siobhan’s fingers apart.
Shocked by the strength the plant exhibited, Siobhan’s Magick surged as she sought control over her panic and the plant. For a mikro she fell into the old patterns but then repeating the word ‘learn’ like a mantra she pulled back on her Magick so it was a trickle connecting to the catmint like an umbilical cord.
Trust. The word came from the cord and she was fairly sure it came from the plant not her own Magick. Her thoughts screeched and skipped over the development. Plants didn’t talk to her! Or did they? And she just hadn’t been listening.
Adding ‘trust’ to the mantra flow of ‘learn’ she relaxed into the soft flow of her Magick to the plant and the plant’s Magick back to her through the cord.
Work with. Not use.
Tears pricked Siobhan’s eyes as she stared at the plant. Then at the ground. Then she lifted her gaze to stare at Kim who’d wandered over to stare at what she was doing.
“Tickles,” Kim said.
“What?”
“Tickles. The roots are growing so quickly they are displacing earth and it tickles.”
“The roots? I thought it was just the plants.”
“Plants, roots, earth,” Kim folded her fingers together then released them then closed them again, “all part of the same system.”
“So if the plants grow or move–”
“The roots do too.”
They stared at each other with wide eyes then turned in unison to look at Ivan.
“Could it be roots?” Siobhan ventured.
“Have to be pretty strong roots.”
Siobhan cast a look at the hedge. “They are strong roots. Deep.”
“Then, yes, I guess it could be roots.”
A vague idea played through Siobhan’s mind. “I think I can get the roots to remove themselves from the fountain underground.”
“Really?”
“Maybe?” She shrugged. “This is all new territory. If the roots are removed can you repair the fountain?”
“Repair something I can’t see or touch with tools?”
“Yes.”
Ivan looked inwards for a mikro then shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so? I can’t generate materials, I can only utilize them.”
He tapered off into silence. Siobhan shared it as she stared intently at the fountain, like maybe if she stared hard enough its secrets would be revealed.
Movement to her right drew her eye to Abe who walked up next to her with their hands clasped in front of their cassock and their gaze on the fountain. They curled their lips over their teeth and screwed up their face in concentration. Then they cocked their head to get a different angle on the fountain.
Dan walked up next to them while they continued their visual survey. Abe turned to look at Abe. “Do you think–?”
Dan shifted his toothpick from left to right and stared at the fountain. “Need more.”
“Can you see the structure?”
“Of the fountain?”
“Of the words.”
“The words?”
“That make up the fountain?”
Dan looked down and scratched his eyebrow. “I don’t see it like you do.”
“What do you see?”
Dan flexed the hand Hope lived on, then curled his fingers into a fist, making the word pop out on his stark knuckles. He stared down at Hope for a mikro then looked back at the fountain with narrowed eyes.
“Potential.”
Abe bounced on their heels and smiled wide. “Potential. So, do you think–”
Siobhan followed the conversation like a shuttlecock over a net. Pop. Pop. Dan. Then Abe. Then Dan. And she fought to not demand to know what the unspoken words in the conversation were. Because she just knew there were some!
“Unsure.”
“I think we can. Together.”
Dan frowned at the fountain again then looked down at his knuckles. He shifted his toothpick again then gave an audible sigh before looking back at Abe and giving a nod. “Worth a try. But I’ve never worked off book and I don’t have anything that will work.”
“Then we’ll be creative.” Abe’s grin was so luminous it just demanded those seeing it reflect it.
Dan’s scowl melted into a mischievous grin that took Siobhan back. It felt like she was seeing a younger Dan. A more adventurous one. She kind of liked it.
“We’ll be creative.”
“Can someone provide captions?” Gwen asked.
“That,” Ivan pointed at Gwen then at Dan and Abe.
Abe looked to Ivan, sketching images with their hands to compliment their words. “It’s not real, right? It looks real,” they waved at the fountain then around the garden, “but really it’s all that golden ink.”
“Golden ink?” Gwen’s aside was to Prairie rather than Abe who continued to speak. Prairie shrugged and subtly waved her hand at Abe, then touched her ear lobe. Gwen lifted her brows and shifted her attention to Abe.
“Which is like words. And Dan does words. I can see the ink and I can channel it.” They flexed their hand. “If I channel it I think Dan can use it to write the fountain fixed.”
“Write the fountain fixed?” Siobhan tested the idea, as if giving it voice would make it more real. This whole real not real thing was a bit outside her wheelhouse but if Abe was excited about it and it was their Magick then…
Well, Abe was often excited about things. It was kind of their natural state but in this case Siobhan had to consider they were excited about something they had extensive knowledge of and how could she not get a bit excited herself? Yet–
She looked to Dan. “This makes sense?”
“Sense?” He shrugged. “Potential? Yes.”
Ivan clasped his fist in front of his chest, cracking the knuckles. “So. How does this work?”
Dan shook his head. “This is all theory. Creative theory.” He looked to Abe. “What were you thinking?”
“I see the golden ink. I give you the ink. You write the fountain whole again.”
“Too vague.” Dan went silent for several mikros then looked at Ivan. “Can you draw a diagram of what the structure looks like. Including where you sense the Magick. Does it flow?”
Ivan frowned, then twisted his mouth to the side. “No. It is just part of the material.” He rotated his hands, like he was putting pieces of a three-dimensional puzzle together. “The Magick seems to,” he paused, twisted his mouth again and scrunched his brows, “permeate the structure and energy feels like its released into it causing a reaction that radiates Magick and moves the energy around, both water and air. Or it should if it was working right.”
“Okay.” Dan ran his tongue over his teeth, making his toothpick bob. “So. The walls of the fountain are pierced and it’s causing the water to leak into the ground?”
Ivan considered for a mikro then nodded. “Seems so.”
Dan looked to Abe. “So we have to fix the walls of the structure then,” he looked to Kim, “Kim gets the water from where its at the roots of the hedge and into the central chamber as well as into the top basin and in theory,” he shifted his attention back to Ivan, “the fountain works?”
“The fountain, in theory, works.”
“And the hedge stops drowning,” Gwen added.
Dan turned and nodded to her. “Yes.”
Siobhan clapped her hands together. “Then we have a plan. I,” she poked her chest with her thumb, “get the roots to move. Probably.”
“Definitely,” Prairie smiled and nodded, her confidence boosting Siobhan’s.
Siobhan picked up where she’d left off. “Ivan gives Dan a diagram showing the fountain how it should be.”
Dan raised a finger. “Yes?”
“Also need one showing the breaks.” He looked to Ivan who nodded.
Siobhan waited for anyone to add anything. When they didn’t she continued. “Abe gives Dan ink. Dan writes the fountain back to plumb. And then Kim shifts the water. And then, I guess, I do something with the hedge.”
That last part was vague.
Siobhan looked to the hedge and then tentatively sent a shoot of Magick to it. The shoot tugged tight as the hedge’s Magick grabbed ahold of it. An anchor formed in Siobhan’s chest and as the hedge grasped the lifeline she felt herself tugged towards the hedge. She lifted her chest and took a long breath as she felt the hedge’s Magick firm the connection to hers. Then she tentatively sent a thought down the line.
How do I help you?
Magick.
Siobhan frowned. Magick?
Feed me.
Magick?
Magick.
Raising her brows Siobhan looked to her friends. “I heal the hedge and I think we pass.”
Yes. The word traveled down the connection to the hedge.
“Does anyone have paper?”
Dan scoffed at Ivan’s question. Ivan listed his brows and gave a sheepish grin. “Stupid question?”
“Stupid question.” Dan pulled a book out of one of his many vest pockets and tore out several pages then offered them to Ivan with a pen.
Ivan took the offering then turned back to the fountain to spread the paper in the empty basin and begin writing on it. A frown creased his forehead. He laid down the pen and grasped the basin in both of his hands then concentrated. After a few mikros a look of dawning lit his features. He released his hold on the fountain, picked up the pen, and applied it to the paper with a look of concentration sharpening his features.
After a few meros he turned and handed Dan the drawings and the pen. He scratched his brow as Dan stared at Ivan’s drawings. “Make sense?”
Dan continued to look at the papers for a few more mikros before answering. “Yes.”
Then he bent to press the first paper against his tensed thigh before staring intently at where Hope stood out stark on his knuckles. After a few mikros where Siobhan wasn’t sure he breathed, he began to write on the paper. His gaze went ‘somewhere else’ as he scratched away. Once or twice he looked up and his gaze cleared, then he looked down and wrote some more. Siobhan wasn’t sure how the paper could hold a drawing and as many words as Dan wrote but Magick, right?
Abe shifted to look over Dan’s hand at the paper and the words. Ivan also stared, like the process held a mystery he could unveil if he focused hard enough.
While the three with the most input on the process worked, Siobhan shifted her attention to the others. Gwen was staring at where Dempsey, Ben, and Patti were laid out on the ground. She frowned then looked at Siobhan.
“Worried?” Siobhan asked her friend.
“No. They are still happy.”
“You don’t have any part in this plan.” Kim’s words drew Siobhan’s attention. Prairie, who Kim had said this to, gave a delicate shrug.
“I don’t have the ego of a surgeon. Or a hero.” She softened that with a gentle grin. “My job has taught me that you don’t have to be the one at the front of the production to have a lasting impact. My skill isn’t needed right now but it doesn’t mean it won’t be at some point.” She shrugged. “Until then I’m enjoying the break.”
Kim winced and bared her teeth. “Ouch. Is that how you see it? Everyone wanting to be a hero?”
Again Prairie shrugged. “It’s not a bad thing.”
“Feels like it is. Feels selfish.”
“We all deserve to be selfish sometimes.”
Wow. Damn. Siobhan rubbed her breastbone. She’d never really considered that just about every member of their group, except maybe Patti, maybe, was a driven-type. Even Dan, in his quiet way, projected the sense of competence that had people differing to him. He didn’t require people to listen. They just did.
Did anyone listen to Prairie?
Oof, was that another lesson? Listen? Maybe it wasn’t just the plants and her Magick she’d been deaf to.
That in mind she focused back on Prairie as she finished, “I have my moments too. This just isn’t my moment.”
“I think we’re ready.”
Dan’s words drew Siobhan’s attention away from Prairie. She looked to where he, Ivan, and Abe stood around the fountain. Dan held the two pages, one in each hand. They were almost entirely black with ink; Dan’s words flowing over and around Ivan’s drawings to form something that could have easily been a complex alchemy equation.
Gwen walked over to stand next to Siobhan. In an aside she muttered, “I’m going to,” she waved towards Dempsey, Patti, and Ben, “go over there.”
Siobhan nodded. “Okay.”
“You, Kim, Abe, and Dan have something to do to fix all this,” Gwen waved her hand, “and I’m guessing maybe Ivan wants to be involved too. I don’t have anything I can do for that, but maybe I can help the sleepers.”
“Sleepers?” Siobhan cast a quick glance over Dempsey, Patti, and Ben’s forms.
Gwen shrugged. “Feels like they are sleeping.”
Prairie walked over.
“I’ll watch over Gwen. Just in case.” She looked at the hedge. “I think its quiet for now but,” she shrugged, “just in case?”
“I’m happy for the company.” Gwen reached and linked her arm with Prairie’s.
Gwen and Prairie headed to ‘the sleepers’ and Siobhan turned to look at Kim. “What do you think is the best place to stand? Near the hedge or near the fountain?”
Kim eyed the distance between the hedge and the fountain on the path parallel to the central path she and Siobhan stood on. “Split the difference?”
Siobhan considered then moved to where the path the fountain was on met the path running along the hedge. “This feels right.”
Right, came down the connection from the hedge.
Taking up a position with her back to the hedge, Siobhan reached a hand back to make contact with its foliage. More Magick surged from the hedge, tickling her palm. She drew a shallow breath then let it out. Magick rushed in to fill the place the air vacated.
Nodding at the sensation, she looked to where the three clustered near the fountain.
“Are you ready?”
Dan rubbed his fingers over Hope, then nodded. Abe bobbed and smiled. And Ivan stepped around the back of the fountain and placed his hands on the bowl of it. Abe shifted slightly so they took up the third point of a triangle formed by Dan, Ivan, and themselves around the fountain.
Stooping Dan placed the papers on the ground then lowered himself to sit on his knees. He looked up at Abe and nodded. Then Abe dropped to sit and leaned over to place their darkened right hand on the papers. They looked up at Dan and smiled. Their eyes drifted closed and their smile became dreamy.
Dan lay the hand with Hope over Abe’s smaller hands. There was a mikro when nothing happened then Hope lifted off Dan’s knuckles. It stretched like taffy, reaching for the fountain. Dan started muttering a stream of words Siobhan couldn’t quite hear.
The ribbon of Hope pulsed in time with the words. Ivan looked at Siobhan. “Now, Siobhan.”
Siobhan imagined turning a faucet inside of herself, releasing more Magick into the hedge. The hedge sucked it up, like a plant in the desert denied water too long. The tug on her sternum grew stronger and she felt her Magick coursing into the ground. She followed it down the roots of the hedge and into the stagnant pool of water beneath. Then it reached out, traveling through the earth until it encountered another cluster of roots, the ends of which barely met the pooled water.
Her vision blurred as her focus travelled the roots back to where they entered the walls of the fountain.
Pull back? She whispered the question along the Magick. Suction formed as the roots grasped ahold of her Magick. She focused, sending a steady flow into them, repeating the question again and again. Pull back? Pull back?
Along the Magick the words echoed back at her. Pull back?
In the place where her Magick had form she ‘nodded’. Please?
The plant Magick pulsed back. Please?
Perhaps it was the anos and anos of working with children who craved support and confirmation that made Siobhan understand the plants need for reassurance. She sent it and love back to the roots through her Magick. And they retreated, leaving a lingering sense of gratitude in their wake.
Siobhan slowly opened her eyes and looked to Dan and Abe. “The roots are gone.”
Dan didn’t stop his litany but Abe lifted their lids and gave Siobhan a slow smile.
“Oh.”
Siobhan shifted her attention to Ivan at his quiet sound of awe. He held to the edges of the fountain, staring into the basin. Then he looked up to meet Siobhan’s, and Kim’s, gazes.
“It’s healing.” His tone was reverent and his expression spoke of miracles.
Kim shifted next to Siobhan. “Let me know when.” She held her hands out, parallel to the ground, her expression blank. “I’ve got the water. Just need to know when I can send it.”
“Whoa.”
Abe’s outcry drew Siobhan’s gaze in time to see Abe fall back. They sprawled on the ground with their arms splayed and the toes of their boots pointed at the sky. Next to them Dan fell back on the elbow of the arm that didn’t hold Hope. He held the Hope hand out and Hope spooled from the fountain, traveled through the air, and dropped back onto his hand. The hand dropped, appearing too heavy to hold up, and Dan fell back to lie on the ground next to Abe.
Ivan looked over at Kim and Siobhan. “Now!”
Enter The Woods 