Sunlight filtered in through murky windows and lit dust that floated in the air. It sparkled like flecks of gold above the sturdy worktable that stretched the length of the room. She walked inside. Every wall was filled with shelves that were overloaded by books, journals, and papers in haphazard stacks, to the dismay of her librarianheart. Gardening gloves and pots of various sizes were heaped in one corner. A desk piled precariously high with papers sat beside one of the filthy windows, facing the dock and the sea beyond.
It was very much the opposite of Yarrow’s warm and tidy cottage. It looked more like a laboratory. Or a workroom of some kind? Not a living space. In one corner, she spotted a narrow set of stairs—perhaps they led to the owner’s living quarters? She doubted that anyone lived here now. It was draped in the kind of undisturbed dust that only can accumulate in the absence of anyone. A cold stove sat in one corner of the room. Cobwebs clung to it, and Terlu shivered. It was clear that this place hadn’t been used in years.
She touched one of the papers on the nearest shelf. It was stiff but not brittle to the point of dissolving into dust.Definitely a workroom,she decided. All the notes, the random garden supplies that looked more like unfinished experiments, and the overflowing desk… Terlu examined the desk. In the center of all the papers was a pot with a dried-up ball of leaves. The leaves had curled in on themselves as if hugging their core of desiccated soil.
She picked up the pot. “Oh, you poor thing.”
Tucking it under her arm, Terlu prowled through the rest of the workroom, examining everything like a detective searching for clues. A pile of mostly burnt papers lay next to the stove. She knelt to look at them.
Why would any scholar burn their own work?
Studying the few words that were still legible, she realized she recognized them: this was written in the First Language, the extinct tongue of sorcerers—the language of spells.
Ah, it’s a sorcerer’s workroom.
This could have been the workroom of the sorcerer who’d made the greenhouse. It seemed likely. She wondered if there was a clue in this tower as to who the sorcerer was and why they’d done all of this. “Or I could be just jumping to conclusions,” she said to the dead plant in the pot.
She wished that Yarrow wouldn’t keep wandering off so quickly. She still had a hundred questions bubbling inside of her, and each minute she spent on this island seemed to generate more.
What had happened to the sorcerer? Why was this place abandoned? Why had the people left, abandoning their homes? Why had Yarrow stayed? Why had no one else come to fix the greenhouses? And why was she the one who’d been sent, when at last Yarrow’s request had been answered?
Clearing a space, Terlu set the pot on the worktable and studied it. There had to be something special about this shriveled bit of plant to be the only one on the sorcerer’s desk. His last experiment? His legacy? She wondered if she could determine what kind of plant it had been. Perhaps that would give her some insight into this place and its sorcerer. She reached into the pot and touched one of the brown curled-up leaves. Crisp, it felt like an autumn leaf. It looked fernlike, with a brittle, lacelike quality to the leaves, but it was difficult to tell, as shriveled as it was. If she added some water, would that plump it up more? If so, it could make it easier to see the shape of it. “What are you?” she whispered to it. “Tell me your secrets.”
She went to the sink and pumped the pump a few times until water flooded out of the spout. Finding a glass, she rinsed it and then filled it with water. She supposed this was a silly idea. Even if the water did loosen up the leaves enough to examine the plant, the odds of her being able to identify it were low. She wasn’t a plant expert. Still, though… it could be another question she could ask the gardener, the next time he popped up. He’d probably respond better to a plant question than an existential why-am-I-here-and-what’s-the-purpose-of-my-life query.
Terlu poured the water over the knob of plant matter. She waited a minute for the moisture to sink into the leaves, and then she poked it to see if it had softened enough to unfurl.
The plant yawned, stretching out its leaves to reveal a deep purple bud.
“Ooh,” Terlu said.
The bud unfolded to reveal purple petals. It looked a bit like a rose. She studied it before reaching in to touch one of the petals.
And then it spoke. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
Terlu felt her jaw drop open as she, wordless, stared at the impossible rose.
CHAPTER SEVEN
As a librarian who had once brought a spider plant to life, Terlu knew she should be uniquely suited to react in a sensible way to a talking rose. Still, when the moment came, she was completely flustered. “You’re alive!”
“Ugh,” the rose said, “you’re one ofthose.” It waved its lacelike leaves and pitched its voice high. “Ooh, a talking flower! How’s it possible? She doesn’t have a throat or lungs or lips. How can she be talking?”
“If you’re really asking, the talking is due to a complex spell that involves seventeen ingredients and precise pronunciation of five lines of First Language text,” Terlu said, “but what I should have said was: How are you alive after who knows how long without water, soil, or sunlight?”
The plant lowered its leaves sheepishly—her leaves,Terlu amended; the rose had referred to herself as “she.” “Oh. Sorry,” the rose said. “I thought you meant— Well, I can exist dormant for a number of years. I’m what’s known as a resurrection rose. My name’s Lotti.”
“Nice to meet you, Lotti. I’m Terlu.” She tried very hard not to gawk at the rose. She hadn’t expected to find a sentient plant here, so soon after what happened with her spider plant. As far as she knew, they were rare. Was this fate? Or did the universe have a twisted sense of humor?
“You said ‘who knows how long.’ How long was I asleep? Years? How many years?”
It was a very good question—and one that Terlu sympathized with.Six years,echoed in her head. Judging by the state of the workroom and the layers of dust, it could have been far longer for Lotti. Terlu wished the gardener was willing to talk. She had even more questions now. “I don’t know. I just got here myself. In fact, I’m not quite sure wherehereis.” She wondered how much of her own story to tell the plant and decided it wasn’t a secret. “You see, I was recently resurrected myself.”
“I don’t know what that means since you’re a human and not, well,me,but I don’t care enough to ask,” Lotti said. “Let’s find Laiken. I’m sure he can clear all of this up.”
“Laiken?” Wait, was that the name of the gardener? No, he said his name was Yarrow. Did he know about Lotti? If so, why had he left her to shrivel in an abandoned workroom?
“You know Laiken. Bushy beard. Never combs his hair. Very powerful sorcerer who created the wonderous Enchanted Greenhouse of Belde.”
