The path led to a forest of firs and… birches? Other trees?Whatever. Marin wasn’t an expert on the names of trees, but it seemed like a very nice forest. She glimpsed an apple-red bird with a tail of white flower blossoms flying between the trees.
Eventually, they emerged in front of the most picturesque cottage that Marin had ever seen. It was absurdly cute, nestled beneath the pines. She could hear the ocean crashing, even though she couldn’t see it, and guessed that there was water access nearby.
There was also a chicken running out the front door, which was surprising.
It was chased by a small round cactus that rolled after it.
“Meep!”the cactus shouted.
All three of them stopped and stared as the chicken darted into the forest, and the cactus raced after it.
“Not from Belde,” Ree reported. “At least, I don’t know them.”
They proceeded toward the jam shop. Like the bakery, it had a window with a counter, but the window was closed. Marin knocked on the door. “Hello? Are you open?”
“One minute!” a voice called from inside.
She heard muffled voices, and then the same voice—a woman—said, “Larran, when you said you alphabetized… you didn’t treat ‘The’ as the first word, did you?”
A man’s voice said something back.
“It’s fine. Fine. You don’t have to redo it.” Then: “I mean, yes, someone has to redo it, but it doesn’t have to be you. You can check on Sian and the other mares.”
A third voice piped up, “I’ll get the door.”
A few seconds later, the door swung open, and Marin saw no one.
“Welcome to Kiela and Caz’s Jam Shop!” the third voice said. “How can I help you? Oh hey, hi, you’re a wax myrtle. Great to meet you! I’m Caz.”
Marin looked down to see a large spider plant, roughly the size of a dog, squatting in the doorway. He’d extended a tendril toward Ree as if to shake greenery.
“I’m Ree!” Ree said. He tapped the tendril with one of his leafierbranches. “I’m a sailor and a wax myrtle. This is my captain and my conductor. Do you sing?”
“Nope,” Caz said. “I make jam. And magic.”
From inside the cottage, the woman’s voice called,“Remedies!”
Ignoring her, the spider plant said to Ree, “Apologies for the personal question, but do you know whether, if we’re divided, our babies will be sentient?”
“Um…” Ree said.
“Purely a theoretical inquiry at this point,” Caz said, “but my tendrils are becoming unruly, and I could re-pot them, but would that mean fatherhood? Because I’m not sure I’m ready for fatherhood. Meep and I have been discussing it, but to bring children into a world in flux… It’s just a lot to worry about, you know?”
Before poor Ree could figure out what to reply, a woman with blue skin and dark blue hair came around the corner of a set of shelves holding jars of jam. “Hello, I’m Kiela. Are you here for jam or remedies?” She addressed this to Ree, rather than the two humans.
“The law changed,” Caz reminded Kiela. “You can call them what they are.”
“Old habits,” Kiela said, unrepentant. “Most of our remedies help with plants. Accelerate growth and such.”
“Ooh, Yarrow would love that,” Ree said.
He would. And so would Terlu. “We know people who care for a lot of plants,” Marin explained.
“My family,” Ree put in.
“A lot ofsentientplants?” the spider plant asked.
“I’m from the Greenhouse of Belde,” Ree said proudly. “The sorcerer Laiken made many of us, before he died.”
