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To distract herself from her thoughts, she went into town to do more shopping. It was already lunch time when she arrived back home, and she prepared herself a quick meal before going to work in the garden.
A big bed of colors, framed by a wooden fence, welcomed her as she walked outside. The big backyard was for her fruits and flowers, while the terrain on the sides was full of rows and rows of vegetables. Looking at it filled Jillian with pride.
It was a lovely day outside, not too hot but still sunny enough that the rays on her skin gave her a pleasant warmth. Sitting on a little stool, she sang softly while she worked, her head light. She liked that type of work because it was repetitive. After a while it just became natural, and she could let her body move on its own without even having to think. It was the only activity that truly emptied her mind and actually let her relax.
Her mind was so distracted that she didn’t realize Lyle was next to her until xe spoke.
“Are you also planting flowers?” Xe asked. “I thought you only had vegetables in here.”
Jillian jumped in surprise and turned towards xem, eyes wide and head a little hazy, slowly recovering from the absent-mindedness.
“I need flowers and herbs for my magic, too,” she said. “And the flowers are nice to look at.”
Lyle crouched a few inches from her, elbows resting on xyr legs and xyr eyes staring curiously at the ground Jillian was working on. Xe was topless, which wasn’t surprising, but for the first time xe was not completely naked.
“You’re wearing pants,” she blurted, unable to hide the surprise in her tone.
Lyle looked at her, a small smile stretching xyr lips. “I can’t have you getting shy at my unexpected nudity every time we meet.”
Jillian’s first instinct was to apologize, but she realized that doing so would make her sound even more ridiculous. After all, why would she keep being surprised by xyr nakedness when the purpose of their meetings was to have sex?
Jillian’s eyes suddenly widened. “Wait, it’s daytime.”
Lyle tilted xyr head slightly at her. “Yes?”
“Why are you here?”
She hadn’t meant it harshly; her tone implied simple curiosity, yet something flashed across Lyle’s eyes that looked like hurt.
“I mean, you never told me what you do in the daytime,” she tried to remedy. “I thought you couldn’t move during the day or that you were busy with other things.”
“I just don’t like the sun that much,” xe simply replied, cleverly avoiding the actual topic. Xyr hand extended to play with the petals of a flower.
She bumped her leg against xyrs softly. “Do you want to help me?”
“I wouldn’t know what to do.” Lyle’s voice was oddly quiet. Jillian wanted to do something, but she didn’t know what would help.
“I can teach you,” she proposed.
Xe shook xyr head slightly. “I’d rather just watch.”
It seemed that Lyle had come because xe wanted company, maybe because xe felt lonely or was just bored. But whatever the reason, Jillian was not going to turn xem away. She wanted company, too. Especially xyrs.
“Do you do this often?”
“I used to do it all the time, when I was younger and still lived here. My parents didn’t really care, but my grandparents loved this garden as if it was their child,” she explained as she worked, a little smile appearing on her lips. A potted plant rested next to them while she dug its hole in the ground. “They met thanks to flowers, you know? One day, when she was young, my grandma was desperately looking for a rare flower to potentially help with her sister’s illness. When she got to the town where my grandpa lived, she searched every shop. At the time, he was only an apprentice at an apothecary. He was there when she came into the shop, begging for the plant. And even though they had it in the back, his boss lied and told her she would not find that flower there.”
Jillian transferred the little plant and packed the dirt over its base, then scooted over along the path to work on the next one. “You see, it was a very rare and expensive one, so he was never going to give it to a desperate teen. My grandpa was so surprised by his boss’s behavior, that he stole some of it and went to find my grandma. She was really grateful to him, and since he couldn’t return to his job anymore because he would surely get caught, she brought him along with her back home. He found a job in the new town, and her family let him live in their spare bedroom. She showed him how she did magic, and he showed her how human medicine worked.”
“They sound like they lived a happy life,” Lyle commented.
“They did.” Jillian picked a yellowed leaf from a plant, her smile growing sad. “Witches are not immortal, but we age very slowly and our lives are almost three times longer than humans. She could have made his life longer, but for some reason, they both thought a longer life together would have less meaning. So my grandma tied her life to his, making it so that she would age just like him. As you can imagine, they died together a long time ago.”
“You miss them, don’t you?”
Jillian felt the intensity of xyr eyes on her, emotions quietly pouring out of xem.
“I was closer to my grandparents than my parents, to be honest. They died when I was young, so I’ve always felt like a part of me was missing.”
