The Enchanted Greenhouse(103)

“Quiet,” Yarrow growled at him. “You’ll anger him.”

Birch snorted. “What does that matter? He turned his back on us. All of us. We devoted our lives to this place, to the vision of what it could be. We believed it was important, that it was bigger than ourselves. But to him … it was a toy. A toy he discarded.”

“I’m more than a toy,” Lotti said.

“Absolutely you are,” Terlu said firmly. “You’re more than what anyone made you to be.” She wished she could propel those words right into the little rose’s heart, so she’d believe them. She deserved so much more than he’d been capable of giving her.

“He made me out of love,” Lotti insisted. “He loved me. He loved all of us. He just … got so scared he’d lose us that he went too far.” She turned in a circle to face her bloom toward all of the room. “But we’re alive. We’re awake. Dendy. Risa. Amina. Tirna. Nif. Zyndia. We’re all alive and well, and we want to stay that way. Won’t you help us?”

A breeze blew through the room, and the curtains rustled.

There was no open window, no source for the wind.

“I think that was a yes?” Lotti said.

“Ask him if there’s an enemy causing the failures,” Birch said.

Yarrow shook his head but said nothing.

Lotti repeated the question and lifted her petals higher. “No,” she said.

“See?” Yarrow whispered to his father. “I told you.”

Terlu wanted to ask her how Lotti could be so sure of his answer, but she didn’t want to break whatever tenuous connection the ghost and plant had established. She tried the next question, “Are the greenhouses failing because the spells are old?” That was her and Yarrow’s original theory. It was logical, and if so, then the cure was to fix the failures, ideally before they happened. Replace the spells.

The wind blew through the bedroom, counterclockwise.

“No,” Lotti said.

No?

She tried being more specific: “Are they failing because the spell ingredients have decayed or been damaged?”

“No.”

Terlu wanted to go back to the idea of an enemy, but he’d already said no to that. “Is it a specific spell causing the failures?”

“Yes.”

Yes? But what kind of spell … Why? And who had cast it? What was the point of such a spell? And if it wasn’t cast by an enemy, then who was responsible? She shook her head. This didn’t make sense. “Is the spell supposed to destroy the greenhouses?”

All of them held their breath.

“No,” Lotti said.

A malfunctioning spell. Ah, now that she understood. “But what…” No, that was too complex a question. “Is it your spell?”

Silence.

Then: “Yes,” Lotti said.

“An old spell or a new spell?” Terlu asked. And then she realized he couldn’t answer that. “An old spell?” No. Huh, so it isn’t one of the creation spells gone awry. “A new spell?” Yes. “From after you died?” No. Of course no, dumb question, she scolded herself. “A spell you cast before you died?” Yes. “A new spell you were experimenting with when you died?” Yes, again.

She remembered the notebook she’d found on his bedside table. “Did you keep notes in the journal that was by your bed?” She hadn’t read that one. It was too recent, and she’d been looking for the spells from the initial creation of the greenhouse, so she could recreate those. But if he’d cast a malfunctioning spell and then died before he had a chance to fix it …

“Yes,” Lotti said.

Terlu exhaled. Yes. She had the book that held the answers. “Thank you, Lotti,” she said fervently. “Thank you, Laiken.” She knew where to begin now. She flew down the stairs. Dimly, she heard Yarrow and Birch behind her.

“Why does this matter? So now we know, but what are we supposed to do with this?” Birch asked Yarrow. “Your girl … She’s not a sorcerer, is she?”

She paused on the steps, listening to how Yarrow would answer.

“She’s amazing,” Yarrow said.

“Ahh,” Birch said. He asked no other questions.

Her head buzzing with hope, Terlu continued down the stairs and across the workroom. She picked up her coat and pulled it on. She knew exactly where the notebook was: back in Yarrow’s cottage, on the desk with the book about the care of orchids.

Yarrow reached her. He was still wearing his own coat.

“How can I help?” he asked.

She loved when he asked that. “I don’t know yet.”

“Good luck,” he said. And he kissed her, in front of his father, Lotti, and possibly Laiken’s ghost. When he released her, she felt as if she could climb mountains, swim oceans, and definitely and absolutely save the Greenhouse of Belde.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

On the bed by the window in Yarrow’s cottage, Terlu curled up with the notebook, a stack of paper for her to take notes, and a charcoal pencil, wrapped tightly in a strip of rag to keep her fingers clean. Yarrow had returned to the greenhouse to help rehome the singing flora, while she puzzled through the pages. By the final notebook, Laiken’s code was even more complex. He not only used his codebook, but he wrote backward as well. It was going to be a slog to translate.