The Enchanted Greenhouse(116)

The other plants stayed with Terlu, Yarrow, and the dragons until they reached the greenhouse, and then they said goodbye and left to continue their work fixing the cracks. Terlu and Yarrow brought the dragons back to the sunflower maze together.

Once the chrysanthemum puzzle door was opened, the three little dragons took to the air and flew back inside with happy trills and coos. They were greeted with calls from the other dragons. Above, the aurora rippled in green-and-yellow ribbons.

“Thank you for your help,” Yarrow called after them.

Terlu placed the jars inside the door, where the dragons could easily reach them. “We’ll leave the door open from now on.” She glanced at Yarrow to make sure he agreed, and he nodded. Just because Laiken had treated the inhabitants of Belde a certain way didn’t mean they had to do the same. Like Lotti and the other sentient plants, the dragons had proven they were more than what they’d been allowed to be. It’s time for things to change. “Let us know when you want more honey.”

All three dragons flew back into the maze. She watched them for a moment as they cavorted above the flowers. She wondered if they were telling their story to the other dragons and decided that yes, they were.

“Do you think they’ll leave the maze, if we leave the door open?” Yarrow worried.

“Yes,” Terlu said. “But then they’ll come back. Their family and friends are all here.”

“Mmm. Also, their treasure hoard.”

“Sure, that too.”

Side by side, they watched the dragons fly for another few minutes before Yarrow said, “I wonder if they’d like honey cakes. I could bake smaller portions so they could lift them…”

“I think they’d love that.”

Leaving the dragons, they strolled back through the greenhouses. She expected him to hurry off to weed or prune or re-pot, but perhaps he didn’t need to, now that it wasn’t just him caring for the hundreds of thousands of plants. She wondered how he was feeling about the fact that his father had come into the caves for him. Granted, he wasn’t a child anymore, and he hadn’t been lost, but maybe it would at least be the beginning of something? She wasn’t going to ask, though. That was up to Yarrow to work through.

“So, I guess we just wait?” Yarrow said. “See if any other greenhouses fail?”

“I think so.” Only time would show if they’d succeeded. But she was certain they’d done it. She trusted her translation of Laiken’s final notebook.

“Hmm.”

As they strolled through the rose room, beneath the many shades of pink and red and white, Yarrow asked, “Now that you’ve saved everything I’ve ever cared about, what do you want to do for an encore?” He wrapped his arm around her waist and shortened his strides to match hers. Leaning against him, she breathed in his scent—honey and sea and sweat and sweetness—with the roses.

She thought about what came next. “I think … I want to write a letter.”

“Huh. Okay.”

The more she considered it, the more certain she was.

“That was not the answer I was expecting,” he admitted.

“I want my family to know I’m alive,” Terlu said. “And happy.” She was ready, at last, to reach out. She wasn’t the same as she’d been when she’d woken cold and alone in the woods, the island wasn’t the same as it had been when she first walked through its wonders, and the world beyond … it wasn’t the same either. It’s time.

“Ahh,” Yarrow said. “Yes. I’ll make us lunch while you write. There’s a quiche recipe I’ve been wanting to try…” He continued to tell her about the quiche with the same adorable enthusiasm as when he talked about planting garlic.

Snow began to fall again, lightly, on the trees and the cottage and the greenhouse. The winged cat met them by the door of the cottage, and the three of them went inside.

While Yarrow broke several eggs and began whisking them, Terlu sat at his desk and pulled out a clean sheet of paper. She dipped the quill tip into the inkwell.

Dear—

She paused.

Should she write separate letters to her parents and her sister? What about her cousins? Aunts, uncles, grandparents?

Dear Family, she wrote.

She paused again.

“Tell them you’re well,” Yarrow advised.

She wrote that. And then once those first words were there, she kept writing. She told them about when she first came to Alyssium, full of hope and fear. She told them about the library, how proud she’d been to get the job and how disappointed when it turned out to not be what she’d imagined it would be. She told them about how much she missed home, how much she missed them, and why she hadn’t returned—because she wanted to find a place where she belonged and had purpose, and she knew it wasn’t Eano, as much as she loved them. But it wasn’t Alyssium either. As it turned out, it was Belde.

This place. With this man.

She smiled as she wrote about Yarrow and her life here. I found a place I want to be and a future I want to have. I’m happy, and I hope you are too. Please write back.

I miss you.

Love,

Your Terlu

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

After a few weeks, the final crack was sealed.

Terlu had been expecting it—she knew the talking plants were working on their final dead greenhouse. In fact, this morning, she’d shortened her daily swim with the sea turtle, in hopes that she wouldn’t miss the moment. So when she heard the cheers in the distance, she knew exactly what it meant. When it happened, she was working on spell variations in what she’d dubbed her practice greenhouse, the one where she and Yarrow had nearly suffocated inside one of her earlier attempts.