The Enchanted Greenhouse(15)
Terlu opened the next door, wondering what wonders she’d find. But instead of a display of glorious green or a false sun or an unexpected chorus or a random gryphon, she walked into a plant graveyard. It was such a shocking contrast that she gasped out loud. Her breath hung in the air, a cloud of mist, and she hugged her arms as she walked farther in.
Above her, the glass was splintered, with a few panes that were fully shattered. Snow had drifted inside and was sprinkled across the beds of brittle and withered plants and broken glass. The brown skeletons of shriveled vines clung to the pillars, and the remnants of sprouts sat curled in pots of dry dirt.
What in the world had happened here?
All the other rooms she’d seen had been brimming with life, but this greenhouse was silent and cold. Her footsteps crunched as she walked to the door on the opposite side. She hurried through into another just-shy-of-freezing room full of desiccated plants.
Why had this happened? How had the gardener allowed it?
She continued through dead greenhouse after dead greenhouse, shivering, until at last she’d had enough and reversed directions. If she’d known how many had been abandoned, she would have borrowed that coat again.
Her shoes crunched on the gravel, the only sound as she walked back through the silent greenhouses. They were shrouded in their silence. She’d seen a total of five abandoned rooms, but who knew how many more there were? She walked quickly, not merely because of the cold—it felt like she’d infiltrated a graveyard. As a living being, she didn’t belong. She felt her heart beat faster, her breath shorten.
She was halfway across the first dead greenhouse, almost back to the living, when she saw the gardener hurrying toward her.
Smiling in relief, Terlu opened her mouth to greet him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he snapped.
Friendly as always. She’d hoped that the honey cake and the clothes had been a peace offering, an apology for waking her in the cold and then dismissing her yesterday, but she supposed not. “Sorry. I didn’t know—”
“Come where it’s safe.” He herded her through the door back into the desert room with the cacti and the air that felt as warm as a sweater. She felt the heat soak into her skin as the winged cat wound around her ankles.
She knelt to pet him.
“He yowled at the door until I came,” the gardener said.
“You did?” Terlu asked the cat. “Thank you for worrying about me. You didn’t need to, though. I was on my way back.” Spreading his wings for balance, the winged cat clambered up her skirt. She cradled him as she stood up.
“You shouldn’t have gone in there,” the gardener said. “Those rooms are not structurally sound. In a few of the lost greenhouses, the ceilings have collapsed.” He scowled at the door as if it were at fault for letting her in.
Terlu shivered at the thought of the glass ceiling collapsing on top of her. Squirming out of her arms, the winged cat climbed onto her shoulders and flopped around her neck. “You should put up a sign. Or keep it locked.”
“I’m the only one here,” he said, with an unspoken And I know better. He added, “Well, the only one aside from Emeral, but he can’t open doors.”
“Emeral?” She knew there had to be someone else here. How else could those flowers be singing? She hoped this Emeral would be able to explain what had happened and why she was here and what she was supposed to do. “Is Emeral the sorcerer?”
“Emeral is the cat.” He pointed to the winged cat, who purred in her ear.
Okay, fine, not an unknown helpful sorcerer. “Hello, Emeral. I’m Terlu Perna.” Looking up at the gardener, she waited for him to introduce himself. When he didn’t, she asked, “What’s your name?”
He looked surprised she wanted to know. “Yarrow. Yarrow Verdane.”
That felt like progress, at least a little. “Nice to meet you, Yarrow. Thank you for saving my life. Also for the soup, the honey cake, the clothes, and use of your bed last night.”
Yarrow shrugged. He picked up a tote bag with gardening tools—he was going to walk away again, but this time he wasn’t going to catch her by surprise. She kept pace with him.
“What happened to those greenhouses?” she asked.
“The magic failed.”
“Why?”
“It just failed.”
“What has been done to try to fix it?”
He stopped walking. “You. You were supposed to fix it.”
She halted too. “Me?” That made no sense. She knew nothing about fixing greenhouses. She didn’t think she’d ever even been in one before, unless a florist shop counted, but she didn’t think it did, or at least it wasn’t the same scale. “Why me?”
Yarrow shrugged again. “I appealed to the capital—asked them to send a sorcerer to help restore the spells that enchant the greenhouses. For nearly a year, I got no answer. And then … they sent you. But there appears to have been a mistake because you say you’re not a sorcerer.”
A mistake. The word hurt. Once again, she wasn’t wanted. She thought of the day she’d decided to leave home, how she’d felt when she’d realized she had no place there anymore, no future that she wanted and no future that wanted her … This wasn’t the same, of course, and she knew it was silly to feel that way—he wasn’t saying anything about her personally, just that he needed a sorcerer to fix whatever spell kept the greenhouses intact and warm and hospitable.