The Enchanted Greenhouse(49)

“My sister saved us. She noticed I was missing and rallied my aunt, who was the best sailor in the village—she went out in the storm and brought us home. Odile had swallowed a lot of water. She almost didn’t make it. And her parents didn’t know until the next day. They were both out in a neighbor’s field, helping bring in a pregnant cow. After that, my parents forbade me from going anywhere with Odile again, at least not without very direct supervision.” She remembered what hurt the most: how Odile didn’t seem to miss her. Odile had latched on to another kid to rope into her schemes, and eventually her parents did notice, when she broke into the head councilmember’s house and stole one of the village relics—a headdress that she wore brazenly to the Spring Equinox Festival. She’d been jailed for that stunt, and her parents had been forced to confront her behavior. “I’ve forgotten why I started telling you all this.”

“Sometimes people disappoint you,” Yarrow said.

“Yes. Wait, no. Sometimes people are going through things that you can’t see because you’re too busy looking up to them. I think Laiken wasn’t who you needed him to be, and he wasn’t who you thought he was. His decisions weren’t always right.”

Yarrow was silent.

“Like putting the plants to sleep.”

He grunted in agreement.

“And like sending your family away.”

No response.

“You could invite them back, if you wanted,” Terlu said tentatively. She didn’t want to push, but … He misses them. I miss mine. She’d write to hers, if she weren’t afraid it would endanger them—and even more afraid of how they’d react.

He sighed heavily in the darkness. “They have their own lives now.”

How did he know they didn’t want to come back? Maybe they were just waiting for an invitation. Maybe they missed the greenhouses. Maybe they missed him. “But—”

He cut her off. “We should sleep. Dawn will come soon, and there’s work to do.”

Terlu fell silent. She wished she hadn’t said anything. He didn’t need her theories on a man that she’d never met, especially one who’d loomed so large in his life. He’s probably regretting not sleeping with the plants.

At last, Yarrow said, “Thank you for today.”

“It didn’t go exactly the way I thought it would. I’m sorry.” All the chaos was her fault. If she’d woken them one at a time, as she’d planned, it wouldn’t have been nearly so traumatic for the plants—or for Lotti and Yarrow.

“You woke them, as you promised.” He rolled over onto his side, facing her. Firelight flickered in his eyes, and she found herself staring into them. His eyes were as green as the pine trees outside, and when the flames danced in them, they glowed with flecks of gold, like the sheen of his skin. She wondered what he’d do if she reached out and touched him. He could draw away. She kept her hands firmly tucked beneath her blanket.

“Tomorrow I’ll work on translating more spells,” Terlu said. “If Dendy can help, that’ll make it go faster. Maybe the rest can help you with the gardening in all the other greenhouses? You shouldn’t have to do it all yourself.”

“They just woke,” Yarrow objected. “I can’t ask them to work.”

“It might help them, if they feel they have a purpose,” Terlu said. “You could just ask, with no expectations. Make it clear they can say no. They might surprise you.”

Softly, he said, “They’ve already surprised me.”

She supposed that was true.

“So have you.”

For an instant, she thought he might be the one to reach out, cross the uncrossable space that lay between them, but he didn’t do it, and she didn’t dare.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

At dawn, Yarrow made apple-and-cinnamon muffins. She had no idea how he got them mixed and baked so quickly, but by the time Terlu’s eyes opened, the cottage was filled with the smell of early autumn, even while the snow fell again outside.

She stretched. “You are a wonder.”

“Huh? Me?”

It occurred to her that it was possible no one had ever admired this man, ever seen him as more than a son, brother, cousin, nephew … the one who stayed behind. She wondered if he had any inkling of how special he was, to devote his life to the care of living things who—with the possible exception of the sentient plants, who had been asleep—could never really care for him in return. She hoped the sentient plants, now that they were awake, were properly nice to him. If they weren’t … well, she’d never yelled at anyone before and wasn’t sure she could, but she could certainly tell them she was disappointed in them and that she expected better from them. That approach definitely worked on her when her parents had used it. Hopefully I won’t have to. None of them seemed to have any grudge against Yarrow, though she couldn’t say the same about their views on the resurrection rose. “I hope they were kind to Lotti.”

“She’ll be all right even if they weren’t.”

“I think she’s sensitive, even if she hides it,” Terlu said. It must have been hard to be blamed for decisions you didn’t remember making—or never made. Laiken could have lied to Lotti as well. She might not have known what he’d intended to do when he entered the greenhouse with the sleep spell. Or maybe she had known, but she hadn’t thought to question the man who had created her. She’d trusted him. And now to be the target of so much vitriol while the little rose was still mourning the loss of her father figure … Poor Lotti.