The Enchanted Greenhouse(94)
As a peace offering, Terlu said, “Do you want to try the bubble spell again?”
He softened but said, “Are you sure? You don’t need to, if you aren’t comfortable. My family … I know them well enough to know they won’t betray you, not if you’re helping the greenhouse, but you don’t know them yet…”
“There are a few more variations that I’d like to try. And I do need to. Greenhouses are still dying.”
“You’re more important than any greenhouse,” Yarrow said.
Terlu forgot how to breathe.
She stared at him for what felt like an extraordinarily long moment before she inhaled again. Wordless, she held out her hand, feeling a bit as if she were trying to coax a deer to come close enough for her to pet. He’d been left behind over and over by the people who were always supposed to stay by his side. Whether he should have gone with them or not, whether he should have tried to stay connected or not … it still left scars.
Yarrow took her hand.
While the sea turtle swam through the water above them, they walked together through the tunnel. Neither of them spoke, but the quiet felt like the silence within the water, peaceful and natural. She thought about the turtle and wondered if he was lonely. He’d returned to the greenhouse on his own, Yarrow had said, but did he miss the sea? Other turtles? She resolved to return and swim with him as often as she could.
She’d abandoned the spell ingredients in the greenhouse they’d been practicing in when Yarrow’s relatives had descended, and she was pleased to see they were all exactly where she remembered. None of his relatives had found this place, which meant it was unlikely they’d interrupt the spellcasting. Maybe I can do this without them noticing at all.
“Let me prepare them,” he offered. “You focus on the words.”
“Thanks.” She picked up the pages of her notes. Now, which variation should she try first? She had theories about the third line … It could be that the parameters of the bubble were fixed by a piece of spell that she’d excluded. So if she took the measurements from the prior section, which focused on growing the pillars and support beams …
They worked side by side.
After a bit, Yarrow wordlessly handed her a slice of honey cake on an embroidered napkin. She munched on it while she ran through the words of the spell, adjusting them in her mind. The key was to focus the spell on its purpose while also defining its size. As near as she’d been able to tell, the protective bubble lived a hair’s distance away from the glass. She didn’t know which had failed first in the dead greenhouses—the bubble or the glass—but if the shield ruptured first, it could have caused the cracks in the glass by expanding against it. Of course other spells failing too didn’t help, like the sun going out and the temperature regulation spell going haywire … She wished she knew what exactly had caused the failure. Regardless, this bit was key to restoring the greenhouses. If she could master this spell, then they could cast it on the greenhouses after the talking plants fixed the cracks. Once that was done, she’d then work to master the other spells that made the environments extraordinary.
Step by step, she thought. I can do this.
Yarrow will stand by me. She was certain of that. Whether the spell worked or not, whether she was able to restore the greenhouses or not, she wasn’t alone.
Terlu stood up. “All right. I think I’m ready to try.”
“Good,” Yarrow said.
He’d mashed the ingredients into a paste. She turned in a circle, surveying the dead greenhouse. Sunlight pierced the snow-laden ceiling, and it fell in patches, making the bare soil and withered plants look dappled. “I think we should spread the paste out, to define where we want the bubble.”
“You want the full perimeter of the greenhouse?”
“A smaller circle, for the first test.” Showing him, she walked in a circle that incorporated a few of the flower beds as well as the central junction of the paths, where they stood, approximately a twelve-foot diameter.
He smeared the paste in a thin line behind her until he completed the ring. “Ready.”
Coming to the center of the circle, Terlu spoke the words, careful to pronounce each syllable the way she’d rehearsed in her head. She focused on the ring of ingredients as she rolled through the lines. As she reached the end, she held the last syllable as if it were a final note in a song before she let it die into silence.
For a moment, nothing happened.
She was about to apologize to Yarrow. It might take a lot more trial and error before she made any real progress. After all, Laiken had been a master sorcerer with extensive training and decades of experience, while she was trying to eke out bits of spells from left-behind notes and—
The bubble rose from the circle, a shimmering veil. It spread up, curving to connect above them, sealing into a dome. Like a soap bubble, it shimmered with colors as the sunlight through the greenhouse glass hit it.
“It worked,” Yarrow said, awe in his voice.
“Wow.” She hadn’t expected it to just … work. Like that. She’d thought she’d have to try out several more variations of the spell before it resulted in a dome this perfect. Walking toward the bubble, Terlu examined it.
No breaks. No seams. Also, it was beautiful. She watched the colors shift and undulate, more colors than she’d ever seen before, in shades that blurred into one another before swirling away, like a living rainbow. “If we form it against the perimeter of the greenhouse, we’ll be able to control the temperature and humidity inside the dead greenhouses. You’ll be able to have summer in the middle of winter again.” Terlu paused. “Assuming this holds heat.”