Sprout

Another stem wilts. The little mage bites back a scream and lights a new candle off a quickly fading wick. Discarded stems and bulbs and half-cracked seeds litter the tabletop.

The spellbook’s instructions are clear, exact. Clinical. In other words, no help at all. The old masters assume that magic flows effortlessly, so long as one uses the precise finger movements and vocal tones. But magic doesn’t flow, at least not for her. Not anymore.

She tries the incantation again. A clump of dirt, a dry seed. She taps into that font of power just above her heart. She starts with a slow trickle. A bud peeks out from the dirt. She tries to clamp down on her excitement but it’s too late. Magic pours from her fingers in a rush. The bulb grows cancerous and thick tendrils curl up around it. She pulls away from the grotesque thing she’s made.

A handful of dirt, a dry seed, and she begins again.

As her fingers twitch, she realizes the magic running through them feels familiar. When she was young, she’d spent countless warm afternoons skipping among brooks and glades. One day she’d ventured off alone. She leapt upon rocks and boulders, but she she reached the top she slipped and tumbled all the way back down. A sharp crack gave way to a burning, and then her leg was useless. She’d lain in the dust for a long time, until a shadow fell over her broken and bloody leg. Above her stood an elk whose antlers had the shine of the rising sun. It knelt low, sniffed at her leg, and bowed its head to meet the wound.

Even now, she can still feel the warmth of that touch. She breathes long and slow and pours that feeling into the growing bud. When she opens her eyes, a thick stem stands tall with two leaves thrust into the air. The little mage sighs and closes her eyes once more. As she drifts off to sleep, she wonders dimly what she should grow next.