It wasn't there yesterday.
Laurel stood at the edge of the village well, boots planted in dewy grass, eyes narrowed at the newcomer.
A vine—deep green and slightly iridescent—twined itself around the old stone like a ribbon on a gift. Its leaves shimmered like dragonfly wings, and where the vine curled, small buds shaped like wishbones had begun to unfurl.
Rowan joined her a moment later, munching on a slice of toasted honeybread. She followed Laurel's gaze and stopped mid-bite.
"That's… new."
"It grew overnight," Laurel murmured. "No one planted it."
Pippin hopped up onto the rim of the well, tail twitching. "It smells... opportunistic."
Laurel crouched. The vine pulsed faintly, as if breathing. "I've seen nothing like it in the Flora Codex. It wasn't in last month's seed exchange either."
Rowan knelt beside her, brushing a finger over a leaf. The moment she touched it, the bud beside her snapped open—pop—and released a tiny puff of golden mist.
Rowan coughed. "Spicy."
Laurel frowned. "Not dangerous. But... deliberate."
They weren't the only ones who had noticed.
By noon, half the village had come to peek. Thistle theorized it was from the southern groves. Old Marna blamed moonlight. Bram suggested someone had wished a vine into being, half-joking.
But it was the youngest, little Elsie, who whispered, "I made a wish this morning."
The crowd turned.
Laurel bent gently. "You did?"
Elsie nodded, shy. "I wished for my cat to come back. He ran off last week."
At that moment, a meow echoed across the green.
And from behind the baker's coop trotted a rather smug-looking tabby.
Laurel didn't believe in coincidence. Not in a village like Willowmere.
That afternoon, she returned with gloves, her field journal, and a small copper bell in case things turned too spirited. Pippin came too, sulking slightly. "If a plant starts granting wishes, I'd like a say in the matter."
The vine had grown another full loop around the well. Its buds now pulsed faintly, swaying toward the sun despite the absence of wind. Laurel chose the lowest bloom and clipped it gently. It quivered in her palm.
"Now what?" Rowan asked from her perch on a nearby bench.
Laurel set the bud in a shallow dish and whispered, "I wish to know what you are."
The bud shimmered—and unfurled.
A tiny, translucent scroll lay inside, no bigger than a fingernail. Laurel squinted. Faint letters in looping script revealed themselves:
"I am born of unmet longing and the breath between words. I grant what is wanted—not what is needed."
Rowan leaned over her shoulder. "That's... poetic."
Pippin rolled his eyes. "It's a plant. With ego."
Laurel flipped to a blank page in her journal. "It grants literal wishes. But interprets them on its own terms."
Rowan frowned. "So if someone says, 'I wish it would stop raining...'?"
"Expect a very literal drought," Laurel murmured.
Indeed, the village was already showing signs of meddling.
That evening, Bram's broken wheelbarrow began trundling about on its own. The baker's flour refilled itself, but only in the shape of butterflies. And someone—not naming names—now had a chicken who laid eggs that whispered compliments.
"I wished for encouragement!" Marna huffed, holding an egg that cooed, "Your ankles are very brave."
Laurel pinched the bridge of her nose.
"We'll need to contain this."
By morning, the vine had reached the second story of the wellhouse and was braiding itself into elaborate loops.
Laurel roped off the area with stakes and a polite sign:
"Please do not wish aloud within 12 paces."
It did not help.
Some villagers whispered wishes under their breath. Others tried to wish secondhand through their pets. Rowan caught two kids trying to get their goat to bleat a wish for "unlimited honey tarts."
"I think it heard me," one whispered.
The goat sneezed. A crate of tarts appeared—and immediately dissolved into bees.
Laurel called an emergency tea circle.
"This vine grants the spirit of a wish," she explained, "but with no understanding of practicality, balance, or consequence. It's not malicious—but it's mischievous, and deeply literal."
Seraphina tapped her chin. "Then perhaps the answer is not containment... but story."
Laurel's brows lifted. "Go on?"
"Wishes," Seraphina said, pouring steeped nettle-lemon, "are stories we tell ourselves in seed form. Maybe what this vine needs isn't silence—but structure."
It gave Laurel an idea.
By evening, she had erected a new sign beside the well. A chalkboard with neat instructions:
> "Wish responsibly. Include: — A clear subject. — A defined outcome. — A reason that roots the wish. Optional: rhyme for flavor."
Rowan read aloud:
"'I wish to find my knitted sock, / The red one lost near garden rock, / No tricks or turns or sudden luck, / Just peace of foot and wool un-plucked.'"
A bud popped. A scroll unfurled.
Two minutes later, the sock fluttered down from a bird's nest.
The vine slowed its climb after that.
Wishes became more careful. Laurel posted a board of "best practices" next to the chalk sign. Children wrote rhymed petitions, villagers asked for lost things, needed clarity, mended tools. The vine responded with restraint—and sometimes, a flourish.
One evening, as fireflies blinked above the well, Rowan lingered behind with Laurel.
"You haven't made a wish," she said softly.
Laurel smiled, setting her mug of lemon bark tea down. "Haven't needed to."
"But if you could?"
She thought. And then, quietly, walked to the vine. She touched the lowest bud.
"I wish," she whispered, "for what I already have to last."
The bud glowed, but didn't open.
Instead, it curled into a heart-shaped leaf and rested against her palm.
Rowan reached for her hand. "That counts, right?"
Laurel nodded.
From that night on, the vine stopped blooming.
Its leaves stayed, curling gently around the well like a blessing. The wishes had quieted, not from lack of wonder—but because Willowmere, for a little while, had everything it needed.
Pippin napped beside the well.
A final wishbone bud drifted down, weightless as a feather, and nestled between his ears.
He didn't stir.
But he did smile.