The grass shouldn't have felt that dry.
Laurel knelt in the herb patch outside the apothecary, fingers brushing the soil beneath her feverleaf sprouts. It crumbled like breadcrumbs. Not dusty, exactly—but thirsty in a way it shouldn't be, not after three days of steady mist and last night's owl-heavy fog.
She pressed a knuckle against the earth and frowned. The dew hadn't soaked in.
"Don't suppose this is just a moody patch of thyme?" she muttered.
Pippin, curled like a shadow beside a basket of sage bundles, flicked an ear. "Moody? Possibly. But I'd wager enchantment over herb tantrum. Again."
He yawned. "Unless you've secretly trained the garden beds to stage protests."
Laurel stood and dusted her hands. From the edge of the cobblestone path, she glanced toward the village green. The grass there looked more brittle than lush, and the tree trunks… had they always been so dull?
The Harvest Festival was five days away.
Rowan came barreling around the corner, her braid bouncing and eyes wide. "You're not going to believe what Bram just told me! The forge's cooling basin evaporated overnight—he thought I nicked the water for tea!"
"Did you?" Laurel asked, mostly to stall.
Rowan flushed. "Only a little! But not all of it."
Laurel sighed, setting the basket of sage on the apothecary step. "Let's take a village stroll. Bring your notebook."
A minute later, the trio—Laurel, Rowan, and a grumbling cat—were walking a wide loop past the square. Patches of brown crept through the otherwise lush green. The leaves on the tea oaks curled at the edges. Beside the fountain, a mother wrung her hands, frowning at a string of limp lavender.
Rowan scribbled notes like a storm.
"It's not a natural drought," Laurel said under her breath. "The river's flowing. Fog's been thick. But none of the moisture's sticking."
"Enchanted drought?" Rowan guessed.
"Likely," Pippin said, tail twitching. "And timed brilliantly for maximum chaos."
"Who would do this?" Rowan asked.
Laurel didn't answer right away. She looked east, toward the whispering edge of the oak grove.
Inside the apothecary, a dozen herbal bundles had wilted. Laurel untied a poultice of mint and feverleaf and shook her head as the leaves crumbled.
"Even the preservation spells are fading faster," she said.
Rowan paced in front of the counter, chewing on the tip of her quill. "So what do we do? We can't delay the festival. People have already started carving pumpkin charms. Pippin bit one of them this morning."
"It bit me first," the cat corrected from the top shelf, where he lounged between jars of dried elderflower and sassafras.
Laurel laid out a handful of herbal enchantment scrolls across the worktable. "If this is enchantment-induced drought, the soil and air are being repelled from holding moisture. Which means something is draining or diverting the magical saturation itself."
"Like… a leak?" Rowan offered.
"Or a sponge," Pippin added.
Laurel snapped her fingers. "Exactly. A magical sponge. Something's absorbing all ambient enchantment, including the moisture-binding charms."
Pippin sniffed. "That sounds rather... deliberate."
Laurel tapped a small ink circle onto the map of Willowmere. "Then it's time we found the sponge."
They divided the village into rings—inner circle (the well and market), mid-circle (festival green and key gardens), and outer circle (the grove, Bram's forge, Whisperwood's edge). With Pippin hopping from shoulder to basket, they started their enchantment checks.
First stop: the well. Still bubbling.
Second: Bram's forge. Laurel pressed her fingers to the cracked cooling basin, now bone dry. Rowan tried a quick refresh charm, but it fizzled halfway through.
Third: the Whisperwood Oak Grove.
As they stepped beneath the arch of moss-laced trees, the difference was immediate.
Cool. Damp. Fresh.
Laurel inhaled. The air here still pulsed with soft magic. Even the stones hummed.
"Grove's unaffected," she said.
"That means the sponge isn't here," Rowan said.
"Or," Pippin said darkly, "this is where all the magic is being pulled."
Rowan's boots squelched faintly on moss as she paced the grove's inner ring. "It doesn't make sense. If magic's being drawn to the grove, wouldn't it be stronger in the village?"
"Not necessarily," Laurel murmured. She was crouched beside a stone circle at the grove's heart, tracing her finger along faint runes. "Think of it like a sponge soaking up tea—only the sponge doesn't share. It hoards."
Rowan's eyes widened. "Like a greedy squirrel!"
Laurel blinked. "That's… not quite the metaphor I—"
"I love squirrels," Rowan added.
Pippin gave a long sigh.
Laurel brushed aside a curl of damp leaf and froze. One of the runes pulsed faintly. A whisper hummed just beneath hearing, like breath caught in stone.
"Laurel?" Rowan's voice dipped. "The stone's glowing."
"I see it," Laurel whispered.
The rune flickered again—then steadied, etched in a pale blue shimmer. Laurel pressed her palm against the stone and closed her eyes.
Images stirred behind her eyelids: lanterns flickering, wheat fields crisping, festival tables bare. A harvest without harvest. Then a shift. The grove, bursting green. A seed. A choice.
She opened her eyes. "The grove's trying to store magic."
"To help the village?" Rowan asked.
Laurel's brow furrowed. "Maybe. Or maybe it's panicking."
Back at the apothecary, Laurel laid out an emergency grid. She summoned Rowan with a call for "every stable herb that isn't limp, cursed, or bitter with revenge."
Rowan plunked a tray on the counter. "One out of three, maybe."
They brewed a test charm—dandelion root for grounding, glowroot for clarity, thyme for persistence—and shaped it into a simple soil soak.
"Laurel, is this safe?" Rowan asked, watching the mixture swirl in its copper bowl.
"As long as you don't drink it, sniff it aggressively, or sing to it, yes."
Rowan slowly lowered the ladle.
They carried the test charm to a wilting cabbage patch behind the bakery. Laurel poured a slow stream into the earth. Nothing.
Then—steam.
The soil shimmered briefly. A scent of rosemary and old parchment drifted upward.
Rowan leaned in. "That means it's working, right?"
The charm sank in and vanished.
"Sort of," Laurel said, nose wrinkling. "But the magic's still being pulled somewhere. It's like pouring tea into a leaky kettle."
Pippin sniffed the breeze. "Then we need to plug the leak."
That night, Laurel opened the Eldergrove Grimoire and leafed to the oldest rituals. Between notes from her mentor and pressed ferns from forgotten ceremonies, she found it.
Harvest Binding Charm: temporary enchantment to stabilize magical distribution in village boundaries.
Requires:– a root from each quadrant of Willowmere– a ribbon blessed with moonlight– one silver bell from a festival past– and three voices to chant
She smiled.
"Looks like we'll be ringing in balance the old-fashioned way."
They started at dawn.
Laurel handed Rowan a list and a small woven satchel. "North field root—anything strong. Preferably something that bites back."
Rowan saluted dramatically and took off running.
Pippin accompanied Laurel to the west hill, where she gently tugged a stubborn burdock from beneath a leaning fencepost.
"That one always hated being disturbed," Pippin muttered. The root twitched as Laurel tucked it into the pouch.
By midday, they'd gathered all four: bitterroot from the south grove, twistcarrot from the east bluff, moonmint from the north, and Laurel's burdock.
They stood in the center of the festival green, a silver bell from the first Harvest Circle looped in Laurel's belt, a moon-soaked ribbon in Rowan's braid, and Pippin—grumbling—acting as witness and moral support.
Laurel drew the runes in the grass with salt and clover. She tied the roots together and bound them with the ribbon. At her signal, she and Rowan began to chant, voice to voice, the rhythm as old as willow bark tea.
The roots shimmered.
Soil beneath their feet pulsed. A breeze scattered the grass with the scent of fresh rain.
Then—stillness.
Laurel looked up.
Across the square, a garden sprinkler sputtered to life.
Rowan squeaked. "It's working! The spell worked!"
Laurel nodded, but her gaze lingered on the grove beyond. The shimmer was still there.
And it was watching.
The days that followed were not miraculous—but they were promising.
Villagers reported sudden puddles near dry garden beds. The lavender by the baker's window perked up like it had heard a compliment. Bram's forge basin no longer steamed itself empty.
Still, Laurel felt it each morning—a subtle tug westward, like the grove whispered, More, still more.
The Harvest Festival loomed.
She added a pinch of rosemary to every brew. She etched quiet charms beneath the market stalls. She listened as Rowan babbled plans for their tea-tasting corner, her voice a steady hum of hope.
"You're worried," Pippin said one evening, leaping to the counter with the grace of a feathered hat.
Laurel didn't look up from her potion labels. "The drought isn't gone. We just... paused it."
He studied her for a moment, tail curling. "Then perhaps pausing is enough. You've bought the village time."
Laurel set down her quill. "But what happens after the festival? When the charm wears off?"
"Then," Pippin said, curling into a tight black spiral, "we find a bigger ribbon."
Laurel laughed.
She watched the steam from her kettle curl into the air, forming a brief shape—was that a leaf? a whisper?—before it vanished.
Outside, rain began to fall.
Just enough to nourish.
Just enough to hope.
Morning dawned with soft fog curling around Willowmere's chimneys like cats seeking warmth.
Laurel stepped outside with a steaming mug of thyme-honey tea, blanket draped around her shoulders. The herb beds were damp with dew—not mist, but real, honest dew. A sparrow bathed delightedly in a puddle on the cobblestones.
Rowan skipped up the lane holding a basket of bright calendula. "They bloomed overnight!" she announced. "They weren't even bud-ready yesterday!"
Laurel peered into the basket. The flowers radiated stubborn cheer, golden and open to the sky. "Looks like the charm's echoing a little longer than expected."
Rowan beamed. "Maybe the village is learning to hold the magic on its own."
Laurel's chest swelled, not with pride exactly, but with something warmer. A sense of rightness. Of being rooted.
Behind them, Pippin perched on the apothecary roof, tail twitching.
"You know," he called, "if you add another thousand flowers, the festival might actually survive."
Laurel raised her mug in salute. "Better start planting, then."
She stood in her garden, wrapped in a wool blanket, the village breathing easy around her, and smiled.
The drought hadn't ended.
But the magic had remembered how to linger.
By afternoon, Laurel and Rowan wandered toward the village green, arms full of late blooms and herbal wreaths. Children ran past trailing ribbons, and Bram hammered copper lanterns into leaf shapes for the festival.
"Do you think we'll have enough herbs for the tea stand?" Rowan asked.
"We'll make do," Laurel replied. "I have a few clever blends tucked away. Besides, the villagers are more enchanted by the company than the chamomile."
As they approached the center of the green, Laurel spotted Mayor Seraphina inspecting the new charm wards around the market stalls, her silver braid looped with tiny wind chimes.
"Laurel!" the mayor called. "Whatever you did, it's holding. The soil's responding. Spirits seem pleased."
Laurel inclined her head. "It was just an old charm. Some roots. A ribbon."
Seraphina smiled. "And three stubborn voices?"
Laurel laughed. "Naturally."
The breeze stirred through the green, lifting curls and cloaks, tugging at baskets and ribbons. Overhead, a patch of sunlight slipped through the clouds, warm and golden as syrup.
Pippin padded onto the dais and curled himself around the base of the bell post. "Wake me when it's time for biscuits."
Laurel stood in the middle of the bustling preparations, Rowan humming beside her, villagers laughing, and the scent of drying herbs rich in the air.
The drought had not ended.
But for now, the harvest would come.
And that was enough.
That night, long after lanterns blinked out and shutters drew closed, Laurel sat on the apothecary porch with a cup of chamomile-lavender tea, watching the stars blink through mist.
A single candle flickered beside her.
Somewhere in the grove, a rune pulsed faintly.
She sipped, then set the cup down gently. The cup left a damp ring, and the ring shimmered—just for a second—as if echoing the runes' glow.
From across the dark, an owl hooted. A breeze carried the scent of freshly turned earth.
Laurel closed her eyes.
Not every problem needed a solution right away.
Some simply needed space to breathe.