"Some people wake up to birdsong. I wake up to a fern screaming about betrayal."
It started, as these things often do in Weedwick, with a perfectly reasonable act of gardening.
I never meant to start a funeral.
All I wanted was to trim Gary's browning fronds.
But the moment I approached him with a pair of enchanted shears, he began shrieking like I was wielding a guillotine.
"Not the shears, Moss! Not the ceremonial ones! You know what happened last time! It took us a week to convince the bonsai that the war was over! That poor sapling still flinches when it hears clippers. The ceremonial shears have history, Moss—dark, leaf-rustling history!"
"Gary, these aren't ceremonial. They're just sharp. And before you accuse them of historical crimes, no—they are not the same pair that traumatized the ficus during last year's root intervention. Different shears. Less screaming. Hopefully."
Gary shuddered, one frond pointing dramatically. "I still have nightmares about the Intervention. The ficus fainted, Moss. Fainted. I had to fan it with a magnolia leaf while a lavender sprig recited calming poetry."
"Sharp like betrayal!" he cried, curling his leaves dramatically over his face. "I knew it would be you. It's always the quiet ones."
I sighed. Deeply. Loudly. Audibly enough for three ceiling vines to drop down and offer me tea in sympathy.
"Gary," I said, crouching beside his pot like I was negotiating with a hostage. "You have rot. I am going to remove it. Or it will spread, and you will actually die."
"Exactly! And you'll be the killer! Imagine the headlines: 'Local Bloom Witch Butchers Beloved Houseplant.'"
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "You're not a houseplant. You're a talking fern with delusions of grandeur and a taste for oolong."
He gasped. "How dare you! At least let me write my will first!"
"You don't have any assets."
"I have a teacup collection and a half-finished memoir."
"You're stalling."
"It's called dignity."
The standoff lasted longer than it should have. In the end, I bribed him with a sun lamp and the promise of a dramatic eulogy. Only then did he allow me to gently clip the browned tips of his oldest fronds, groaning like a dying opera singer after each snip.
"Sing me out, Moss," he whispered. "Play something mournful on the kettle."
"The kettle only sings sea shanties now, remember?"
"Then may I go down with the ship," Gary declared, dramatically swooning backward into his pot like a Victorian widow taking to her fainting couch. One frond flopped across his face in mock despair, then slowly slid off with the exaggerated drama of a stage actor taking a final bow. He groaned, rattled the edge of his pot for effect, and muttered, "Tell my spores I love them." "Sing me out with dignity, Moss. And maybe a kettle solo—if it insists on sea shanties, I shall request 'The Ballad of the Soggy Leaf.'"
Before I could reply, a scream echoed down the hallway, followed by the thunder of hurried footsteps and the crashing of something heavy into the hallway armor display.
"Intruder!" screeched the chandelier vine. "Tiny! Shiny! Possibly sticky!"
I darted into the corridor just as a blur of green and brown barreled into my knees. We both went tumbling.
"Ow!" said the blur.
"Oof!" said me.
When I sat up, I found myself staring into the wide, terrified eyes of a goblin child. Dirt-smudged cheeks. Tattered satchel. A single shoelace made entirely of yarn and panic.
"Don't eat me!" he squeaked.
"I wasn't planning on it."
"You're the Bloom Witch!"
"I—excuse me?"
He scrambled backward, staring around at the vines that slithered toward him curiously. A nearby pufffruit tree sneezed pink glitter in his direction. He yelped.
"You turned Gerald into a potted basil!" Twig cried, clutching his satchel like it could shield him from herb-based doom.
I blinked. "He said what now?"
Twig nodded furiously. "He was screaming about leaves growing out of his ears, flailing around like a wind-chime in a hurricane, shouting things like, "They're whispering botanical secrets to my brainstem! I can feel the chlorophyll taking over!" and something about having to photosynthesize his regrets."
Behind me, Gary let out a scandalized gasp. "Gerald? Gerald Rumblepot? The one who tried to sell me fake chamomile?! Good riddance."
"I didn't turn anyone into basil," I muttered, rubbing my temples. "I mildly enchanted him with a growth hex after he overcharged me for wilted honeysuckle and told me to 'take it or leaf it.'"
Gary fluttered his fronds. "He's thriving in his pot now, I hear. Runs a small meditation circle for anxious herbs."
Twig stared at me in awe. "That's... weirdly wholesome."
"Yeah, well, next time tell people I'm a responsible menace. Not some unhinged hedge witch running a salad-based gulag."
He stared at me, trembling. "Are you going to turn me into a tomato?"
"Why would I want more tomatoes? They keep trying to unionize."
Behind me, Gary wailed, "Let him go, Moss! Let the boy live!"
"Gary, you don't even know what's happening."
"I know drama when I hear it."
I turned back to the goblin, who had now become half-swallowed by a curious floor fern.
"What's your name?"
"Twig."
"Twig. That's adorable. Why are you here, Twig?"
He looked around as if searching for an escape. "I wanted to see the Bloom Witch. The others said you were a menace. That you grow cursed flowers and whisper to the soil. But I thought... if you could do all that... maybe you could help."
My heart squeezed. Stupid empathic soul. "Help with what?"
He pulled out a crumpled herb pouch from his satchel. Inside were withered leaves, dried petals, and a handful of sickly seeds.
"My sister's sick. Our healer says nothing's working. But someone at the market said you... bring things back."
I stared down at the offering.
Bring things back.
They meant it like necromancy. Like some cursed parody of growth.
But they weren't entirely wrong.
I closed the pouch gently and gestured for Twig to follow.
"Come on. Let's see what the greenhouse has to say."
The greenhouse annex was a riot of light and noise. Carnivorous sopranos were mid-rehearsal. Sporeclouds drifted like lazy snow. Rows upon rows of rare and impossible plants pulsed with life. The watering cans were line dancing. A squirrel made of moss handed out tiny fan-leaf pamphlets that read "Photosynthesize, Don't Criticize!"
"Don't touch anything that sings," I told Twig.
"What happens if I do?"
"You'll owe it royalties."
He stuck close to me, eyes wide. I guided him to the Heartbed, a circular bloom patch pulsing gently with green magic.
"Place the pouch here. Gently."
He obeyed.
The soil shivered. The seeds inside twitched.
I whispered to them—not with words, but with magic. With presence. With the root-deep knowing that this place was safety.
The pouch split. The seeds sprouted in unison.
Twig gasped.
From within the sprouts came a flower I hadn't seen in years: Ghostmint. Rare. Healing. Thought extinct—until now. It was said to only grow under moonlight filtered through mist spun by mourning willows, on soil enriched with forgotten lullabies and a single drop of phoenix tear. Legend claimed it was wiped out during the Great Blight War, when a jealous alchemist tried to patent spring. No one had seen it in centuries, until now, sprouting in my greenhouse like it had simply been waiting for someone weird enough to call it home. Legend claimed it was wiped out during the Great Blight War, when a jealous alchemist tried to patent spring. No one had seen it in centuries, until now, sprouting in my greenhouse like it had simply been waiting for someone weird enough to call it home.
I plucked one gently and handed it to him.
"Brew this in moonwater. Add honey. Have her drink it at dusk."
He blinked, lip trembling. "Will it work?"
"If she's strong. And you believe."
He nodded, cradling the flower like a treasure.
Gary, from the doorway: "Is he still alive? Should I prepare the second funeral just in case?"
"Out!" I shouted. "All of you!"
The greenhouse rustled with giggles.
Twig hugged me suddenly, then scurried out, flower clutched tight, leaving only muddy footprints and a whispered, "Thank you, Bloom Witch."
I stood in the silence, listening to the breath of the greenhouse. The warmth of the Heartbed pulsed around me like a heartbeat, its rhythm syncing with my own. In the stillness, something old and gentle stirred in the roots of the walls. As if the castle itself had heard the name—Moss—and remembered it.
I looked up, surrounded by growing things and magic spun wild, and said it just once—softly, so only the plants could hear:
"My name is Moss."
And outside, in the bustling markets of Nerium, the story of the Bloom Witch spread like a wildfire of blossoms.