They just didn’t know how to listen before.
Clara taught them that.
She teaches the soil classes herself—sometimes barefoot, always smudged with leafdust, her notebook overflowing with scribbles she’ll later turn into policy briefs or teaching modules. I watch her from the treeline sometimes. Or from the center of the new spiral circle she carved into the learning paths. It holds sacred geometry in its roots, but she just calls it “the quiet spot.”
Today, she’s guiding a group of town council apprentices through the leyline mapping gardens.
“You can’t justplantmagic,” she tells them. “You have to let itchoosewhere it wants to grow. Think of it like a dance. You lead, but you don’t drag.”
One of the girls laughs. “How do you know when it’s leading back?”
Clara smiles. “The air tastes sweeter. Or you trip over a root that wasn’t there before.”
The whole group writes it down like gospel.
Later, Callie explains energy-neutral irrigation systems to a cluster of local farmers. Julie hands out flower-powder nutrient kits to a class of preteens who argue over whose moss patch glows the brightest. Even Hazel—now officiallyfourteenand somehow more chaotic than ever—is running a pixie-integration workshop near the east glade.
The camp thrives.
The town thrives.
Pollinators have returned to the outer ridge. The local water table is no longer cursed—or “misaligned,” as Clara corrected the board rep who visited last month.
And me?
I still guard.
Still watch.
But not alone.
Not silent.
I teach two classes now—one in ancient wardcraft and another in sentient-plant diplomacy. I still don’t talk much, but when I do, they listen.
And when Clara looks at me from across the Grove—smiling, lit with sun, daisy crown forgotten in her curls—I feel something in my chest settle.
Root.
Bloom.
Begin again.
Because the Grove’s not just protected anymore.
It’sshared.
And it’s evergreen.
The sun breaks low through the trees when the junior casters arrive.
Eight of them today, all between ten and thirteen, dragging charm-satchels and wide eyes, still sticky with morning magic and curiosity. They gather at the moss circle where I teach—just south of the ward tree’s reach, near the vine arches that Clara grew into shade.
“Sit,” I say simply.
They do.
I crouch beside the boundary line, tracing a slow, glowing arc into the soil with my fingers.
