Page 25 of Homegrown Magic

“Sweet Wind is a champion among mechanical steeds. Probably.”

Margot lets out a very slow breath, counting silently to ten. She loosens her death grip on Sunny’s reins and hops down off the wagon’s seat, her boots sinking into the muck. “It wasn’t my best idea. But I swear, this has never happened to me here, not even after such a heavy rain. Normally, the canopy keeps this part of the path relatively dry.” They’d cut southwest through the forest from Bloomfield to Olde Post rather than spending the extra hours riding west to the Queens’ Road, then due south. It really ought to have been quicker, as it’s been many times before.

Yael hops down beside her. “Nothing a little plant magic can’t fix, right?”

“Mud isn’t a plant.”

“But it’s plant-adjacent, like tea, surely?”

Margot wishes that were the case. “Nope. Mud is just mud.” She swipes a hand over one of the wooden cart wheels. The mud clings to her fingers—sticky, dense, and stinking.

Up ahead, the path twists, disappearing behind towering rock faces. Olde Post is only a few miles to the east. Behind them at least a mile back, the Queens’ Road waits with its wide stones and straight paths, but between either of those is a muddy morass.

How are they supposed to get out of this?

“Well, we wanted an adventure,” Yael says, walking around to pet Sunny on the nose. They pull some sugar cubes from their pocket and feed one to the horse.

Had Margot really wanted that? It had sounded nice enough yesterday evening over community dinner, and again this morning as they set out and the road stretched before them, open and full of possibilities. But now it seems so much less exciting. Like so many other things, it’s just a hassle, requiring time and energy and talent she doesn’t have.

But maybe Yael’s right, and this is a problem that can be solved with magic.

“I have an idea,” Margot says, brushing more mud off the cart wheel. In her mind, she flips through the spellbooks she studied in college. And the tomes piled in her workshop. And Granny Fern’s remedy book, which she was studying yesterday to give the energy elixir another try. There’s something in her notes, something to do with wildflowers…

“Is it spreading out a blanket under that pine over there and having a picnic, then a nap?” Yael yawns. “Because sometimes I find problems can solve themselves while I nap for a bit.”

“We’re not infants,” Margot snaps, more bite behind her words than intended. “Now help me clean off these wheels. I’m not sure, but I think they’ll need to be free of mud for this to work.”

At Margot’s direction, they lay long strips of bark Margot whispered off a tree under each of the wheels. She also manages to get Sunny to take one step forward, just enough so the wheels are resting on the bark. Using sticks, Margot and Yael scrape as much mud off the cart wheels as possible. Then they rinse the wheels with water from the small barrel Margot brought along for the journey, and after that, they dry the wheels with packing linens from the crates.

“We’re just making more mud.” Yael points to the puddle beneath each wedge of bark.

Margot allows herself a small, secret smile. “Trust me on this.”

Once they unharness Sunny and lead her out of the way, Margot looks at the wagon, at the ferns and mushrooms growing alongside the path.

“Are you sure this will work?” Yael feeds Sunny another sugar cube.

“If it doesn’t, then we’re walking the last few miles to Olde Post, carrying the supplies. And possibly Sunny. Now hush, this takes a lot of concentration.”

Yael pops a sugar cube in their own mouth and nods. Margot pulls from her pocket a small packet of wildflower seeds that she was going to sell at the fair, emptying the contents into her hand. She closes her eyes, breathing deeply, letting the magic of the trees, the bracken, the woods, the wildflowers fill her.

Wind through the trees. Water tinkling in a stream somewhere nearby. Air moving all around them in invisible currents. And plants, everywhere, yearning to burst forward into the sunlit spring air.

She takes another deep breath before her exhale sends the wildflower seeds in her hand tumbling forward into the muddy path. Margot breathes in again, reaching into the well inside her where magic waits. At her urging, the magic rises, and she breathes it into the air as well. It spreads, a purple stream drifting from her fingertips. She can feel it coat the muddy path, and she whispers a spell to the seeds and all the growing things around them.

Grow, little ones. Make your way into the world. I need you here now.

The magic flows and flows, and sweat rises on Margot’s brow.

Please make us a path. Please, please, just long enough for us to pass through.

She knows exactly when the spell takes hold. It’s like slipping on ice and then feeling the grip of strong hands catching you and holding you up.

There’s a great rustling sound, then a pop. Yael exhales sharply beside Margot, and her eyes fly open.

Where a muddy stretch of road was moments ago, there’s now a lavish carpet of dense moss, woven with tiny green plants, and millions of small purple flowers, each of them the exact shade of Margot’s hair. The plants and flowers make a living indigo ribbon though the ravine, inviting them forward. Flowers and plants also grow under the bark supporting the wagon wheels, and it now sits on top of the path, steady as if it were resting on the Queens’ Road.

Margot lets out a loud whoop—perhaps she does have potential after all, even if she can’t make remedies as well as Granny Fern. The noise shatters the stillness of the forest and sends Sunny dancing backward.