Fortune's Magic Farm (19 page)

“Not you. Someone else.” He stopped unwinding and tucked a rope of hair behind his ear. “Your grandfather has given up, Isabelle. He fired the farmhands because he thinks there’s no future for magic or the farm. He’s waiting to die and for the farm to die. That’s why all the plants are overgrown and why the garden is filled with weeds. That’s why the seeds are rotting and why the squirrels are getting fat. But Walnut and I don’t want the farm to die. Walnut believes that magic will have a place in the world again, and I… well, this is the only home I’ve ever had. So we went to find you, hoping that if Nesbitt met you, he’d believe in our future again.”

“But he doesn’t want to meet me. He told me to go away.”

“We’re hoping that you’ll be able to change his mind.” He threaded a silver needle. Then he stuck the needle into the air, pulled it, and stuck it into the air again.

“What are you doing?”

“There’s a hole in the dome,” he said.

She leaned forward and looked at the place where he held
the needle. “I don’t see a hole. It’s just air. How can air have a hole?”

“You can’t see the hole because you aren’t trained to see it. But I’ve been doing this for five years now, so trust me. It’s right there and it’s big. If I don’t fix it, it will get bigger and then someone could slip through and find the farm.” He chewed on his lower lip, concentrating on his task.

“Can I help?”

“I only have one needle. But thanks.”

Isabelle sat nearby, wishing she had another sandwich. “How come there’s a hole?” she asked. “And don’t tell me that I should know.”

Sage’s tangled hair hung down the back of his yellow shirt. His long legs didn’t look so skinny in regular pants. “It goes back to that promise.”

“Not to tell anyone about the farm and not to take anything from it.”

“Yep. Every tender has to make that solemn promise. The sorcerer set it up that way. If a tender breaks the promise then the spell that protects the farm is weakened and you get holes. Walnut didn’t have the Head Tender’s permission when he told you about the farm, but that didn’t weaken the spell because the sorcerer’s magic recognizes you as a rightful heir to the knowledge. You’re supposed to know the secret. You’re supposed to be here. Besides, the holes started appearing a long time ago.”

“Oh.” Isabelle thought she saw a stitched seam hover in
the air in front of Sage’s face, but then it disappeared. “Then who broke the promise?” Silence followed her question. She threw her hands up. “Oh great. I suppose you can’t tell me. Of course not. No one tells me anything.” She folded her arms. “If I’m supposed to be the last tender and the only hope for magic, or whatever, then shouldn’t I know what’s going on?”

“Yes, you should.” He tied a knot and broke the thread with his teeth.

“Then tell me who broke the vow.”

“I can’t. Walnut wants to be the one to tell you.”

Isabelle stood. “Then I’m going back. He said he’d answer my questions when I got back.”

“Dusk will come before you’re halfway down the mountain,” Sage said, tucking the thread and needle into his satchel. “You could get lost. I’ll go with you. Hey, wait for me.”

Though her legs were tired and the marmot’s claws dug into her shoulders, Isabelle ran down that mountain. She was going to learn the truth about her parents, once and for all, and the reason why she was the only person in Runny Cove to ever have been left on a doorstep.

A
s the farm’s songbirds tucked themselves
into their nests, and the pantry mice curled by the fire, Isabelle, Great-Uncle Walnut, and Sage sat at the kitchen table. Walnut dipped a ladle into a cast iron pot, filling three bowls with steaming potato stew. Sage sliced through a yellow round of cheese, handing Isabelle a wedge-shaped chunk. Mama Lu had never shared her cheese. It crumbled in Isabelle’s mouth, then melted into creamy deliciousness.

“You promised to tell me about my parents,” Isabelle said.

“We will eat first,” Walnut told her, blowing on his stew. “A tale of sadness is better endured on a full stomach.”

So they ate—Isabelle as quickly as she could. Rocky, who had uprooted the potted plant and had tossed it aside, dug joyfully. No one seemed to care, so Isabelle didn’t scold her.

Hurry up and eat. Hurry up and eat.

FINALLY, just when Isabelle thought she couldn’t sit a moment longer, the time came. Walnut unbuttoned his plaid jacket and swept his long white hair behind his shoulders. He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his belly. He began like any good storyteller, with a first line certain to capture a listener’s attention.

“Earthworms were especially fond of your mother.”

Isabelle leaned forward. “Did you say earthworms?”

“I did, indeed. Even when she was a baby, whenever she
sat on the ground, all the earthworms would migrate toward her. Such a fantastic gift for a tender. She was a superb composter. Compost is derived from the Latin
compositus
or
compostus,
meaning to convert plant debris into dirt. Composting is a skill that all tenders must learn in order to condition the land for planting and to…”

Isabelle fidgeted. Sage cleared his throat.

“Oh.” Walnut paused. “I guess you don’t want to hear about that. You want to hear about your parents.”

“Yes. Please.”

Tears pooled on Walnut’s lower lids. He wiped them away with his dirt-stained hands. Something had sprouted beneath one of his fingernails. “This subject always upsets me. I miss my niece so very much.”

Sage busied himself in the kitchen, keeping his back turned as if to give Walnut and Isabelle a bit of privacy.

Walnut took a dingy handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “You’d better sit down, my dear. The story is difficult to bear.”

“I am sitting down.”

“Then you’d better sit still. All that wiggling is very distracting. A story this terrible requires a great deal of concentration.”

Isabelle sat stiff, her jaw clenched, preparing herself for what was sure to be the saddest story she had every heard—even sadder than Grandma Maxine’s story about how Sunny Cove had become Runny Cove.

“Your mother’s name was Daffodilly because she was
born in March, the time when daffodils bloom here in the north. She was a beautiful, healthy baby, and did all the usual baby things, like sleeping in trees, tunneling underground, and floating.”

Isabelle wasn’t certain, but those didn’t sound like
usual
baby things.

“When Daffodilly turned ten, the time came to send her away for schooling. Mrs. Fortune chose to send her to Madame Pungent’s School for Girls in Switzerland, her own alma mater. It’s always difficult for tender parents to send their children into the outside world, but a good education is of the utmost importance. Daffodilly received excellent grades and came home for winter and summer breaks. All went well until her seventeenth birthday, when two terrible things happened.”

Isabelle caught her breath. Even the marmot stopped digging to listen.

“Firstly, her mother, Mrs. Fortune, died. Mrs. Fortune had been born with a weak heart and one morning, while she was pruning Camoflauge Creepers, her heart stopped beating. Daffodilly rushed home for the funeral and brought a young man with her. His name was Henry, a student who attended Madame Pungent’s School for Boys. They were each in their final year of school. She introduced him as her husband, for they had eloped over a long weekend, and she begged Nesbitt to give him a job as a farmhand.”

“Was he my father?”

“Yes. He’s the second terrible thing that happened, by the way.”

Walnut blew his nose again and tucked his handkerchief into his pocket. “When a tender chooses to marry, the spouse must pass a series of loyalty tests before stepping foot on the farm. That’s how it must be done. Daffodilly broke the rules and Nesbitt was livid.”

“Is that why he’s angry?”

“Partially, but there’s more.” Walnut leaned on the table. “You see, your mother was madly in love and love has a way of making people act, well… stupidly. Only those who have been in love can truly understand this. Have you ever been in love?”

“Never,” Isabelle replied loudly, to make certain
everyone
in the room could hear her.

“Well, your mother loved your father so much that she entrusted him with many of our secrets. She couldn’t imagine that he would ever, or could ever, be disloyal to her family.” Walnut shook his head sadly.

Sage brought a pot of tea to the table and handed out three big mugs. His brown eyes caught Isabelle’s for a moment. His lips turned up ever so slightly, just enough to say
I’m sorry you have to hear all this.

“What happened next?” Isabelle asked as Walnut sprinkled sugar into his mug.

“Henry tried to convince your grandfather to start a seed company and to sell the magical seeds all over the world so
we’d become the richest family on the planet. But Nesbitt dismissed Henry’s idea, of course. Selling magic to the highest bidder is a risky proposition, for what if the highest bidder turns out to be a madman? Or a dimwit?”

Walnut paused to stir his tea. “Henry was relentless in his desire for wealth and one morning he and Nesbitt got into a terrible argument. Daffodilly took her husband’s side, telling her father that he was narrow-minded and backward. The next morning, Daffodilly and Henry left the farm and the moment they passed through the tunnel, we knew that Daffodilly had broken her solemn promise as a tender.” His eyes welled up with tears again. “Oh, you tell her, Sage.”

Sage sat down and folded his hands. “A massive crack appeared in the dome. I wasn’t here, that’s just what I’ve been told. The spell was weakened because she took magical seeds off the farm. And the dome has been weak ever since. New holes and cracks appear all the time.”

Isabelle felt a rush of shame.

“It is unimaginable for a tender to do such a thing,” Walnut said, sniffling. “I knew that love had befuddled Daffodilly’s mind but it broke my heart, all the same. And it broke Nesbitt’s heart too. Each passing year has driven him deeper into despair until this year when he decided to give it all up. He stopped believing in our future. The world does not deserve magic, he said. We will let the farm die.”

The sky had darkened. Stars appeared. Sage lit some candles.

The truth about her parents slowly sank into Isabelle like a skipping stone sinking to the bottom of the sea.

“Where did my parents go?” she asked.

“We don’t know all the details but we’ve deduced that your father took all the magical seeds and abandoned your mother the moment they stepped off the farm. Fortunately, magical seeds are very temperamental, and since Henry did not have the skills to take care of them, most perished. But a few survived and he sold them to the highest bidder, a man with whom you are familiar.”

“Mr. Supreme,” Isabelle hissed.

“Exactly. Your father celebrated his new wealth by buying the world’s largest zeppelin and, befitting his reckless nature, proceeded to crash it into a volcano. He perished.”

Isabelle didn’t feel too sad about that. Her father sounded like a terrible person. “And my mother?”

“Prepare yourself, my dear,” Walnut said. “This is the part I dread telling.”

The room fell silent, broken only by Rocky’s wheezy breathing. Walnut closed his eyes for a moment, collecting his thoughts, then looked deep into Isabelle’s eyes. “Your father told Mr. Supreme all about the Fortunes. And all about Daffodilly, who was homeless and wandering on her own, afraid to return to the farm. Mr. Supreme began to search for her, greedy for the farm’s secrets. He almost caught her a few times but she always managed to escape, even though she was heavy with child. Yes, my dear. With you.”

Isabelle imagined her mother running from Mr. Supreme,
down dark alleys and muddy lanes. Running and running until she ended up in the place called Runny Cove.

“That’s why she left me on the doorstep,” Isabelle realized, seeing it all clearly. “She was trying to protect me. She was trying to protect the farm, too. Because Mr. Supreme would have used me to get inside.”

“Exactly.”

Then came the dreaded question. Isabelle took a deep breath. “Where is she now?”

“I found her body just outside the tunnel. I think she knew that she was dying and wanted to see us one last time, but the spell had turned against her and wouldn’t let her back in. It was evident that she had recently given birth, but we didn’t know where to find the baby. I buried her in Tender’s Cemetery.”

“Ten years have passed,” Sage said. “But Supreme’s gyrocopters still search. I can keep patching the cracks and holes but if one more tender breaks the vow…”

Isabelle’s mind raced. Sage and Walnut had brought her to the farm, hoping that she could change Nesbitt’s mind about letting the farm die. That she, being the last tender, would give him hope. But how…

“How did you know where to find me?”

“I knew that a tender, even if she did not know that she was a tender, would influence her environment simply by being alive,” Walnut explained. “We sent Rolo out to cover as much territory as possible. He knew immediately when he saw the cloud bogs.”