Garden Princess (14 page)

“Stop!” Krazo said again. He flew toward the wheelbarrow. He landed on its rim. The princess was lying on top of the pruning saw. He barely noticed the silver key still twined among her leaves. “Where are you taking her?” he demanded.

The gardener scratched his head. “Where am I taking who?”

“The princess!” Krazo leaped down beside her.

“Do you mean that dandelion? Rubbish heap, I guess. Lady Hortensia told me I must kill all the weeds I found this morning. Say! You’re that talking magpie Miss Adela told me about. I guess she was right about something, anyway.”

“You killed her?” said Krazo.

“Who?”

Krazo leaned toward the princess.

“The dandelion? I should think so! Lucky I got to it before it went to seed!” said the gardener.

The princess didn’t look dead. Her leaves, sprouting up from her dirt-encrusted taproot, were crisp and green and speckled with dew. Krazo could smell her grassy, springlike scent.

“I can’t wait to tell Lady Hortensia,” said the gardener. “She said only last night she’d give me a kiss for every weed I pulled!”

So the princess is dead, thought Krazo. She was dead, and it was Hortensia who had killed her, just as surely as if she had dug her up herself. In fact, Hortensia would probably tell him all about it later today. She would probably laugh about it. Krazo had never understood her laughter before. He didn’t fully understand it now. But as he thought of the satisfied look he had seen on Hortensia’s face, the same look he had seen on the face of that barnyard cat, it seemed to him that Hortensia’s laughter must be a cruel thing.

“I don’t suppose you know where I could find more dandelions,” said the gardener.

Krazo looked up.

“I was just thinking about getting some more kisses from my lady.”

The idea came so fast to Krazo it nearly knocked him over.

“I don’t know about dandelions,” he said. “But I do know something she wants killed. Follow me.”

“Are you sure she wants this cut down?” The gardener brushed his fingers against one of the blooms on the rose tree.

“Yes!” Krazo lied.

The gardener cast a look at the debris scattered across the grass — the remains of the princess’s battle with the rose tree. “Well,” he said, still sounding dubious, “it does look as if it’s shedding leaves and petals. But other than that —”

“It’s what she wants! And then there’s some digging. . . .”

“I’m good at digging. Maybe I ought to start with that.”

“Tree first!” Krazo insisted. “Then dig!”

“All right, then.” The gardener leaned over the wheelbarrow and pulled out the pruning saw. “This should work fine, but I’d better have a pair of gloves.” He began to dig among the other tools. He picked up the princess and tossed her to the ground.

Krazo hopped over to her. When the gardener had killed the rose tree, he would show him the silver key. He would tell him to dig up the box. And then — would there be treasure inside it? Or, as the princess had promised, would there be something better than treasure? Something that would destroy Hortensia?

“Here we go!” said the gardener. He stood up, holding a pair of leather gloves. He put them on, knelt down beside the rose tree, and laid the blade against the trunk. But before he could begin sawing, a tree branch swatted his arm.

“Ouch!” The gardener fell backward. “Pesky thing,” he growled. He grabbed the branch with a gloved hand and laid the blade against the trunk again. “Ouch!” he bellowed as another branch slapped him in the face. He jumped to his feet and touched his cheek, noting the blood there. He stared openmouthed at the tree, whose branches were drawn back like arms ready to let loose in a fight.

“Well, I never! You’d almost think it knew what I was going to do!” The gardener took a step forward, and the tree reacted, swiping one of its branches through the air so quickly that he barely had time to jump out of the way. He turned to the magpie. “No wonder my lady wants this cut down!”

Frowning, the gardener jabbed at the tree. It lashed out with a branch, but this time he was ready. He seized the branch and sliced it off with one decisive blow of his saw. The tree lashed out again, and the gardener sliced again. “Ha!” he said with a grin.

Now the tree picked up its attack, lashing out with two and three branches at a time. The gardener fought back, gathering the branches into one gloved hand and using the blade in his other hand to hack through them. Krazo joined in, too, flying at the tree, tearing apart the blooms with his beak and claws.

Finally, there was only one branch left. “Take
that
!” said the gardener as he sawed it from the trunk. He threw it on the ground and pulled off his gloves. He took out his handkerchief and dabbed at the cut on his cheek. “She ought to give me a kiss now, for sure!” he said.

But Krazo was already dragging aside the branches. “Time to dig,” he said.

“Right!” The gardener picked up the shovel and looked at the spot Krazo showed him. “You’re sure this is where she wants me to do it?”

“Yes!”

“Because if she wants to plant something, I’d say it’s better to dig a little more out of the way —”

“Just dig!” Krazo was beginning to worry. Though it was still early morning, Hortensia
could
be awake now. What if she showed up before they were finished?

The gardener began to dig, and Krazo hopped back and forth in agitation. His worries increased as the hole deepened. Shouldn’t the gardener have found the box already? What if this wasn’t the right spot? What if Hortensia had dug it up and moved it?

And then,
Clink!

The gardener stopped digging. He knelt down and reached into the hole. “Look at this!” He pulled the box out of the hole and shook the dirt off. “There’s something rattling inside!” He tried to open the box. “It’s locked!”

The princess lay half buried beneath a branch. Krazo seized her by the taproot and dragged her across the grass. “Here’s the key!” he said.

“Well, I’ll be! How did that get there?” The gardener dropped the box and picked up the princess. “It’s caught,” he muttered. He worked at the chain with his fingers, pulling it down over the taproot. “Got it!” He tossed the princess aside, then picked up the box again. “What do you know? It fits!” he marveled as he turned the key. Then he lifted the lid, and his eyes grew wide.

“Let me see! Let me see!” Krazo demanded.

The gardener held up a large heart-shaped stone. “Looks like a ruby!” he said, watching it catch the light. “It must be worth a fortune!”

Krazo’s heart sank. The princess was wrong. It was only treasure.

Then a movement behind him caught his eye. “What are you doing?” shrieked a familiar voice.

Krazo whirled around to see Hortensia standing at the entrance to the enclosed yard. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and her face was contorted with fury. He dove under the wheelbarrow.

The gardener jumped to his feet. “My lady!” he said. “I’ve cut down the rose tree, and I’ve dug the hole you wanted.”

Krazo peeked out from behind a wheel.

“Give me my heart!” Hortensia held out her hand, palm open.

The gardener’s smile evaporated. “Wh-what?”

“My heart! Give it to me!”

“I don’t know what you mean, my lady.”

“The ruby, you fool! Give me the ruby!”

She snatched it from him. She cradled it in her hands. “How did you find it?” she demanded.

“It was a magpie! It said you wanted —”

“Krazo!” Hortensia’s eyes flashed. “I’ll tear his wings off! I’ll slit his throat! I’ll boil him alive!”

Krazo shrank back out of sight.

“I — I cut down the rose tree, j-just as you wanted, my lady,” the gardener stammered. “And I pulled up a dandelion. You said you’d give me a kiss.”

“You fool! Do you have any idea how precious this is?”

Precious, thought Krazo. He looked at the princess — at her wilted leaves. She was dead. Hortensia had killed her, and the only thing she cared about was treasure.

Suddenly his brain felt hot. All he could see was red. His head was filled with fire. He wasn’t even aware that he was moving, that he was flying up in the air . . .

“There you are!” snarled Hortensia, and Krazo could feel her fury crackling through his mind. But his own anger was greater. He attacked, flapping his wings and scratching at her face with his claws. Hortensia raised her arms, trying to fend him off. He grabbed her hand with his claws. She shrieked and cursed, trying to shake him off, but Krazo bit her wrist and held on. The gardener was shouting; his hands grabbed Krazo, but still the magpie kept his grip on Hortensia. He bit down and dug his claws into her flesh again and again until at last the ruby fell to the ground. Only then did Krazo let go. Hortensia grasped for the stone, but Krazo was faster. He didn’t want the ruby, but if this was what she cared about — if this was her most prized possession — he wanted to crush it. He would carry it high in the air and drop it in the sea. He would smash it against a rock. He would destroy it! His claws encircled the ruby —

“No!” screamed Hortensia.

And it shattered into pieces.

“My heart!” she wailed.

There are any number of things a flower can feel: the warmth of the sun, the chill of night coming on, the dampness of the soil, even the tiny nibble of a caterpillar. But it feels these things without knowing what it feels. It feels without awareness.

That was how it was for the flower that was Adela. It felt itself being pulled from the earth. It felt itself wilting under the heat of the sun. The flower was dying, but it could not know that it was dying. It could not know anything at all.

And then something happened.

The flower that was Adela felt an impulse to move. In itself, this was not so unusual. All flowers are compelled to move in response to their environment. They turn their leaves to follow the sun across the sky, close their blooms at sunset, dig their roots down into the soil in search of water. But this impulse was different, because it came into being without any outside stimulus. The flower that was Adela simply felt the need to stretch. It could feel itself stretching — roots, stems, leaves, and blossoms. And the more it stretched, the greater the need became, until it was no longer a need but a desire. I want, thought the flower. I want, thought Adela, and she opened her eyes.

“Miss Adela?” Garth was leaning over her. He looked worried. “Are you all right?”

She tried to answer him but couldn’t. She sat up and swayed from dizziness, then leaned into Garth’s steadying arm. She closed her eyes, trying to reconcile the lingering feeling of being a flower with the familiar and yet unfamiliar feeling of being herself again. Arms and legs, hands and feet, fingers and toes! Ears for hearing, mouth for talking, eyes for seeing!

She opened her eyes again, and her breath caught in her throat. There, looming over them, was Hortensia, her hands reaching and grasping at the air, her mouth open in an agonized cry.

Only the cry did not come. Hortensia loomed without moving a muscle. In fact, it was not Hortensia at all; it was a white marble statue, perfect in every detail.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Garth, staring up at it. “She was standing there and — and suddenly she turned to stone. It started at her hands, and then it went right up her arms and into her face. It was like watching her turn into a corpse!” He shuddered. “And then the walls disappeared, and I turned around, and there you were, Miss Adela! Only it wasn’t you! You were —”

“A flower?” she finished.

“Yes!” said Garth, his eyes wide. “You were a dandelion . . . But only at first . . . because your head popped out of the stem, and then your arms and your legs!”

A dandelion, Adela thought wryly. Then, “Where are we?” she wondered aloud. She remembered standing beside the fountain on Hortensia’s front lawn. Now the fountain was nowhere to be seen, and there were people — hundreds of them — chattering and clamoring, some of them even crying. She had just taken in the fact that they were all women when she heard a groan behind her. Turning, Adela saw a man lying curled up on the ground next to Garth’s wheelbarrow. The man gave another groan and rolled over onto his back.