Within The Garden Tower

The silver-light sound of cracking porcelain woke Annadae from her sleep.

The hazy blue morning drifted through the window, but she fitfully attempted to gain another dream or two—though the memory sneaking into her dreams again had been precisely what had awoken her to begin with.

Eventually, she conceded to the daylight and slipped out of her sheets. Still barefoot, she climbed the careful pattern of stones down her tower’s wall into the garden. Her fingers roamed the buds and leaves, edging around the bonny bees to pluck out her selections of herbs and flowers.

Before the sun could even rosy her cheeks, she was again tucked snuggly away within her tower—slicing, boiling, mashing and stirring. And then she was at her loom, dipping her fingers in the new elixir as she wove the thread, letting tendrils of her inky magic spool into the pores of the wool with it.

One sweet, naive night of dreams is all she wished for—and this blanket would give them to her endlessly. One night that did not unbury her own hot, bitter tears and the high sound of fracturing porcelain…

…Her fingers stalled at the loom, her pulse halting with them.

Someone was in her garden.

She hurried to her spell journal to see that it was indeed still open to the very page that logged her last enchantment surrounding her tower.

No one should be in her garden.

She crept to the window, daring only her eyes to peer over the sill.

A maiden was meandering through the twisting paths, looking lost and content to be so. A honey-coated hum roamed from her lips to Annadae’s ears.

She was as lost as any maiden could be—lost enough to have wandered through a spell that kept those very paths she walked hidden from any passerby.

Certainly, though, she would not see the tower. With more confidence than she felt on that matter, Annadae stood to peer fully out of the window. She squeaked when the maiden’s eyes met hers instantly.

If she had deigned to look a moment longer, she would have seen a most delighted and curious smile draw itself upon Della’s face.

“You have a lovely garden!” Della called up to the pretty face she’d caught only a glimpse of. She’d never known there to be a tower here—nor a garden so magnificent. It seemed to contain even flowers that should not be in bloom until the latest hours of summer.

There was no answer from the tower for a time, but once Della had settled herself among a lush patch of lavender, a timid voice called down to her.

“How are you here?”

“How? By my feet!” Della laughed.

That sound too—just as sweet as her humming tune—nestled in Annadae’s ears. With a hand covering her heart, she insisted more fervently.

“You can’t be here.” For it was impossible that she be here. Even still, Annadae recoiled from her own words—when had she become cruel? The answer to that she knew, and, with the memory of a cleaving line drawing itself across smooth porcelain, she clutched her hand over her heart tighter.

“Oh.” Della stood, brushing dirt from her fine satin dress. She tipped her face towards the window with a sorry smile, the coronet atop her head catching the light. “I didn’t mean any harm. I’ll leave, if you’d like.”

“Please do,” Annadae said faintly, daring a step onto the small terrace. The softness in Della’s eyes when she beheld Annadae standing there could soothe any babe to sleep. Della blinked, as if to clear her head from a dream.

“May I get your name in parting, at least?” she asked, airily.

“Annadae.”

“Are you a witch, Annadae?” Della asked through a sly smile, holding a ripe sunflower between her fingers, though she knew it to be early spring.

“I am. Are you?” As Annadae spoke, she clutched the ledge of the terrace like it were a buoy in a raging sea.

“I am not. I’m a princess.”

“Tell me your name, princess.”

“And what will you do with it if I give it to you?”

Annadae crossed her arms. She had been wrong to ask for it to begin with, so, though she still longed for it, she was pleased to keep it a mystery.

“Are you all alone up there?”

“I’m content.”

“Hm,” Della mused. She had not asked if she was content. “Which does a witch like you prefer, Annadae: tart berries or sweet pastries?”

An unexpected smile tickled the corner of Annadae’s lips. “What sort of question is that?”

“An important one. Your answer?”

“I suppose sweet pastries. And you?”

Della grinned. “Tart berries.” She folded her hands behind her back. “What is your favorite color, Annadae?”

Annadae’s brows bunched—less so with the confusion of why the question was asked and more for the concern that she did not have a simple answer. “It depends on the day.”

“Well, today then. Your favorite color?”

Annadae bit her lip as she observed the girl in her garden, enveloped by lavender buds.

“Today, it is purple.”

The maiden nodded, looking satisfied enough, and took a retreating step.

Annadae had forgotten she’d asked the princess to leave. Even still, she called out, “Wait. What is yours?”

She held out the sunflower she’d claimed. “Yellow,” she beamed.

Annadae mirrored her smile so easily that she didn’t notice it at first. When she did, she swallowed it hastily.

The maiden tilted her head coyly. “Do you prefer sunshine or clouds?”

Annadae brought her palm to her face, laughing softly as she shook her head. “Sunshine. And you?”

“Sunshine.”

Della’s feet happened to remain planted with the flowers in that garden until the very sunshine that lit their conversation began bidding its adieu over the trees.

“Goodnight, Annadae,” the princess finally called in place of another question. The breath that came from Annade’s lips in response to hearing her name on the maiden’s tongue again was a plea—a plea that she leave quickly, a plea that she stay. Nevertheless, the witch nodded her farewell and folded herself into the arms of her safe tower once more.

She climbed into bed, eyeing the useless blanket on her loom with only a few finished rows. But she smiled to herself, knowing something softer could carry her to bed tonight.

But no. No, this would not do well for her heart. She had forgotten to demand an answer of the maiden for the only question that mattered. How did she walk through her spells so easily?

The result of her doing so was terribly dangerous. And Annadae had allowed it so greedily. Her pulse quickened within her.

“Stay steady,” she whispered to her heart. She would rewrite the enchantment tomorrow, and all would be well. That maiden did not need to know Annadae’s favorite time of day, nor did Annadae need to know that the princess preferred the nighttime because she couldn’t sleep well and found her mind to be the most free when all the world was asleep but her.

But the witch was quite awake, and knowing the maiden was awake somewhere too, even when the moon was at its peak, was a beautiful sort of torture.

She awoke to her name slipping through the window in harmony with the birdsong. Annadae dressed herself sleepily and made her way to the terrace. There the maiden was, a basket in hand, smiling up at her.

“May I come up?”

Annadae wrung her hands. No, she nearly said, but the word refused to form itself on her lips. Instead, she inclined her head with a faint smile.

The maiden craned her neck. “Is there a door?”

“Oh,” Annadae blushed. She rushed inside and rummaged for something useful, finding nothing. She startled when she turned around to see the princess climbing through her window—silky dress, basket, and all.

“I’ve brought you breakfast,” she said breathlessly.

Annadae’s cheeks reddened further. “I see that.” She scurried through the room, putting things in their place, before hurriedly mixing herbs for a tea—boiling the water with a breath from her pursed lips.

She brought the kettle to the table, horrified to see it still littered with spellbooks and potions. She hastily began cleaning, but the maiden was eyeing her open spell journal.

“This is what you meant by saying I can’t be here,” she said softly. Annadae nodded, averting her gaze. “Hm.” The princess’s eyes drifted around the room before they found Annadae’s again.

“Hm.”

The princess looked suddenly flushed, but she unpacked her basket. Within it were pastries and jam. She smiled shyly. “The best for each of us.”

Annadae grinned, though she was thinking only of how she could smell the vanilla perfume the maiden wore.

They ate, and they talked, and Annadae found her hand wandering to her chest, to rest just above her heart. Somehow, they’d ended up sitting knee to knee, their words close enough to collide in the air between their mouths.

“What is it?” Della asked, eyeing Annadae’s curious habit of shielding her heart with her hand.

“Thank you for this, but I think it’s time that you leave.” There had been such a warmth to Annadae’s demeanor—so much so that it heated Della’s skin and rushed her senses—but something cold had crept suddenly into her eyes.

“Why?” Della dared ask.

“I…can’t.” Annadae looked down, and Della was surprised to see her fingers entangled with Annadae’s. She somewhat remembered saying something to make Annadae laugh, and Annadae had reached for her—as if by impulse—to share in that joy. Della had been too distracted by that lovely sound to notice. But now her skin was all she felt. So, it was terribly painful when Annadae tore her hand away.

Della’s face fell. “You prefer to be alone?”

“No,” Annadae whispered.

“Then why?”

“It’s my heart.”

“Annadae, I won’t hurt you.”

“You say this now, but you might. And I cannot risk that.”

“Annadae,” Della began, but Annadae stood.

“Please, don’t say my name that way. My heart can’t take it. It’s already been cracked.”

“Cracked?”

Annadae closed her eyes. Della stood and reached for Annadae’s hands, but Annadae stepped stealthily away, as if it were a practiced dance.

“Please, Annadae.”

“It’s porcelain,” Annadae said quickly, quietly.

Della sat. “Your heart is porcelain?”

Annadae looked away but nodded. “And it has already been broken. If you learn to love me, you will, in turn, learn how precisely to stop loving me. My heart shattering fully is the risk I run in feeling love again—in being loved. That is why I vowed to never leave this tower.”

Della took a shuddering breath, reaching her hand out still. “But what about the other side of that risk?”

Annadae turned away.

And so Della left.

And yet, Della was back the very next day.

And the next.

She spoke sweet words to the tower, and sometimes the tower gave sweet words in return.

And so it went, until one morning, she approached the garden to see that Annadae stood among the roses.

Annadae trembled as the maiden approached her, but she willed her feet to stay.

“Please,” Annadae whispered when she was close enough to touch her, “Give me your name at last so that I may say it again and again.”

The princess smiled with glistening eyes and touched Annadae’s cheek.

Knowing Della’s name was a liberation, a doorway. A new sort of kindling.

Annadae and the heart within her took a step closer.

“I should have told you,” Della said as she sealed the space between them, “I happen to be a skilled potter, and have a knack for mending even the most stubborn of porcelains.”

Annadae beamed. A princess who was a potter.

Her smiling lips fell upon Della’s clumsily then, like stumbling home in the dark. And there in the garden, they shared each other’s names graciously, greedily, as they became a tangle of dresses and limbs and laughter.

And the witch’s enchantments unraveled around them.