It’s #bookqw and the future of Fern’s family land is in ‘question.’
Excerpt from chapter 2:
The council would seek replacement caretakers if Gran didn’t bring it into compliance, which could be satisfied if she grew the plants on their list. After the no-nonsense Sir Humus left, Gran had stood on the front porch a long time, her jaw tight. Finally, she’d said, “Well, Fern? What should we do?”
There’d been no question in Fern’s mind. All that old-fashioned talk about the land being a part of you suddenly felt real when told they might lose the land Gran’s family had lived on for centuries. They’d researched the plants, plus added projects like raising partridge and repairing a pond dam to “put things very right,” as Gran said.
Gran had hired out some clearing and ground preparation, but the rest hadn’t been easy. Growing flats of seedlings and spending hours planting while sneaking around Mom and trying to keep up with her homework, wrestling team and tutoring left Fern wishing for magic.
None had appeared. And Gran’s was all but gone, for some reason she wouldn’t explain.
Most of the items had been crossed off, leaving Cut oak saplings. Clear pond ditch. Put in pond plants. Grow ratna plants.
Wheek! Hilda climbed on Fern’s foot, nose sniffing at the refrigerator.
“You want a treat?” Of course she did, especially after Gran had said to feed—no, Hilda hadn’t understood that. This was the guinea pig’s usual behavior when demanding food. Fern got a carrot from the fridge. Hilda took it and trotted to her basket.
Fern swept her long hair into a band and covered it with an orange bandanna. If she wanted to knock one project off the list, she ought to cut those oak saplings before the rains that came most every evening.
Taking the rest of her pop, she pushed through the screen door, grabbed a pair of loppers from the tool bin under the covered porch and walked into the surrounding fields. In the peak of summer bloom, countless pastel-colored wildflowers speckled the tall grasses. Flax and daisy, pennyroyal and teasel, yarrow and bedstraw. Acres of meadowland filled the shallow between two wooded mountains on the twenty-mile-long island in the Irish Sea, closer to Scotland than Northern Ireland, though Gran said they considered themselves Irish.
A bank of rain clouds was already moving up the valley. Hiking hard in long strides, Fern crossed several hillocks, dodged butterflies trying to land on swaying flowers and breathed. She filled her lungs and her soul with the perfumed mix of blooming flowers, pine and the faint hint of the sea. She exhaled, then inhaled even deeper. Just the scent of the island calmed her as much as digging in the dirt and handling plants.
She topped a rise and allowed herself a moment of this: the grasses brushing her hands, birds singing, the damp of the coming rain. This was totally not the dirty farm her mother claimed she’d grown up on. Their family land was wild and natural, and Fern loved it with a fierceness that sometimes hurt.
~~~
Thanks for reading!
The Witch of the Meadows is available to buy on Amazon. Or read free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription.
Leave a Reply