Where will Iana's resolution to fight lead her? What will happen between her and Joli next? Sometimes I ask myself all these questions, and then I wonder, where is this story going? Does it even make sense? Read on, and let me know.
#35 What is Necessary
I stopped to rest a moment near the chapel door, which was still boarded up until the chapel roof was repaired. That wouldn't happen anytime soon. "I can't believe you're doing this." Joli stood further back on the stone steps watching as glass shards fell, littering the ground like snow. "Have you no heart?"
"It's necessary," I told her, catching my breath. My arms ached, and hands burned from blisters. I'd been cutting down grasses and bushes all morning. The gardens were fairly bare now. Shrubs had been ripped out, the grass made into furrows, statues broken, stone walkways crushed and all the trees felled into kindling for the kitchen. Smoke rose into the air from burning the cuttings and trimmings, what couldn't be kept for later.
Now Olwen and the other men from the village had reached Aunt Rosemary's house. There wasn't time to save the glass and sell it. They took clubs and long sticks and carefully broke down the glass walls and roof. Glass showered down inside on what remained of Aunt Rosemary plants. Earlier I'd helped Aunt Rosemary bundle up her precious jars, her medicines, tinctures, potions, and folded her seeds into paper packets. The rest of her flowers wouldn't survive long in the chill spring air, and her saplings would be chopped and burned. Everything in the garden had to be destroyed.
Joli wasn't helping. She was watching from the side, arms folded around her stomach. She wasn't even helping Aunt Ginger hand out warm rolls or mugs of hot ale to the villagers working.
"Why don't you do something helpful, instead of just standing there?" I asked Joli. "Or do you enjoy preaching at me that much. The perfect little sister, who never does anything wrong. "
"You're being cruel Iana. I haven't thrown my godmother out of her home, and then destroyed it," she said and stalked away.
"Aunt Rosemary understands, so why can't you?" I called after her, raising my voice too much. Some of the villagers looked over at us. It wasn't good for us to argue outside where they could see. Joli didn't turn back. I watched her hurry around the fires, and cross the empty gardens. It was easy to see the entire space now, and how much smaller it looked without the trees and bushes. No one would get lost in it now. There would be no more secret rendezvous for Joli here, no wonder she disliked what we were doing.
The last few days we'd barely talked without angry words between us.
Earlier, when I spoke to Aunt Rosemary about the garden. She agreed to our plan. That it was dangerous to keep the gardens. They made us vulnerable. No plant, no leaf, no weed could remain inside the castle. To fight the forest creatures, we had to destroy all our connections to them, no matter how small and insignificant they seemed.
It was necessary, I reminded myself, because I was not going to let those creatures win. Only seven days remained, and tomorrow only six. I would deal with Joli later, for now I returned to helping Olwen and the villagers.
By supper time I was famished, and several blisters had broken on my hands, leaving gaping red wounds. My poor soft hands. How many creams had I rubbed into them to make them white and delicate, all that ruined by a few hours working to save my kingdom.
Aunt Hona smeared a yellow goop on my left hand, before she wrapped bandages around it. Usually Aunt Rosemary did this for me. "Where is Aunt Rosemary?" I asked.
"Down in the sop hall, if she hasn't already left."
"Left? What are you talking about?"
Aunt Hona shrugged, and starting on the right hand. She pulled on the skin as she rubbed in the ointment. Pain spiked along my arm, but I kept quiet about it.
Once she finished I rushed down to the servant's dining hall. Aunt Rosemary was leaving?
to be continued . . .
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