Free The Springsweet by Saundra Mitchell Page B

at all. But I was hungry and lonely ... and perhaps the slightest bit fascinated.
    So I said yes.
    ***
    With long strides, Emerson marked the boundary of Aunt Birdie's garden. He said nothing but occasionally made a small sound. Thoughtful, like a doctor giving examination to a broken arm. Thomas sometimes hummed like that—
    I buried the thought. It made my throat tight, and I simply didn't want to taste bittersweet on my tongue at that moment. Putting Louella on her feet, I gave her a pat to send her to play.
    Instead, she decided to shadow Emerson. Aping his steps, she lifted her foot so high, I thought she might fall backwards, but no. She marched after him, a little goose who still hadn't had her breakfast.
    "It could use more water," he began.
    I tried not to groan. Leaning against the house, the yoke taunted me, its buckets sitting empty as an indictment. "All right."
    Finally, Emerson crouched at the row of corn. Sunlight caught in his hair, casting threads of bronze through the dark gold mess of it. "The tomatoes would be happier if the corn weren't casting shadows on them."
    Rubbing the heat from my cheek, I nodded, as if I understood the first thing about a vegetable's pleasure. "My mother's garden is laid out the same way."
    "North facing?" He asked. And I realized it was an explanation. Unlike Mama's, Birdie's garden took shade from the house in the morning and apparently shade from the corn in the afternoon.
    So I said, "Too late to change that now."
    He nodded. Then he turned to Louella, who'd crouched beside him in the same posture. "Can you keep a secret?"
    "Oh yessss."
    "And do you believe in magic?"
    Her mouth a little O, Louella was too excited to speak. Instead, she nodded, her curls bobbing merrily.
    Emerson raised his eyes to mine, asking the same question with a look. And it was strange, our gazes connecting like that. A tremor passed beneath my feet, and I realized with a shock, I had felt it before. When he'd come upon me in the dark. And again, just before I'd answered the door.
    It was him.
    My magic reacted in his proximity. Suddenly, all the water I had struggled to seek the day before rose easily, silver lines that shone like dew, spread out all around us. When my eyes met his, he simply raised his brows. Waiting yet for an answer, though I felt certain that he knew.
    Thus, finding my voice, I said, "I continue to marvel at your flair for the dramatic, Mr. Birch."
    "Marvel away," he told me. Then he rubbed his fingers in the loose earth before him. Wriggling them beneath the soil, he took a long, deep breath.
    The wind shifted, but did nothing to ward off my sudden chill. I'd seen that same smoothing of a face before, felt that same eerie calm of connection in Amelia as I'd watched her make prophecies.
    But this time, instead of a scrap of writing or just a spoken word, there were wonders to be seen. Little, curled leaves stretched, the plants before me shivering, waking—growing. Delicate yellow blossoms burst forth on the tomatoes; the corn suddenly realized its ambition and climbed toward the sky.
    "Magic," Louella whispered.
    And if she saw it too, then it was real. It was all real. My knees weakened, and my heart took the queerest turn. Not until this summer past had my life been anything but ordinary. Spoiled, but ordinary. And now...
    "Now," Emerson said, breaking the spell. He brushed his hands off and stood, as if most farmers simply willed their crops to grow. "They need more water. Four times a day, every day."
    "I'll make sure they get it." Shaking myself to my senses, I crooked a finger at Louella. But I wouldn't hold my curiosity. Without guile, without shyness, I asked Emerson, "How did you learn to do this?"
    He nodded, following Louella back to me. "You first."
    My throat closed. What could I possibly say that wouldn't sound entirely mad? And yet, had he not just coaxed an entire garden to life? Had he not bared his gift to me, in exactly the way I had? The only difference was