Free Yon Ill Wind by Piers Anthony

she tried to forge through there, she probably wouldn't make it to the far side anyway.
    There had to be a way through.  But where was it, if not the path?  Chlorine looked back and forth between the two garden halves, sure that she was missing something.
    Now that she took the time to wake up and smell the flowers, as it were, she saw that the path was lined with purslane, which made sense for a lane, and trailing arbutus, which made sense for a trail.  There were also primroses, making it a primrose path, and at the very beginning, a trail blazer jacket.  So no one could be confused about where the path was.
    A dim bulb flashed.  That trail blazer—suppose she moved that to the other side?  Would it then blaze a new path there, where she wanted it?  That might be the answer.
    She reached for the jacket, but it was just out of reach.
    She stretched her arm out—and got scratched again.  Apparently that piece of apparel wasn't supposed to be taken.
    So much for blazing a new trail.
    So she couldn't move the path.  What else was there?
    Move the gardens?
    A dim bulb appeared over her head, but didn't flash.  It simply hung there expectantly.  She hadn't quite gotten her bright notion yet.
    Was there a way to change the positions of the gardens, so that the same path led through the nice part?  Now she thought there could be.  It was exactly the kind of inverted thinking that the Good Magician was noted for.
    Chlorine reconsidered the gardens and the path.  Now she saw that the path wound past a nasty-looking well.  She made her way to it, stepping carefully to avoid the nettles and thorns, and peered in.  Smoky fumes smudged her face and jammed up her nose.  Phew!  That wasn't water in there, that was firewater.  Not exactly poisonous; she knew poisoned water when she encountered it, that being her talent.  But not exactly healthy, either.  Mean spirits.  This was one mean well.
    Across the path from it was a dingy thyme plant.  She turned to consider it.  Thyme was tricky stuff, she knew; it could speed things up or slow them down, or even just change the time of day.  Normally she stayed well clear of it.  But could there be a reason it was growing here, so close to the path and the well?  Her bulb brightened slightly.
    Mean well, mean thyme.  In the mean section of the garden.  It figured.  But there were other meanings of mean.
    Such as when a person meant well.  Then the intention was good, even if the result wasn't.  Could this be that kind of well?  And the thyme plant—it affected time, and sometimes time was sort of average, and they might call that mean time.  It wasn't necessarily nasty, merely rounded off.
    Suppose some of that well-meaning water were poured by the thyme plant—would that round off the time in a good way?  Her bulb brightened.  It well might!
    She took the grubby bucket and dipped some of the smoking water out.  Of course, it looked awful, because its true nature wasn't supposed to be obvious.  But if she was right—
    She poured the water at the base of the thyme plant.  It turned greener and healthier almost immediately.  Then night fell.
    What?  Chlorine looked around, startled.  It hadn't been close to nighttime!  Oh—the thyme plant, feeling its oats, as it were, had accelerated time, bringing the garden rapidly to night.  Maybe she should have anticipated that.
    But what good did it do her?  It wouldn't be any easier to forge through this tangle by night than by day.  Unless—
    Now her dim bulb flashed so brightly that the entire garden lit up.  Sure enough:  this was now the kinder section of the garden.  It was a kinder/meaner garden, and one section was as different from the other as day from night.  So it was night, and suddenly this half was the nice one with the path wending pleasantly through it.  She had found the way at last.
    “Come, Nimby,” she said, as if this were routine.  “We shall pay a call on the Good Magician.”