Page 6 of Flowerheart

When I threw the door open again, the Council chamber was gone. There was only the colorful garden that Papa tended and the oak tree I’d climbed as a child. It was as if the Council, their meeting—Xavier—had been nothing but a dream.

But it was no dream, and soon my magic would be tightly, painfully bound.

I ran outside, sheltering myself beneath the oak’s branches. I squeezed my eyes shut, held my palms out to the sunlight, and breathed in the perfume of summer: flowers and dew and earth.

Some people believed that magic came from the sun, spilling into the ground and bringing life. It was why our magic wove together so beautifully with nature. When I was like this, basking in a summer morning, it felt like I was back where I belonged.

Perhaps if I tried hard enough, I’d come up with some sort of plan to convince the Council to keep my magic intact for one more week, one more day, one moremoment....

Far away, softer than an echo, sounded the faintest clap of thunder. I shivered. That was me. My magic, worming into the world around me without my permission. “Behave yourself,” I whispered to it. But the clouds continued to loom in the distance.

“Clara!”

Papa marched down the hill and plopped into the dirt beside me. His forehead was deeply furrowed. “What happened in there—well, how are you feeling about it? What are you going to do?”

I let out a bitter laugh and pressed my knees close to my chest. “There’s nothing Icando, Papa. The Council has made up their minds.”

“I think you’re giving up too soon.”

“No.” I rested my chin on my arms and watched the sun sparkling on the dew-slicked grass. “I’ve tried for five years. I’ve fought so hard to tame it on my own. Maybe it’s better this way.”

The sounds of teachers shouting at me, of breaking glass, of my own sobs, filled my head.

“Something’s wrong with me,” I murmured, more to myself than to him. “With my heart, perhaps. If—if I was a reallygoodwitch, then I’d be able to—”

“No, blossom, no.” He shifted closer to me, draping an arm around my shoulders. His other hand, callused from years of gardening, covered mine. “You are a good person, you hear me? Nobody bad would have worked so hard to become a healer.”

I wiped my sleeve against my teary eyes. “It shouldn’t have been a struggle at all,” I said. “Magic reflects what’s in our hearts. Every teacher’s said so. It’s this force inside of you that harnesses your emotions. So my emotions must be horrible.”

Papa was painfully quiet. The silence echoed my own words back to me so I could hear how silly they sounded.

“I think it’s more that your magic can hardly keep up with you,” said Papa eventually. “You’re ready to save the world, but your power... well, it just needs a little more time.”

The brightness of my love for him was clouded by the dark reality of my situation. “I don’thavetime.” When I closed my eyes, I could see those Councilmembers surrounding me like birds of prey, claws at the ready to snatch away my magic.

Papa’s hope for me was constant and sweet. But it was also naive.

I turned from him, folding my arms tight against my middle, where magic thrummed impatiently. The dark storm clouds that had loomed in the distance now hovered over our cottage. “You don’t know what it’s like. You haven’t seen me in my apprenticeships. You don’t know what my magicdoes.” I could almost hear Madam Ben Ammar’s scream that day when my hands had gone up in flames. How even she, calm and brilliant, had been frightened by what my magic could do.

“I just... I just think you should fight. Fight to keep your magic the way it is.”

“Fight theCouncil?” I fiercely shook my head. “Papa, I don’t know what you see when you look at me, but when the Council looks, they seeher.” My voice broke on the last word. The fire in my heart grew. My mouth tasted like ash.

She was everything I hated. Wild, thoughtless, impulsive. Just like my magic. The magic she had prayed that I would possess, too.

“My magic is all I have,” I said between staggered breaths. “The power to help someone. And still, it’s not even mine—it’s hers. She gave it to me.” Tears rolled down my cheeks. “I was foolish to think I could be different from her.”

Papa carefully drew me close, my head resting against his heart.

“I hate her,” I said—to the air, to the sun, to my magic, to myself.

“Clara. Listen to me.”

The more I thought of her, the more my magic seemed to be a real, white-hot flame emanating from my body. My chest tightened; my shoulders quaked; heat rolled through me—

Papa gasped and pulled back from me. Over his heart,where my cheek had just been, the yellow fabric of his shirt was scorched, curling and black. And from his skin, small pink blossoms poked forth.

I screamed.

---