Something occurs to me, and I sit up straight. “Does my dad get reports on what we talk about here?”
She shakes her head. “Everything is confidential. Unless you express a desire to harm yourself or others, or describe abuse, either past or ongoing. In those cases, I’m required to file a report with university police.”
“Hm,” I say. “In that case, yeah. I knew it was against the rules.”
“Did that give you pause?”
“Not at the time.”
“You went anyway. Why is that, do you think?”
“I was upset. I just wanted to go somewhere. Do something.”
“What type of something?”
Even though I don’t want to answer, I think about the restlessness I’d felt at the cliffside before Sel found me. The pressure under my skin. The desire to explode.
“I don’t know.”
“Hm.” Patricia doesn’t believe me. She reminds me of my mother in that way. There was a reason I went behind her back to apply to Carolina. If I’d asked and she’d said no, she’d have read the defiance on my face. “Let’s shift gears.”
“Fine by me.”
“I’d like to talk about your mother.”
An eager sort of panic flutters in my stomach, at the back of my throat. “My dad said you knew her?”
“I did,” she says warmly. “Not well. But I liked her very much.”
Suddenly, swallowing is hard. I thought I’d wanted her to talk about my mother. Why does it feel bad now that she is? “Oh.”
“Do you know why I asked to meet you here, Bree?”
Her question takes me by surprise. “No, not really. Is this a trick question?”
Apparently, my answer takes Patricia by surprise, because she blinks and sits back.
“These gardens are abundant with root energy. Are you not a Wildcrafter like your mother?”
19
SHOCK, FEAR, HOPE—EMOTIONS war in my belly. “What’s a Wildcrafter?”
For the first time, Patricia looks rattled.
“Wildcraft is shorthand for the branch of Rootcraft she practiced. The type of energy she could manipulate is found in growing things—plants, herbs, trees. As a student, she spent hours here in the gardens and—” Her face folds into a sympathetic frown. “I’m so sorry, Bree… I thought this would be a comforting, familiar setting to you. I thought you knew about her.”
I almost fall off the bench. How many times in a week can one have their world spun and fractured and put back together again? A dozen? Two dozen? After-Bree presses against the walls that restrain her. Against surprise and secrets and another moment of my life that breaks the world open a little further. My skin feels prickly and tight. I shut my eyes and shove it all back before panic steals my senses. “My mother… manipulated energy?”
“Yes.”
Questions tumble against one another like dominoes. “What type of energy? What is Rootcraft?” Does everyone keep secrets here?
Patricia recovers her composure. She taps a polished nail on her lower lip, her eyes darting back and forth in thought. “I’m not sure that I should say any more.”
Suddenly, I’m so impatient and indignant I could shake her until the answers fall out. Scream until she shares what she knows. I grit my teeth. “Why not?”
She hesitates, but meets my eyes. “I don’t think it’s my place.”
“Why? Did she tell you to keep this from me?” A thought occurs to me. “Did my dad?”
She spreads her hands over her skirt. “I didn’t know Faye very well, and we didn’t keep up after graduation. I didn’t even know she had a daughter until your father called me today, didn’t even know she’d passed. And I doubt your father knows about any of this. Most often, the craft flows from mother to daughter.”
“What?” I shoot to my feet.
“Bree, I’d like you to calm down.”
“Why would I be calm about this? My mother had a secret life and she never told me. Why didn’t she tell me?”
“I don’t know why Faye made the decisions she did. When loved ones die, there are always questions like this, with answers we can only guess at.”
Confusion and anger flood me in a hot rush. “And are those questions always about magic?”
“We don’t call it magic.”
“We?” My fists ball at my sides. “I just met you, and now it’s ‘we’? You and my mother?”
Patricia’s lips thin.
“My mother was a botanist. A scientist. Five minutes ago, I thought any manipulation of plants she did happened in a—a pharmaceutical lab. And now you’re telling me she lied to me.”
A fine line appears between Patricia’s brows. “Thank you for sharing how all of this is making you feel. You’re right. I owe you more than what I’ve said. Please, sit.”
Whiplash. “Just like that, you changed your mind?”
A smile tugs at her lips. “I find that, in my field, emotional agility comes with the territory.”
My breath comes in shallow pants. My fists refuse to unclench. But I sit.
“Do you know what auras are?”
A vision of the red mage flame washes over me in a hot rush. Was that an aura? Was it not mage flame at all? Patricia’s attention sharpens on my face, but before she can ask a follow-up, I wave a hand in a vague circle around my head. “Colors around people?”
“Mostly right. Auras are your personal energy, reflecting the state of your spirit.”
“What do they look like?”
“From what I understand, they look like a faint sort of fog or thin mist.”
That mage flame had roared up my skin, all fire and anger and blood. Not an aura, then.
“While an undergraduate here, I had a friend named Janice who was a Reader, someone whose branch of Rootcraft allowed her to see people’s auras. Emotions, intentions, abilities. One day Janice saw me and your mother talking outside class and later, Janice told me that your mother knew the craft. So I asked your mother to practice and fellowship together. She was very polite, but she declined. She seemed so uncomfortable by my offer that I never mentioned it again. I wasn’t offended. I thought maybe she had her own community. We tend to keep the craft private, but I thought, perhaps, she kept to a stricter code; rootcraft is taught within families, and different families have different approaches. Still, I am surprised that your mother never told you what she could do.”
There’s no air in my chest. Where is all the air? My mind is blanking, shutting down.
“Bree?” Patricia leans forward into my field of vision. “Take some deep breaths. Close your eyes and think of something or someone that made you feel safe in the last twenty-four hours.”
I follow her instructions—and my mind travels to eyes, storm dark and blue.
It takes a few breaths before I open my eyes again. The panic is still there, but it has trouble taking hold.
I believe what Patricia’s told me. After all that I’ve seen here, it would be foolish to think there’s no more to learn. But of all the secrets I thought I’d uncover, I didn’t think my mother’s life—and the magic she wielded—would be one of them. Wildcrafting, plant energy manipulation. What danger would there be in sharing those abilities with others like her? Did she believe Patricia was dangerous? That seems unlikely—Patricia left her alone. The Order’s militancy is more than enough reason to keep a low profile on this campus. But if that was her reasoning, then that means she knew about the Order and Merlins long before I was born. So, did a Merlin know about her? My instinct says yes. Why else would one be at her deathbed twenty-five years later?