Winter struck with fury that year, and a huge windstorm took out the power lines for almost a week. Lots of boats were torn from their moorings, and a whole section of floating dock was swept away. After the storm, Penny was out with the Search and Rescue team helping to secure things.
I went with Issa to the synagogue once a month, which was as often as they met, and he went with me to Mass the rest of the time. At Candlemas, Issa had a surprise for us — brass medallions, with the image of a cedar tree in the middle, the symbols for Earth, Air, Fire, and Water around it, and a word in Hebrew underneath the tree, a different word on each one. He had made them in his college jewelry class, and he would only tell us what one of the words meant, the one he gave to Michael — in Hebrew, Hesed, which meant Love. Michael blushed. The rest of us would have to wait.
Spring came as suddenly in March as winter had in November. I found myself out behind the backyard a lot, looking at the old corral. I remembered Tara, but I was thinking of something else now. As the grass began to grow, I started thinking of other growing things — vegetables and flowers, and herbs too. That piece of ground was calling to me. I knew it was poor soil right now, and it would take a lot of work to make it fertile, but I wanted to try.
I knew from the beginning of my plans that it had to be a magical garden.
I wanted to do everything carefully and with all the wisdom I had in me, or that I could learn from books or people. I started going out there after school
whenever it wasn’t raining — I talked to the grass and the soil, and I sat on the ground and read books on gardening. But I always did my homework, even though I wasn’t getting grades as high as I used to, before . . . the drugs.
By mid March I had scrounged up piles of leaves, buckets of chicken manure and sand, sacks of lime, and boxes of sawdust. I started looking for seeds. I only had about $200 left in the bank, but the $28 I spent on seeds somehow seemed more important than the hundreds that had gone for mushrooms and pills. Sometimes when I was alone in the garden, I would remember that part of my life, and tears would roll down my cheeks. Issa had been there all that time. Important and fun things to do had been there all that time. I had just been too blind to see them.
With handfuls of limestone powder, I marked off where I wanted the beds to go — not straight and boring, but twisting and curving and magical. Issa and my dad worked with me all one Saturday to dig up the hard ground and mix in the leaves and stuff. It was hard work, my dad swinging the pick and Issa shoveling. As I worked the soil with my hands and a little spade, I realized how much I loved both of them.
In April, I invited all the Sprites to come over and plant seeds with me. On planting day, I went out to the garden as soon as I got home from school. Just as I opened the gate, an idea hit me. It came from reading about the Vision Quest years ago. The American Indians were much more in touch with the Earth than we are today — they went barefoot, or wore moccasins when they needed to. I looked down at my velcro-strapped plastic tennis shoes. I don’t need you in my garden! I pulled them off, and my socks too. The earth felt cool and moist under my feet. Walking around the beds, I learned things about my garden I didn’t know, like where the soil was most sandy, and where there were still a few old dried thorns. Ouch!
When the Sprites started arriving, they saw my shoes beside the gate, and took theirs off too.
“It’s the perfect time,” Dulcy said. “The new moon is tomorrow. By the time things start sprouting, the full moon will be shining down on them.”
“Do you think that really works?” I asked.
“Think about it. If the moon can pull the ocean tides up and down, don’t you think it would have an effect on living things, which are mostly water?”
I smiled. “Wow. I never realized that. Thanks, Dulcy.”
After walking around awhile, people started asking for things to plant. I gave each one a seed packet, showed them where to plant, how deep, and how far apart.
“Ariel?” Penny said, working on her third seed packet. “I want to help you in your garden all you want. Except for the vervain, I can never grow magical stuff in my mom’s garden.”
“Sure, Penny. You’re still my best friend!”
Dulcy said, “Can I help too? I grow a few things in pots at my apartment, but I can’t do much.”
“No Thorn Apple!” I said with a grin.
“Absolutely not!” she said with just as big a grin.
We labeled all the beds as we went. The garden was going to be about half vegetables and fruits, one quarter flowers, and one quarter herbs, which would be enough space for every herb we could ever want to grow. Most of the herbs we planted that day were kinds my mom could use in the kitchen.
But some were strictly magical.
I tended my garden every day, and often there was another Sprite or two out with me. We always left our shoes at the gate. It rained hard a few days after planting, and I was afraid everything would wash away, but when I went out the next morning to look, I found that the soil had soaked up the rain perfectly. Little green things started peeking out about a week later, and kept appearing for the next few weeks. I was excited. At first it was impossible to tell our plants from weeds and grass and stuff. But as they got bigger, we could tell the difference. I left a few of the weeds. I was curious to see what they would become.
At Beltane, we built a huge fire, blessed the seeds and gardens, and Issa gave Penny a medallion with the Hebrew word Tifereth on it, which meant Beauty.