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Shrub hasn’t been sleeping.
She chalks it up to the spirit haunting her, the way she lies awake staring at the starry skies out her window, buries her face in the wolf’s soft fur, and the Lord of the Moon lets her.
“Sorry,” she whispers to him, the second night she doesn’t sleep and she’s given up to sit outside, curled in the grass at the wolf’s side. “This is pretty undignified for both of us, isn’t it?”
He licks her cheek in response, so she takes that as forgiveness and puts her head back on his side. The stars circle slowly overhead.
When Shrub was young, her family taught her to be respectful of all spirits, from the wolves to the stars to the ghosts unseen all around them. She barely remembers the few rituals she was taught, prayers and lit candles, and she now feels a pang of guilt. What kind of gnome is she, to immediately forget everything she was taught?
She loves the world still, of course. Loves the mushrooms and the trees and the flowers, the sky and the sea and the other people who live in this strange new world. The last thing Shrub would ever want to do is disrespect a spirit of any kind.
But how do they know she loves them?
This ghost – he’s haunting her specifically. He knows what she is, where she’s come from, and he knows why she’s alone. Anger had welled up in her before, so hot and angry she couldn’t control the outburst she’d shouted back at him, but now it fades and it leaves behind something more like guilt.
Maybe if she remembered, if she knew what her parents and her family and her home did to assure the spirits of the world and their home that they would live in harmony with it… Maybe she wouldn’t be so haunted. Maybe she wouldn’t be so alone.
When the first rays of dawn’s red light filter through the oak leaves, Shrub hasn’t slept at all, but her heart is calm. She’s lulled into something more like a trance than sleep; gentle rise and fall of the Moon Lord’s chest; whisper of wind on her cheek; cricketsong falling quiet as the sun rises.
And then, through the quiet morning sounds comes the unmistakable noise of portal activation.
Her heart skips a beat; panic settles in. The angry spirit is back. She doesn’t have the energy to run from him again; she knows it. She doesn’t know what she’ll do this time.
From around the corner, a figure steps from her portal. Green, purple, bright red hair, scanning the mushroom kingdom until her eyes fall on Shrub’s. Not an evil spirit.
“Shrub Berry,” the Wizard Gemini says, giant leather-bound book under one arm and staff in the other hand, lifting the brim of her hat with one forearm, “I need you so badly right now.”
Shrub chokes, sits up. “What?”
The Lord of the Moon sits up too, shakes himself off and wanders away – clearly done with his time serving as Shrub’s pillow – and Gemini drops onto the fencepost at Shrub’s side. One leg crossed over her knee, the hem of her green skirt muddy and flecked with red and brown. Her buttoned boots, normally an impeccable white, are the same way. Staff leaning against the fence, slight purple glow holding it upright.
It’s the most unkempt Shrub has ever seen her, she realizes. Flyaway red hairs frizz out of her not-quite-perfect braid; her gloves are missing. Her eyes look dark.
If Shrub had to guess, she might think the great Wizard Gemini didn’t sleep last night either.
“I need you,” she repeats, as if it makes more sense on the echo. Book plopped into her lap; she flicks one manicured finger, and the pages fly open. “I’ve taken some notes, been keeping a journal about everything, and something tells me you know something else about this.”
“About the ghost?” Shrub says. Her heart sinks. “You found out about that.”
Gemini’s fingers still. “The ghost?”
“Oh.” She pauses. The Wizard studies her, green eyes piercing, straight through her. “Okay, so you didn’t find out about that. What are you here about?”
“The corruption, Shrub,” she says, a slight snip to her voice. “The awful red mess that’s taken over my kingdom. Is there something you know about that?”
Well, she was going to need to apologize at some point anyway. Might as well be now. “I.. Might have sort have been responsible for that. A little bit.”
Immediately, frustration writes itself on the Wizard’s face. “Shrub!”
“It was an accident!” She puts her hands up, sits forward on her knees. “I didn’t realize it was going to spread just by carrying it.”
“You were carrying it?”
“I was on the run! That–The ghost, the spirit, he was chasing me and I didn’t know where to go. So I just–You know, stumbled through the portal, tried to get away, and I forgot I was still holding the corruption.”
She remembers disposing of it once she’d noticed it still in her hands, palms stained red and scratched by thorns. Had thrown it all to the ground in the woods right outside the Crystal Cliffs. She winces. Maybe it was far enough away from the rest of the kingdom it hadn’t spread too badly.
Judging by the look on Gemini’s face, that’s not true at all.
“I’m sorry,” Shrub says. “I wasn’t thinking. I was–I just–”
I was scared, she thinks, but she’s not sure how the Wizard will react to that. So she leaves the sentence unfinished.
One beat; two. And then, the Wizard sighs. Her face softens, just by increments, and Shrub realizes that she has been staring right into her eyes this whole time. Face heating up, she coughs and quickly directs her attention to anywhere else. These mushrooms at her feet, for example. Glowing, a little, faint red light.
“Aw, man,” Shrub says. “It’s still spreading. Look.”
Above her, Gemini snaps her massive tome shut, hands it to Shrub, and then reaches beneath her cloak. With a pop of purple sparks, a black box springs to life in her hands.
“I’ve come up with this,” she says. “A containment, for the corruption. If we keep it all in these boxes I’ve enchanted, maybe it’ll keep it from spreading any further.”
“Good idea. Thanks, Gemini.” Shrub opens the box, glances back down at the mushrooms growing in the dirt. “Uh, I’ll go get a trowel.
“No need.” She snaps her fingers; a disembodied, gloved hand springs to life and digs the mushrooms out of the soil, leaving them in the open box. “And just Gem is fine. Only my students and my people call me Gemini.”
“Gem,” Shrub repeats. “All right.” She closes the lid on the box, corrupted mushrooms trapped firmly inside. The box gives off a faint red glow still.
“Come back to Crystal Cliffs with me,” Gem says, getting to her feet. She brushes off her skirt, looks down, frowns at it. “I want you to see what’s happening there. And we need to talk about this… Ghost. I had an interview with it, you can look in the journal.”
Shrub follows, gets to her feet, flips open the book.
August 12. Crystal Cliffs.
The corruption has begun to spread in my kingdom. Your author has seen it in other kingdoms, but never before in her own. It seems no kingdom is safe from it. Upon closer inspection, I will be doing more research along with my brother to study the exact nature of this corruption. Contained in this book will by our findings.
“On the way over, Shrub,” Gem says. She snaps the book shut again, a little sheepish. The Wizard is looking at her, a good head and a half taller, eyes sweeping from Shrub’s undoubtedly twig-and-leaf filled hair to her muddy socks. If Shrub didn’t know better, she’d say that gaze lingers a little too long, but–Well. She’s not going to question it. “And do try to brush yourself off a little bit. My people are in an uproar, but they’re still accustomed to at least an attempt at decorum.”
With that, Gem spins on her heel, back to the portal. Her face red as the corruption contained in her hands, Shrub follows after.