Lizzie of the North (Yrsoreth Chronicles 2)

5 ◦❀◦ The Meddling Gardener

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

After a short stunned silence, he fell back with Lizzie on top of him, grabbing his collar with a crazed expression. "You—!"

"—Me?"

"How... how did you know?" Her face must have been hilarious. "Fortune-telling. Really?!"

Red picked her with his hands on her underarms, like a dangling angry cat, placed her back on the bench like a small angry animal.

"Yeah, I said that...but when I think about it, I think it would better to call myself a storyteller." He frowned. "Ah no. I like reading, so am I a reader too?'

"Then, what.... what are you doing here?"

Enlightened, he bumped a fist on his other open palm. "Ah, right!" He dusted himself and sat beside her. "To fix this garden. I couldn't be a fortune teller. People fear the knowledge of their future... or recall the past. If I tell them the terrible news, they don't pay. So here I am as your gardener, doing honest work."

Honest work my foot, Lizzie scoffed. A shady character like him, she could not even believe his appearance, the same age as Erdan or a few years older.

"Hey Red, I'm I really going to die?"

"I think so?"

"What do you mean?"

Lizzie never strayed her eyes at him, until finally, Red sighed and scratched his head. "I already said you're supposed to, and I'm just telling you this time. Because you know, unwanted gifts, let's say, visions of the future, are bothersome. Mistake, young Lizzie, a big mistake. The first one almost ended sadly."

Red hugged himself and shivered. "Humans... humans are fragile. Just a little help, or no help, and it ripples. A drop of water could create a storm somewhere, at some point in time. Humans are scary." He patted her head. "So just let it be, yeah? It's not meddling too much, it's acceptable."

She slapped his hands away. "I don't know what you're talking about. But don't you think meddling is bad?"

"If you were in my position, you won't say that."

Lizzie frowned at his vague statement and ignored that melancholy in his voice. Red added before she could complain, "I mean, no more explaining bout the future. I already told you everything in that carriage. How about visions of the past instead?'

"No?" he asked again after her angry silence.

"Am I really going to die?" she repeated the question. She did not need an obscure explanation from an obscure man. All she wanted to her was a 'Yes' or a 'No,' preferably the latter.

"Do you want to?"

Lizzie looked up. "No—"

The seat behind her was empty. No matter how her eyes swept the garden, the only red she found was the flowers in the pavilion, a life contrasting the dead garden.

That little—! "Right when I need him." Lizzie realized that the stranger he met for a short time has become a central figure in her survival.

A fortune teller, if he was, he could have amassed millions of gold. People with affinity to magic in all forms are rare and a commodity. Yet, he declared to be a gardener. That enigma of a person, despite saving her once, felt like he did not want to involve with her further.

Was he a powerful being who liked to play with people's fate? Was he a god that could twist time? Was he here to entertain himself?

No matter, Lizzie could not rely on anyone. If a tragic future awaits her, then screw fate or magic. She'll break it on her own.