Curses & Cries ; Sebastian Sallow

chapter 3: Mandragora

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__________________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐
3RD YEAR
MAY, 1888

There was really no point trying to be gentle with a Mandrake. They whipped at everything with their leaves and screeched no matter what and tumbled into their own asymmetry. Letty spent some minutes adjusting the amount of soil in her pot so to shut her Mandrake up. While she did that Sebastian fretted with his own plant on the wooden surface they shared, Ominis across at a station with Poppy.

"What an earful! It's in these circumstances I wish I were also deaf," said Ominis.

"Sounds an awful lot like your endless fuss!" cried Sebastian.

Right away Letty knew he meant hers, not Ominis's, so she pulled up his Mandrake from the pot, which Sebastian had worked so hard in soothing, to sabotage him.

It was impossible to hear Professor Garlick's next instructions over the noise, for all around the greenhouse were occasional bad-tempered shouts and the clang of garden tools hitting the floor at full force. Again, she emphasized the importance of gathering water from the fountain outside if they "wished to keep all ten fingers."

When she was ready, Letty gripped her pot in both hands and left her station. She went down the crumbly steps of the greenhouse to the gravel path where Sebastian, already having watered his plant at the fountain, turned suddenly at the sound of her approach.

"Lost my train of thought," he began to explain, then said through a sigh, "Beautiful day."

Ominis and Poppy hung around listening and were looking at Sebastian with amused suspicion. There was something between them, and even Ominis had to admit that a dry remark about the weather seemed off.

"How's Ivanhoe?" Sebastian watched Letty as she waved her wand and water began to sprinkle lightly above her Mandrake.

She said, "Boring. I wish they'd get on with it."

Sebastian only grinned, but already Ominis was saying, "You mustn't say so. I promise it does get better."

It was Ominis who lent her his copy, and although Letty herself liked to read, it was the boy's taste that was rather dull, and Ivanhoe managed to put her to sleep every night.

Sebastian wanted to make amends of last year's incident (they had yet to find her field guide) and it was at this point that he tried to be helpful, for Letty was so grim and unapproachable that it sucked all the life out of the school year.

"It's heavy once you water it. Here." And he stretched out a hand.

But stubborn Letty refused, saying, "I can manage, thanks."

So he said, "Look, I've got it. Take mine for now; it's light enough now that the water's all absorbed."

This was a command on which he tried to confer masculine authority. The effect on Letty was to cause her to tighten her grip and she twisted her body away from him. Sebastian was not so easily shaken off. With a snap, a section of the pot came away in his hand which caused an imbalance on Letty's side and, with a smack, she dropped it entirely. Then came the sound of a thousand tiny pricks in their ears to which all four of them plugged on reflex.

"What rot! You're a load of folly, you know that, Sallow."

It was with Reparo that she shut up, and having confessed her fault, she sincerely apologized to Sebastian for her quick temper.