Fortune's Magic Farm by Suzanne Selfors (i read book .TXT) 📗

wiped them away with his dirt-stained hands. Something had sprouted beneath one of his fingernails. “This subject always upsets me. I miss my niece so very much.”

Sage busied himself in the kitchen, keeping his back turned as if to give Walnut and Isabelle a bit of privacy.

Walnut took a dingy handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “You’d better sit down, my dear. The story is difficult to bear.”

“I am sitting down.”

“Then you’d better sit still. All that wiggling is very distracting. A story this terrible requires a great deal of concentration.”

Isabelle sat stiff, her jaw clenched, preparing herself for what was sure to be the saddest story she had every heard—even sadder than Grandma Maxine’s story about how Sunny Cove had become Runny Cove.

“Your mother’s name was Daffodilly because she was born in March, the time when daffodils bloom here in the north. She was a beautiful, healthy baby, and did all the usual baby things, like sleeping in trees, tunneling underground, and floating.”

Isabelle wasn’t certain, but those didn’t sound like usual baby things.

“When Daffodilly turned ten, the time came to send her away for schooling. Mrs. Fortune chose to send her to Madame Pungent’s School for Girls in Switzerland, her own alma mater. It’s always difficult for tender parents to send their children into the outside world, but a good education is of the utmost importance. Daffodilly received excellent grades and came home for winter and summer breaks. All went well until her seventeenth birthday, when two terrible things happened.”

Isabelle caught her breath. Even the marmot stopped digging to listen.

“Firstly, her mother, Mrs. Fortune, died. Mrs. Fortune had been born with a weak heart and one morning, while she was pruning Camoflauge Creepers, her heart stopped beating. Daffodilly rushed home for the funeral and brought a young man with her. His name was Henry, a student who attended Madame Pungent’s School for Boys. They were each in their final year of school. She introduced him as her husband, for they had eloped over a long weekend, and she begged Nesbitt to give him a job as a farmhand.”

“Was he my father?”

“Yes. He’s the second terrible thing that happened, by the way.”

Walnut blew his nose again and tucked his handkerchief into his pocket. “When a tender chooses to marry, the spouse must pass a series of loyalty tests before stepping foot on the farm. That’s how it must be done. Daffodilly broke the rules and Nesbitt was livid.”

“Is that why he’s angry?”

“Partially, but there’s more.” Walnut leaned on the table. “You see, your mother was madly in love and love has a way of making people act, well… stupidly. Only those who have been in love can truly understand this. Have you ever been in love?”

“Never,” Isabelle replied loudly, to make certain everyone in the room could hear her.

“Well, your mother loved your father so much that she entrusted him with many of our secrets. She couldn’t imagine that he would ever, or could ever, be disloyal to her family.” Walnut shook his head sadly.

Sage brought a pot of tea to the table and handed out three big mugs. His brown eyes caught Isabelle’s for a moment. His lips turned up ever so slightly, just enough to say I’m sorry you have to hear all this.

“What happened next?” Isabelle asked as Walnut sprinkled sugar into his mug.

“Henry tried to convince your grandfather to start a seed company and to sell the magical seeds all over the world so we’d become the richest family on the planet. But Nesbitt dismissed Henry’s idea, of course. Selling magic to the highest bidder is a risky proposition, for what if the highest bidder turns out to be a madman? Or a dimwit?”

Walnut paused to stir his tea. “Henry was relentless in his desire for wealth and one morning he and Nesbitt got into a terrible argument. Daffodilly took her husband’s side, telling her father that he was narrow-minded and backward. The next morning, Daffodilly and Henry left the farm and the moment they passed through the tunnel, we knew that Daffodilly had broken her solemn promise as a tender.” His eyes welled up with tears again. “Oh, you tell her, Sage.”

Sage sat down and folded his hands. “A massive crack appeared in the dome. I wasn’t here, that’s just what I’ve been told. The spell was weakened because she took magical seeds off the farm. And the dome has been weak ever since. New holes and cracks appear all the time.”

Isabelle felt a rush of shame.

“It is unimaginable for a tender to do such a thing,” Walnut said, sniffling. “I knew that love had befuddled Daffodilly’s mind but it broke my heart, all the same. And it broke Nesbitt’s heart too. Each passing year has driven him deeper into despair until this year when he decided to give it all up. He stopped believing in our future. The world does not deserve magic, he said. We will let the farm die.”

The sky had darkened. Stars appeared. Sage lit some candles.

The truth about her parents slowly sank into Isabelle like a skipping stone sinking to the bottom of the sea.

“Where did my parents go?” she asked.

“We don’t know all the details but we’ve deduced that your father took all the magical seeds and abandoned your mother the moment they stepped off the farm. Fortunately, magical seeds are very temperamental, and since Henry did not have the skills to take care of them, most perished. But a few survived and he sold them to the highest bidder, a man with whom you are familiar.”

“Mr. Supreme,” Isabelle hissed.

“Exactly. Your father celebrated his new wealth by buying the world’s largest zeppelin and, befitting his reckless nature, proceeded to crash it into a volcano. He perished.”

Isabelle didn’t feel too sad about that. Her father sounded like a terrible person. “And my mother?”

“Prepare yourself, my dear,” Walnut said. “This is the part I dread telling.”

The room fell silent, broken only by Rocky’s wheezy breathing. Walnut closed his eyes