The girl waited patiently for a response, her expression kind. Stardust glanced back and forth between us, quivering with impatience. “Say something.” She hit the back of my legs, nudging me forward. “She won’t bite; she’s not a Nightmare.”
“I’m Eden,” I finally stammered.
The girl’s smile brightened. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Iris.” She curtsied daintily. “Are you here for your first assignment? I would be delighted to help you select the perfect images for your Weaving; I know these fields like the back of my hand.”
“She doesn’t have a Mortal,” Stardust said.
Iris blinked rapidly. “You’re not here for a Weaving assignment?”
“No,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Oh, so you’re still in training?" Iris pressed her thumb against her lips and surveyed me thoughtfully. “You seem much older than a magic student; I thought you were at least one hundred.”
One hundred?
Her hands fluttered to her mouth at my obvious alarm. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. What a terribly rude thing for me to say. I meant it as the most sincere of compliments, really. Please forgive me.”
“Don’t worry, she’s not offended.” A light-green cloud adorned in a twisting vine of honeysuckle peeked shyly from behind Iris. “She’s only radiating surprise; everything is new for her.”
“That’s a relief.” Iris leaned against the cloud and began stroking her. “Petals can sense the emotions of others,” she said in answer to my unspoken question. “She’s very sweet and sensitive.”
Stardust snorted and opened her mouth with a roll of her eyes, no doubt to brag about her own talent. “Are you a Cultivator?” I asked hastily, eying Stardust warily as she snapped her mouth shut with a defeated air.
“This is my first year; I only finished my training last summer, so I still have much to learn.”
Iris lightly caressed a nearby flower not yet bloomed, and at her touch, it blossomed into an azalea with the aura of dew blanketing early morning grass, her natural touch so similar to Mother’s whenever she worked in our garden that the reminder pierced my heart.
“I’ve always had a connection to plants. I’d much rather cultivate flowers than weave them together, but…” Iris shrugged. “I suppose there’s beauty in the art of weaving, and I do so enjoy watching my Mortal experience pleasant dreams. Still, I love nothing more than spending every possible moment here. It’s such an important responsibility, for without solid cultivating, the flowers can’t create effective dreams. Would you like to see?”
At my nod, she motioned for me to follow before she pattered off the path into the field. Stardust trailed after her, but I hesitated before following; certainly one step onto the transparent soil would cause me to sink through and tumble into the night sky below.
Iris glanced over her shoulder. “What’s the matter?”
Stardust smirked. “You won’t fall,” she said, reading my hesitation perfectly. Easy for her to say; clouds always floated. I tested my weight on the ground. It seemed solid. Hesitantly, I entered the field and followed Iris, moving carefully so as not to squash the budding seedlings polka-dotting the garden.
Iris knelt beside a bed of unplanted soil, picked up a handful of glittery dirt, and massaged it with her thumb as it rained through her fingers. I watched in awed silence.
“Every spot of soil has its own magic, and when properly matched to a seed, it creates a connection that allows the dream flower’s detail to grow more vividly, which is essential for its use in a future Weaving.”
She opened the bag slung over her shoulder, which was bursting with seeds of all colors and shapes. She sorted through them until she found a diamond-shaped blue seed. She carefully dug a tiny bed in the soil, tucked the seed in, and showered it with sparkling golden water from a nearby watering can before patting the tiny bulge. There her hand lingered, her ear cocked towards it, as if she were listening to something.
“Each seed grows into one of the five senses. If I listen carefully, I can catch a glimpse of the detail this flower will become.”
“May I listen, too?” I asked in a reverent whisper.
A sliver of doubt filled her soft eyes, although her expression remained friendly. “If you’d like.”
I copied her, lightly cupping my hand over the buried seedling, and closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure what I hoped to accomplish—surely I wouldn’t hear anything like Iris, a trained Cultivator, could—but I still couldn’t help wondering…if Mother was a Cultivator like Stardust believed, could some of her skill have passed to me through our many years of gardening together?
I cleared my mind and stilled my breathing, the same way I did before summoning my magic. At first there was nothing but silence, but after several moments I felt a subtle stirring of faint vibrations pulsing gently within my chest, as if the soil was whispering in a foreign, unspoken language. Midst the quiet rhythm that caressed my soul with feelings and sensations rather than words, I faintly heard it—a single glimpse of the detail that briefly flashed across my senses before slowly fading away.
“A kitten’s purr,” I murmured, opening my eyes. Iris, who’d been watching me somewhat doubtfully, gasped.
“How did you—”
“Iris?”
Another Dreamer had arrived, a bouquet of plucked dream flowers in her arms. She was trailed by a fat strawberry-pink cloud slurping a lollipop. The Dreamer’s eyes were bright magenta, the exact shade as her hair, which she’d arranged in a messy bun tied with a string of licorice. High cheekbones and angled pink eyebrows gave her a rebellious sort of look, contrasting with her dress, which was designed to resemble a frosted pink cupcake. Despite having called Iris’s name, she wasn’t looking at her…but at me.
Her arched brows knit together as she scrutinized me, all while slowly and deliberately unwrapping her own lollipop, a defiance in her eyes that dared me to ask her to
