“‘Our son handles the gardening, but thank you.’ It was the same sentence, every time. Cammilla loved her magic, and she loved to use it. She never charged for it, no matter what our grandmother said. In retrospect, that may have been one of the reasons Grandma set her up like that. It’s difficult to sell your own aura for such steep prices when your granddaughter gives hers away for free. Of course, that’s minor compared to the real insult, but it probably played a role. Anyway, I’ve gotten distracted. What matters to this story is that Camilla shared her flora magic. My home had the most beautiful and easily maintained gardens in the city, because she offered magic to anyone who might need it,” I started. Margaret sat next to me as I spoke, watching the town pass us by. The trails of teal sparks were dying out as more and more people finally died. The sun landed on the town as if it were daytime, but it struggled to make the city feel ‘lit’.

  “She would often stop as we were out on a walk. Just suddenly, and without warning. Just to walk up to someone’s door and offer to heal their garden or revitalize the dying tree outside their porch. I’ve even seen her revive dead plants in shop windows. Not everyone agreed. Some people just loved the work of tending to the garden themselves, and didn’t want that ruined. Others didn’t trust magic in their vegetables, and a dozen other little reasons. But one day, we found one that was unique. It was a small home, and the entire thing was surrounded by a garden. Or at least, it should have been. The solid was there, along with a wire fence for rabbits, signs identifying the types of plants before they sprout, and a dozen other little things. But it was dead. Ignored and neglected for so long that only the rotting wood of trees remained. The sight left an ache in Cammie’s heart, like an abandoned headstone might hurt us. She wanted to heal it, if she could,” I continued. I looked up at the sky, trying to drown out all the death that was closing around us like a collapsing mine.

  “‘Our son handles the gardening, but thank you.’ It was the only response she got from the sweet old couple who lived there. It made me sad. Not because I had any investment in the garden myself, but because she’d been excited to help. There is a certain helpless discomfort that comes with watching a loved one, happy and excited, deflate. The loss of that excitement, even as it belongs to someone else, feels like having something pulled out of you. It makes you want to cry. But Cammie was kind, and she was never pushy. So she smiled and nodded and thanked the elderly couple for their time. I could tell she was disappointed, but it wasn’t her home, and it wasn’t her garden. A no was a no, and she would make her peace with that. So that was it, for a long time. We didn’t think about it again for weeks after that. At least I didn’t.

  “But we ran into them again. This time, we were walking by a local food stall, and we saw the same couple. They were loudly complaining as they ate. About the laziness of their son. We didn’t mean to eavesdrop or anything, and we would have kept walking. But the man complained about the vegetables in his soup. They weren’t as fresh as he was used to cooking with. They weren’t like his homegrown vegetables. We’d passed their home on walks, and Cammie knew their garden was still dead and abandoned. She couldn’t help herself, and she approached again. Again, she offered her help to save the garden, and again she got the same response. ‘Our son handles the gardening, but thank you.’” I sighed, remembering the disappointment on Cammilla’s face.

  As I paused. I realized that something was changing. The air around us was too thick. I look up at the sun in the sky. We had quite a bit of time left, but I recognized the building pressure. I’d felt it before, although usually from the outside as I tried to enter it. It was pressing in on me from one side and surrounding me, almost like the currents of a river. It was manageable at the moment, but it was still early. It wasn’t pushing as hard as it had in past loops, but I knew it would. I tensed and tried to ignore it. I had to know for sure that this wouldn’t work. Ending this at its source would be far faster than finding the culprit, and it would be nothing short of cowardice to give up before trying. I was a coward, but I was shedding the title like skin, boiled by the sun. I could wait a little longer.

  “Again, Camilla was disappointed, but again, she decided to drop it. She usually wouldn’t have offered again at all, but something about this couple seemed to call out to her. Even so, we moved on again. They were welcome to rely on whoever they liked to care for their garden, however poor a job their son was doing. Weeks went by before we encountered them again, this time while we were out on a picnic. It was a kind, spring day, just before a local flower festival. It was one of Cammie’s favorite days of the year. She and I were one of many pairs in the park that day, as was tradition. We were one of only a few pairs of family members instead of couples, but we didn’t mind.

  “It was a lovely day, until we saw the same elderly couple making their way across the field with a blanket and a basket of their own. Cammie noticed them first; she’d likely thought of them more than I had. She didn’t move to offer them help again, as much as I could tell she wanted to. They’d turned her down twice, and she wasn’t a pushy person. Besides, they were a decent way away from us. But when they made their way to another couple and set their blanket down, overlapping with the other picnic, a few more eyes were drawn to them. There wasn’t a law against it or anything, but it was contrary to tradition. More eyes were drawn to them a moment later, however. When the man from the couple they tried to join stood and started yelling at them. Nothing draws attention like a shouting match. We couldn’t hear them at first, but I could feel concern radiating off of my sister, nevertheless. It was an ugly fight. The kind where years of resentment could be seen melting from the participants like ice at midday. At least, from the younger couple. The elderly pair seemed unfazed, simply setting out their food and behaving as if nothing were wrong. It was like watching two different landscapes through opposite sides of a crack in your window,” I said.

  The pressure was growing with every passing moment. I was speaking calmly, and Margaret couldn’t feel it, but I could tell it was going to be dangerous soon. It was pushing on me like a storm, building and building with every word I spoke. I had to pause the story and focus on fighting it. But I knew I couldn’t stay. Whatever was keeping me from the center of town at the end of the third day, arriving ahead of it wasn’t going to work. I had to move before it crushed me. I stood and began to walk, slowly and with intent. Margaret followed me with a look of confusion but didn’t speak. Every step I took relieved the pressure, just a little, but I had to walk for several minutes before I felt safe again.

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  “Rumors spread fairly quickly. Everyone who was celebrating in that park was from around the same neighborhood. We later learned the young man who had yelled at the elderly couple was their son. The very same son who was supposedly looking after their garden. They were estranged from him, it seemed. Something about the way they treated his wife, or some said just the way they raised him. There was no way to know which, exactly. The important detail was that they refused to acknowledge the estrangement. That day at the park hadn’t been the first time they’d approached their son and acted as if they were still close. Some of our neighbors said it was a manipulation tactic, but… it was something darker. Because they told us their son took care of the gardening, and they seemed to genuinely believe that he would.

  “We wouldn’t know for sure that it was something else for a while. Not until Cammila went to help their neighbors with their own garden. The two shared a fenceline, and something had gotten into the older couple’s soil. It was poisoning their neighbor’s grass and plants. Cammie knew she could help anyway. She was so good at protecting life. Her silver aura ran through the earth like water and protected every plant from anything toxic. It was the same way she lived her life. The same way she kept me safe from the darker side of our grandmother for so long. She had precise control of her magic, and she didn’t pass the fenceline with even a spark of it. She wanted to, and she would have been happy to, but the couple had been clear about their boundaries. Whatever their relationship with their son, Cammie respected people's wishes when they made them. But that wasn’t enough.

  “They interrupted my sister. They screamed at her, and spat, and called her all sorts of names. ‘Our son handles the gardening!’ They insisted. ‘Our son handles the gardening!’ They repeated it over and over again, screaming the entire time my sister worked. But she worked anyway. She first healed the east neighbors' yard, and then the west neighbors' yard. She smiled and apologized to the furious couple, but she worked until she was finished. I couldn’t understand why the couple had so much vitriol. It didn't make sense, not when she was doing only what she was asked and carefully avoiding the couple who had rejected her. But they hated her for doing it anyway. Not to them, but for someone else entirely. They hated her more than I could ever realize.

  “The very next day, Cammie was asked back, and I went with her. It was one of the few times I’d seen my sister truly angry. But, as kind as she was, she did have room for anger. Everything she had worked on the day before had been destroyed. Flowers and vegetables torn from the ground, soil dug up and thrown, and even trees cut into with what must have been a hatchet. A senseless destruction of life, and one that made my sister's hair resemble fire as she moved. We saw them, the furious couple. They watched us from the gap between curtains as Cammie worked to undo all the damage they had done. Day after day, this happened. Day after day, the older couple crept to their neighbor’s yards after the sun had set and went about destroying everything they could. Day after day, my sister fixed everything. It wasn’t unlike what I’m doing now, actually.

  “This went on for nearly three weeks before I finally asked Cammie why they were doing it. I never forgot her explanation. But it was because their son handled the gardening. He hadn’t spoken to them at all in nearly four years, but he’d always handled the garden for them. Even after they stopped speaking, he cared for it. Because he loved it. But he’d gotten a garden of his own to tend to, and had stopped caring for theirs. But this couple... they couldn’t accept the estrangement. They didn’t try to join him for festivals just to ruin his day. They did it because, in their heart of hearts, they had truly convinced themselves that their family was still whole. Every sign that it wasn’t confronted them like an avalanche and crushed them. It was why my sister couldn’t heal their garden. Because asking for her help would mean acknowledging their son wasn’t there to do it.

  “When their poisoned earth started to affect their neighbors, they denied that as well. When their neighbors spoke to them, they acted as if all three of them had perfectly healthy plants. When Cammie went to heal the life around them, it was like a star fell from the sky and shone through their window, reminding them with every flicker that they were alone. They couldn’t stand the reminder. The contrast between the beautiful and healthy land, and their own. The bright colors of the living plants were a reminder of the bleak death surrounding their own house. They needed to believe their son was a part of their lives. And they needed to destroy any evidence their minds might notice that he wasn’t. 'There are those who would feed the whole world poison, just to avoid a single bitter taste.' That’s what Camilla told me. I realize now that she was talking about our grandmother, too. But those words have rung through my head like handbells ever since,” I finished.

  We were still walking, and Margaret was quiet. The pressure finally stopped building behind us as we walked, and I was able to stop again, this time finding only an old and abandoned railing to sit on. I was closer to the spell's origins than I had made it during any other loop, I think because Margaret’s power was gone now, but I still wasn’t nearly close enough. It was several minutes before Margaret finally spoke.

  “How did she stop them?” she finally asked. I looked at the sky again. The sun was traveling further west, and the light was beginning to dim.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, “I stopped going with her before she did. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she just went back there every day and used her magic until she was driven from the city.”

  “That’s not going to work this time. We can’t do what she did,” Margaret pointed out. I ran my hands along the intricate design of my grimoire.

  “I know. But, I’m not Camilla. Any more than you are your father. We’ll find our own way,” I said. And with that, we watched. We discussed the issue a little. I explained how the spell had begun to push me away. People began to die around us, their bodies left in the street as the few survivors smiled and passed them by. We waited and we waited, until the teal pillar split the city, and I let myself die with everyone else.

  End of the Final Day