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Chapter 14
Thus began Ingrid’s life as an official bagworm druid. After a day or two she was able to introduce herself to the head botanist, a halfling by the name of Susannah Overhill from Camberwell in Other England, who took Ingrid on as part of the team, helping her to broaden her horizons in a way that wouldn’t overload her brain.
To start, she was tasked with the care and further observation of local plants in both dimensions that Xenia had shown her when she was first introduced to the greenhouse, slowly but surely branching out to other areas and biomes, be it the royal ferns of the swaps of cis-dimensional Louisiana, or the juggler cacti of other Nevada, putting on a show by tossing balls or bowling pins or even flaming miniature egg pans.
Of course, for the time being there was no getting away from church or Bible study, but at least now she had this community and these plants to look forward to.
Although she had to be careful at Friday night meetups, because if she got too bored, she risked going on autopilot and doodling in her book.
Of course, being in the greenhouse almost constantly meant being close to the library, which in turn meant seeing Xenia nearly every day; it got to the point where the faun was there to see Ingrid as much as she was to see the corpse plants.
“So where’s home for you, Xenia?”
Xenia smiled, rubbing her thumb against the petal of an iridescent lily. “I come from Iraklidis, in Other Greece. My kind make our home in the Plaka forest.”
“I’ve seen pictures of Greece. Blue domes and the Parthenon and all that. It looks gorgeous.”
“It is. Iraklidis gets quite a few tourists. When you’ve lived there as long as I have, though, it gets a little...boring’s not quite the word.”
“Same-y?”
“Something like that. It’s just always been a part of my life.
That’s why I’m so grateful for the coven. I get to see other worlds through the eyes of my fellow druids.”
Ingrid shrugged. “I’ve just sort of been carted around and not really engaging in anything for most of my life. Here, though...I feel like I can think. Like I can actually be present in what I’m doing. Something’s telling me to just learn everything there is to learn about these plants. I don’t know what it is. Can plants talk?”
Xenia chuckled. “There are quite a few here that can learn human speech, but perhaps it’s just your gut telling you that this is where you belong.”
Ingrid hummed in thought. “Maybe.”
...
“Hey, Ingrid, can I talk to you for a second?”
“What’s up, Josh?”
That Friday night, as everyone was packing up to leave, Josh approached Ingrid in a manner that the girl recognised as the “flirting disguised as mentoring” stance.
“So, I’ve noticed that you’ve been using your phone a lot during Bible Study recently.”
Ingrid frowned. “Uh, yeah, The Bible’s been on the Internet, Josh.”
“I know that, but...you used to bring your actual, physical Bible to Bible study, and last I saw, it was still in one piece.”
“Maybe I just needed a change. Look—why are you giving me the third degree? Why does it matter where I get my philosophy??” The change in Josh’s expression made her immediately regret her choice of words. “Wait, that’s not--”
“First of all, the word of God isn’t just ‘philosophy’, Ingrid. It’s the blueprint for life itself.”
Ingrid’s eyes suddenly felt as if they had a mind of their own again. “Right, Josh Sorry.”
“Second, it’s not just about the Bible. You’ve been acting really weird lately. I feel like you’re drifting away from the Lord, like you’re finding a source of joy that isn’t him.”
That's been true for a while.
“I’m allowed to do other things.”
“Sure you are...” You aren’t making it sound that way. “Just...be careful that you’re not taking on an idol. And I want you to know that I’m here if you need help in your walk with Christ.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Ingrid left the impromptu meeting with her heart pounding in her ears, Dense as Josh was, he’d gotten a handle on Ingrid’s routines, and any change therein was bound to set off alarms in his head.
She had to be more careful. The truth was beyond his wildest dreams, she knew, but that ruckus it would cause before she was ready to leave that life for good...
That was something she absolutely had to avoid.
...
“I have something to show you.”
Xenia approached Ingrid one evening as she was guiding a clump of roughage all the way to the surrounding grounds.
“Still??” Ingrid cried, half-joking.
The faun smiled. “Still. I’m sure the structure in the middle here has caught your eye. What I want to show you is on the top floor.”
Ingrid followed Xenia to the center structure, and thy took the cylindrical elevator to the top floor, surrounded by birds in all manner of colors and borne aloft on varying numbers of wings.
Unlike the entrance to the greenhouse, there was no long hallway to act as a prelude. Ingrid was, by now, accustomed to the wonders the bagworm had to offer, but what she saw brought her right back to those first days at the coven.
The first thing that caught her eye was the spiral staircase leading up to the massive telescope at the very back of the circular room, pointing towards the western sky. There were vines hanging from the walls all the way up to the wooden domed ceiling. The walkway leading up to the telescope was flanked by mosaic floors, in alternating white-and-blue squares.
The pair went up the spiral staircase and ended at the foot of the telescope, where the faun worked her magic with the controls.
“We’re lucky; Kyknos, Herakles and Pḗgasos should be visible right above us tonight.”
Ingrid knew enough Greek mythology to figure out Hercules and Pegasus, but...
“Which one is Kyknos?”
“It’s the Swan,” Xenia said, pressing a few more buttons. “Ah! There he is!”
The faun stepped aside to let the human girl take a gander at the cygnet. It was right in the center of the view, so Ingrid was able to put the stars together and imagine him soaring through the cosmos over the coven.
At first glance, Pegasus looked more like a jellyfish than a powerful, immortal stallion, but with a little doing she could see the horse that Zeus stung into the sky.
Hercules was also fairly obvious, but also a little awkward in his positioning. It evoked more “man frolicking through a field” than “demi-god the skin of the lion he just killed.”
“Gosh, I could look at the stars forever,” Ingrid breathed as she stepped back, looking at the rest of the stars she could see through the slit in the roof.
“My thoughts exactly. There’s so much to know about them, and the more I know, the more I don’t know.”
“Sounds about right. We’re so high up, I wish there was a way to see the whole sky.”
Suddenly, Xenia’s eyes lit up so brightly that they rivaled the sky above them. “I thought you’d never ask!”
The faun powered down the telescope and approached a lever with a big white ball on the end that had a compass symbol etched into the top. It looked like it would take at least 5 people just to wiggle it, Xenia threw it with ease...
And threw into motion an entire dance.
A glass door closed in fron of the telescope, and the solide cieling gave way in sections to a glass dome, leaving only a single slice above the entrance.
On the ground floor, the mosaic squares slid open on either side of the walkway to reveal six mid-sized conversation pits underneath, with plenty of fluffy pillows and substantial center tables.
Now it was time for Ingrid’s eyes to light up as the dance finished, and she immediately scampered down the stairs and sat in one of the pits closest to the door so she could get a good look at the entire sky.
Xenia trotted not far behind her, and sat next to her at a respectful distance, admiring and appreciating her excitement, though her domain was plants rather than stars.
Here, deep in the middle of this Indiana forest, there was no light pollution to contend with. Combined with the crystal-clear glass dome above them, the girls were spoiled for choice.
“Well, shit, I kinda wanna learn about space now, too,” Ingrid remarked. “Between this and the greenhouse, I’d never get bored.”
Xenia nodded. “That’s true. In fact, my love and my need for knowledge of the stars is what granted me my powers. It was learning rather than doing that did it.”
“Well...care to enlighten me?”
"I’d love to."
The pair spent the rest of that night infodumping about the things that made them druids, inching ever closer to each other without realizing it, until their hands were touching, and their fingers were interlocked...
...
“Mmmgh...”
Ingrid woke up and realized that her cheek was resting against something warm and fluffy. She lifted her head to find that she had fallen asleep with her head on Xenia’s lap. The owner of the lap was still off in dreamland, having dozed off upright. Through the dome, the sky was a clear blue, but the sun was still low enough to be hidden behind the wall. Ingrid groped for her phone on the center able, moving as little as possible to avoid waking Xenia up, and clicked the power button. The lock screen read:
Sunday, October 10th...10am.
“Shit!!!”
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