The Curious Leaf: An Adventure in Wishing Part 2

“I want to fly,” the flower said, hardly daring to feel the hope pulsing in a quiet shadow of her heart. “I want to explore. Discover. Become.”

“Ah,” the faerie said, turning her dark eyes bright with moonshine to the flower. “Wishes are dangerous things. They nibble at you, gently at first, until all you can feel is their hunger.”

The flower turned her gaze to the stars in silent rebellion. It didn’t matter if wishes had sharp edges and prickly corners. Didn’t matter if they started with warm smiles until they became all teeth. They were what they were, and once they’d lodged themselves in her heart, she had become part of the wish too.

To lose her wish would be to lose herself.

“I’ve a mind to grant your wish,” the faerie said, and her dark eyes flashed with a wish of her own. She placed a hand against the pot. “It must be nice being tucked in the earth and feasting on wind and rain and sunlight. Having someone care if you grow rough and ragged around the edges, and gathering you in against the chill of the frost and the burning of the sun.”

That had all been true before the flower had turned her eyes skyward and the wish had fallen into her heart.

“What will it cost?” the flower whispered.

The faerie frowned before answering. “Everything.”

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The Curious Leaf: An Adventure in Wishing Part 1

Once upon a time there was a flower who wanted to do more than stare out the window and stand reliably in her comfortable pot.

She wanted to fly.

Oh! To have wings she could stretch and unfurl! Wings that could take her wherever she wanted to go.

She would finally be able to see what waited beyond the path that curved round the hill. With wings she could explore the forest that loomed quietly to the west or talk to the fish that swam in lazy circles in the pond to the east.

As a wingéd flower, she would have a chance to find her fortune rather than waiting passively for the seasons to change, her stem to grow brittle, and her petals to fall one by one until all that was left of her was a few withered leaves and a crumpled face that had once been bright yellow.

Some flowers, you see, are remarkable creatures that die every few seasons, only to be born anew once more. Bigger. Stronger. Budding life on their previous lives and accumulating a sort of verdure venerability.

But our flower is a young flower who has only lived a total of two seasons. Three, if you are inclined to generosity and count the current season. Still, the drumbeat of the autumn pulsed up through her roots, into her stem, and rattled against each of her petals. Our flower knew, as all greenlife knows, that one’s own life was subject to the capricious whims of mortals, the ravenous appetites of birds, the occasional cat whose curiosity outweighs its good sense, and the rather flighty nature of the wind.

Just because one might live and die and live again, doesn’t mean one will.

More and more the little flower’s heart turned to the sky that hung prettily as the northern frame for the world.

“Wings,” she sighed. “All the world to find, if only I had a pair of wings!”

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