Secret Novel Chapter 19: Tea Time (Patreon)

Nearly another week and the weather was continuing to get colder, but it was still nice enough with the right clothes. And a warm pot of tea always helped. Having resolved to thrive, Madeline had started to feel better about things. She still may not be fully happy with her situation here, but she was going to keep proving those mages wrong with every breath she took.

Replanting the food wasn’t too hard, though the one issue with the plots that can grow a plant in full in a few days was that weeds grew at the same speed. So weeding had been something Madeline had to keep up with. She also managed to make a really crude stone ax. A small one, but an ax nonetheless. An ax she used to chop down some wood from the forest. Taking that trip out there was nerve racking as she had to constantly keep an eye out for anything out of place, or anything that could indicate mages had been there. Thankfully there was nothing out of the ordinary and she managed to get some more firewood. Though she didn’t chop down any trees, she just chopped off some low limbs and such. She mostly grabbed as many fallen branches as she could. The thicker the better.

It also dawned on Madeline that this forest out the back of her Garden was large. Incredibly large. Far larger than the one she had found while wandering around the Maze. The forest seemed to go on for leagues and leagues, not that Madeline had really explored it too much. She did have a strange almost instinctual horrid feeling that the forest would even put some of the forests around Lexford to shame. That it was far larger than any forests she even knew of. That she could spend weeks traveling through it and never find hedge. Those feelings of just how large the forest was scared her. For as scary as the Maze could be it was mostly empty, but the forest was alive with creatures. What else could live in the massive forest inside the Maze?

Fear aside, back in the safety of the garden, Madeline started trying different combinations of spices and vegetables in her food again instead of just sticking with the few that she found she really liked. Experimenting again brought some life and excitement back to her life here in the Maze. Even if she wasn’t the best at cooking yet. Still, she had all the time in the world to get better at it. What else had she to do besides working in the Garden, reading, and cooking?

She finished the novel. It had a typical romance at the end, which was nice, but she saw it coming from a league away. The mage’s books were also taken back out of the pack again. Well not all. One that was called Botanical Encyclopedia was what she had been reading the most. She knew what Botanical meant, but encyclopedia was a term she had never heard before. Though she gathered that the book basically just talked about every sort of plant and what they do, how to use them, and how they have historically been used. Pretty much anything about a certain plant was written out in detail in this book. It was surprisingly interesting, even if she couldn’t use any of the plants for anything magical. Using the book, she had been able to identify different plants and wildflowers that grew throughout the Garden.

She read the encyclopedia as she sat by a small fire she had made on the stone. The clay tea pot also sat nearby as she sipped from the clay cup. The tea she had made was from a lily flower that frequently appeared around the Garden. Yes, she had moved on from herbal tea, only because the book also mentioned whether a plant was safe to consume. She had found while reading that one of the plots of flowers was apparently specifically made for flowers to make tea with. At least seventy-five percent of the flowers in the plot were only recommended to be used for tea with no other real note in the book. So Madeline took that to mean that plot was for tea. Lyr also had some of the looked like the same flowers in her small garden in Lexford and Madeline had seen her make tea with them. The tea from the lily she had made was a little more flowery than Madeline typically liked, but there was no real problem with it. She would at least finish the pot, though she wasn’t sure she would make it again. Not when she had made a tea yesterday that she really liked.

Flipping to the next page in the book, Madeline came across a drawn illustration of the lily she had made her tea from. She fully expected this entry to be just like all the others from the same plot. A simple note of no interest but with a recommendation for using it to make tea at the end. Maybe a note about some very minor magical properties that could only be utilized if she was a mage. She didn’t find that, however. Instead she found;

Lily of Beginnings: The lily is a rather benign flower when it comes to both magical and non magical uses. It has the unusual property of containing magic of no real variety or type. Instead it appears to contain unbridled magic, the potency of which varies from plant to plant. Studies have been done to try to understand its varied potential. Many have assumed the color is the indication, but there has been no conclusive evidence to support either conclusion. The only true use of the Lily of Beginnings is to amplify crystals of already chosen essence, though the effects are so minimal that it is not worth the effort.*

She found it a little strange, but nothing of true note drew Madeline’s attention in the description. Even the mention of magic in the plant didn’t worry her, since nearly every plant in this book possessed some sort of magical properties. It was a little interesting that it just had general magic instead of a certain kind, not that Madeline fully understood what different kinds of magic meant or did. There weren't even any medicinal notes for the plant, not even a mention of tea. The entry also never gave a reason for the name of the plant, something that appeared in nearly every other entry in this book. Once she thought about it, the description was surprisingly short compared to others in the book, even compared to basics like cabbage. However there was a little star at the end of the entry, which Madeline had learned meant there was more information at the bottom of the page.

Going to the bottom there was another little star with a page number next to it. So Madeline flipped to the page, which was all but four pages away from the very end. The note on this page gave her the title and page number of another book. She had never seen that before, but luckily she did have the book. Getting up Madeline lightly jogged to the hovel and grabbed the magic pack before heading back to the stone. It took a second to find the book in the pack before she flipped it open to the right page. There was another even smaller description of the plant which ended with another star at the end. The bottom of the page led her once again to the back of the book, which in turn gave her the name of the history book and page number.

Madeline furrowed her brow. Was this a common thing in mage’s books? It seemed strange to not just give the information instead of making you do this wild goose chase through multiple books. What was the point? Eitherway, Madeline pulled the history book out of the bag and went to the designated page. Once again it was near the very back of the book. The section seemed to be about Synthetic Creation which wasn’t what she was looking for. But reading on Madeline came across what she wanted and read it out loud.

“Once this flower was said to give power to the Naturalists, through ‘invigorating oneself with the essence of the Lily of Beginnings’. Research has shown that no essence of any note can be drawn from the flower, so the meaning it once had to the Naturalists has been lost with their extinction.” Madeline read over it once again and found it still didn’t make much more sense to her. She had seen the word naturalist pop up here and there, mostly as a reference to the “impure” predecessors. Though they were barely mentioned. Not that she had thoroughly read through all the books yet. Maybe there would be more mentions of them if she kept reading. Still, she was rather disappointed with her findings, which were mostly nothing.

Bored with her failed interest, Madeline flopped down on her back. Her arms spread wide as she stared up at the sky. One of her hands draped off of the stone and played with the low grass and flowers beneath it. Her mind pondered what could ‘invigorate oneself with the essences’ mean? Also give the naturalists power? Like just making them more powerful? Or as in giving them magic? Was there another way to gain magic other than the crystal mages implant? Probably not. There was a reason the mages were the only ones with magic in the world. Well maybe outside of those that are naturally from the Maze. She was sure the wolf, giant, and fish person were all magical in some way.

A small tickling sensation made Madeline look over at her still swaying hand. She looked to see what flower was tickling her. It was a tiny yellow flower with a white center, which wasn’t odd by any means in this Garden. In fact it might be the most normal flower here. Except… Except that it was swaying and growing with the waving of her hand. Wide eyed, Madeline stopped moving her hand and the small flower stopped all its movement and growing.

“What the hell?” Not sure if she actually saw what she saw, Madeline waved her hand and the flower instantly grew and swayed in the direction of her hand. Another wave in the opposite direction and it once again followed. Still confused as to what was happening, Madeline did a twirl with her hand, and the tiny flower did a full loop, to match her movement.

Scrambling to her knees, Madeline stared down at the now still plant. A noticeable loop in its stem staring back at her. What just happened? The flower moved and seemed to grow with the movement of her own hand. Was that magic? There most certainly were magical plants in the Garden, but this felt different. The flower was just an ordinary small yellow thing. And none of the magical plants had ever interacted with her. Well, she had avoided them, worried that she might do something bad to them, or them to her.

With a shaky hand, Madeleine made another movement close to the flower. It followed. The flower followed her command. But it couldn’t be her doing it, right? It must be the flower. It’s not like she could just wave her hand at any flower and it would do the same. There was another small but blue flower to the right of the yellow, bringing her hand close she swayed her hand. The blue flower moved along with her.

Jumping to her feet, Madeline stared down at the flowers that followed her command. This really couldn’t be her doing it, though. There was no way she was commanding those plants. They had to be magical plants. That’s just how they worked. Even if she had toyed with these small tiny plants before, they never did anything. A little scared of what actually might be occurring, Madeline held her hand up close to her, feet away from the tiny yellow flower but still focused on it. She waved her hand and the tiny flower swayed.

“Holy shit… This can’t be happening.” Almost in a panic Madeline ran off to one of the vegetable plots that she worked with almost daily. Those plants had never moved with the wave of her hand. They had never once responded in a magical or unexplained way. Falling to her knees in the hand toiled earth, Madeline stared at the carrot leaves. Taking a deep breath, Madeline held her hand up and gave it a gentle wave. Like the two flowers, the leaves moved with her motion. Though it was to a lesser extent and it didn’t seem to grow any. It still moved in an unnatural way. The plant followed her movements. She leaned over to the onions, and had the same result. Madeline could move the plants. She could even make the tiny flowers grow, all with a little movement of her hand. She was the one doing it…

“What the fuck? Is this magic? This can’t be magic. How the hell would I be using magic?!” Madeline’s eyes went wide as she slowly turned back around to look over at the flat stone. Her eyes landed on the teapot. The teapot with the tea made from a lily. The Lily of Beginnings.

“No. No,” Madeline said, rushing back over to the stone. “It can not be that simple. It can’t be that simple!” Standing over the pot she looked down at it, then her eyes wandered over to the still open history book. ‘Invigorate oneself with the essence’… It could not be that simple. “Mages would have figured that out centuries ago!” She started to feel a little hysterical. “This can’t be magic. I didn’t just gain fucking magic from a fucking cup of tea!” Madeline looked at another flower on the ground, and waved her hand. It, of course, moved with her attention and hand. “Mages would have found this long ago. They didn’t know how the Maze worked… Could it really be this fucking simple?” Madeline asked no one as laughter bubbled up inside her. “Did they just never try to make tea with it?! Oh Goddess, ha!” Her laughter came out more hysterical than anything else, as Madeline tried to wrap mind around what was happening. All the while she was looking at different plants and waving her hand making them move and twirl. “This is happening. Fuck, this is real.”