14. The News

Behind the kiln throne and the kitchen stood a sizable plywood shack with a brick-laid deck beside it under the open air. It was brimming with supplies of all sorts for creative projects. Textiles; all manner of marking utensils including natural dyed paints, powders, and saps as well as several boxes of craft brushes from an art store; tools for leather work; small and large torches; papers both handmade and bleached from the store. Set up to make ceramics were two foot-pedaled pottery wheels, a tub for glazing, and a small firing kiln, all which ran manually.

Ingrid and Micah sat over a small table with their heads together, a small brush in Ingrid's hand as Micah held onto a pair of tweezers while she worked. With her curls loose around her shoulders, Ingrid was in a cozy cropped sweater with her white belly pure as untouched snow rolling in and out as she breathed slowly. The leggings she wore were slightly sheer from her thighs down, with criss-crossed panels of mahogany. Micah knew this was the equivalent of her lounge wear, but he still felt shabby in a sweatshirt with a low ripped collar exposing his bare chest, and distressed joggers he saved for Lilydale since they were so flexible.

"Micah," Ingrid said after about twenty minutes of companionable silence. "I need to tell you something."

He lifted his eyes with sudden unease in the pit of his stomach. "Ingrid, it's a universal truth that ‘I need to tell you something' is deeply ominous."

Brush pausing over the object in Micah's tweezers, Ingrid glanced up at him with a dubious look.

"It is," he insisted.

"Well, I…feel…awkward. I believe. That's a word you like." She dabbed carefully with her brush, and then sat back in satisfaction. She shifted her attention while he held the tweezers and started to put together a complicated electroforming setup with multiple jars, one dark blue and two clear.

Micah found out when he moved to Minnesota that humans needed precise electric currents to transform metallic ions into atoms. An organic substance would be painted with a fixative, and then the jars would conduct electricity which would coat the organic in layers of metal until Ingrid was pleased with the result. For all of his childhood, unwittingly, he'd been watching Ingrid do alchemy by hand. The mulberry leaf he was currently wearing was one such example she'd made for him when he was barely old enough to speak.

A gold rod was fixed in place with a pair of clamps in the blue liquid. Ingrid touched two other rods of metal together, and sparks zapped out of them. She concentrated in silence for a moment, the point of her pink tongue sticking out between her lips, and electricity seemingly flowing from her fingertips. She transferred the white crawling light from her fingers into the rods, and then moved her hand back. She nodded in satisfaction as the light kept dancing over the touching rods, flowing down a thin wire into the blue jar where Micah's ring was submerged.

"I am awkward, all of the time," Micah agreed, chin in his hand. "Also, I haven't seen you do this since I was twelve. You're so gifted. It seems like your magic is only made to make beauty."

Ingrid glanced anxiously at him, thrusting a stray curl behind her pointed ear. "Micah, I'm…" She trailed off and shook her head. She turned a thin gold loop downwards and hooked the ring in Micah's tweezers, using steady hands to lower it into the blue liquid. Then she tapped the metal rods together and looked back at the blue jar, peering into it, sniffing it. She straightened, and then looked at Micah with a pained expression.

"Go ahead," Micah prompted. "I'm currently emotionally stable."

Ingrid closed her eyes and blurted tonelessly, "I'm returning to the Redwoods after your wedding."

Lightning struck inside Micah's body. His hands went clammy. For a moment, swallowing an influx of saliva, he was afraid he would vomit.

Pressing her hands over her face, Ingrid hunched her shoulders and sat in silence for a moment. She finally looked at him, tearful. "I'm so sorry to leave you."

"I…Ingrid, I…I don't understand." He wasn't going to cry. He would not cry. "Why—why do you want to leave?"

"I don't want to leave you, I assure you." Ingrid took his hand. "I care more about you than all the stars in the sky, Micah."

Damn it all. He started to cry. "But then…why would you go back there?" He wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "I don't understand. Don't leave me."

She pressed her fingers into her eyes and took a long breath without saying anything. Finally she sniffed and scooted closer, taking both his hands and leaning toward him as she said seriously, "Lilydale is yours, Micah."

Sniffling, balking, Micah tried and failed to pull his hands from her.

"Since we came back from the Redwoods, I've known I would need to do this. I didn't know if it would take a month, or thirty years. I've been waiting and watching as you've grown into your own, with a powerful and sensible man by your side to stay your hand or urge you on. And I felt that it was close."

"N-ot that close! I…I don't know what I'm doing!" Micah's voice broke, petulant, insistent.

She smiled. "Micah."

"No." He buried his face in his sleeve.

"You've fearlessly challenged me during this last month in a way not even my peers in the Redwoods would have. You know what you're worth, and you know when you're right. It's been…honestly deeply refreshing. I've been here twenty-two years with only Chamomile occasionally standing up to me."

"B…Βut Chamomile—she leads these guys." Maybe that would change her mind. If he had nothing to lead, she'd have to stay.

Ingrid shook her head. "She doesn't want to. She never has. Why do you think it was so effortless for me to step in here as leader so quickly after we arrived? I didn't contest leadership with her. She thrust it upon me." She straightened, running her fingernail over her lower lip. "But I am not suited for this place." She glanced back at Micah, some sorrow on her features turning her eyes dark merlot. "I'm sure you've noted that."

For a moment he caught his breath, the words he'd spoken just the previous night burning in the pit of his stomach. Maybe she'd heard him. "It doesn't matter," he insisted. "You can't leave. And…back there? Start somewhere new, or something. Why the Redwoods?"

Ingrid fussed with the tweezers, pressing her lips together. "For one, I…deserve it. I'm heir to the Redwood Throne, and it is mighty, in a vast and magic-drenched land. Next, I…I can do better with it than our mother." She lifted her gaze to Micah and told him with a slight tremble in her voice, "Especially since you have taught me so much about compassion."

Micah swallowed painfully. "Shut up," he whispered.

"And finally, I will ruin Lilydale if I remain here." Wistfully, she touched her electroforming cups with her fingertip. "I am all sharp edges and extremes."

"No! You…you won't!" He felt like a boy, trying to deny a truth he felt in his bones because it didn't suit him.

Ingrid took Micah's face between her hands, tender, smiling sweetly. "You're going to be amazing. With Andrew, and Chamomile, the three of you will help Lilydale thrive for years to come. You have a long, happy life ahead of you. Do not let me turn this place to stone."

"Why do you think about yourself like that?" he demanded, shaking her off, rejecting the affection that was so out of character for her. "You let me become who I am. You protected me so I could be so much softer than you. Twenty years in the Redwoods would have been more than enough to ruin me, if not for you."

"I will make it better there for you. I will make it safer, just like I did this place. For you. It's always for you, Nightshade Boy." She traced his brow with her long fingers.

"Ingrid," he pleaded.

"And I'll come back as often as I can. Nothing could keep me away. And when it is time, come and visit with your husband." She smiled softly, and a tear finally escaped her lashes and trailed prettily down her cheek.

Micah recognized the finality. This was something that was already happening. He didn't want to keep begging. He didn't want to make her feel worse. Micah caught her tear on the pad of his thumb and smiled tremulously. "We will." When he hugged her, he clung to her as a child would, with the crushing realization that she'd been a mother to him all along.