The rich spring soil crumbled in Oxalia’s hands. If the weather permitted, this year’s harvest would be good. She pulled a small hoe from her bag of tools and began to make rows of dirt mounds where the seeds would go. Turnips, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant… Oxalia had collected a number of wild seeds in the few years she had been living in the manor, a lot of which are in season now.

As Oxalia began to put the seeds in their place, she heard soft footsteps behind her.

“O, why are you barefoot?”

“I’m always barefoot when I garden, Leaf, you know that.” Oxalia said with a smile, “It’s good to be close with Gaia when I’m working the soil.”

“But can’t you, like, get hookworms from the dirt?”

Oxalia turned to face her pest. Leaf stood over her, hands on her hips, yellow-green eyes staring quizzically. “I don’t get hookworms.” Leaf scratched her ginger bun and surveyed the rows of freshly tilled soil. “Do you need something?”

“Faye kicked me out of the library, Mabel won’t make me a snack, and Annika, well, I won’t bother her.”

“So I’m the last person for you to bother today?” Oxalia asked, shielding her eyes from the bright sun.

“If you put it that way, then yeah, I guess so.” O turned back to her work. “What are you planting?” Leaf asked.

“This row will be tomatoes, that row will be cucumbers, the next row will be—“

“Oh! Can we plant peaches?”

“You want a peach tree?” Oxalia knew Leaf wouldn’t want to put in the work it takes to grow a fruit tree but asked anyway.

“No, I want a peach orchard!” Leaf spread her arms wide to show how big the proposed orchard would be.

“Well, that would require peach saplings, which we don’t have.”

“We could buy some!” Leaf retorted, “They can’t be that expensive.”

“We’d have to constantly check for weeds and bugs.”

“You’re good with plants, O, I’m sure you could take care of that.”

“Peach trees take at least six years to mature.”

Leaf had no reply to that and instead let out a sigh. “I just want peaches.”

“Then ask Mabel to buy them when she goes to the farmer’s market next week.”

“A whole week!” Leaf threw her hands up in defeat. “I won’t even want them by then.”

“What happened to the peaches we had?”

“I ate them. Mabel should’ve bought more than six.”

“You ate six peaches in two days?”

Leaf shrugged. “What can I say, I like peaches.”

She’s a peach fiend, O thought to herself. “Well, in the meantime, why don’t you help me out here?”

“I don’t wanna get my new romper dirty.”

Oxalia glanced at leaf. She was wearing an long sleeved emerald green velvet romper with a diamond shaped cutout in front.

“Do you like it? I finished it yesterday. I could make you one!”

O moved to the next row of tilled soil. “No thanks. Dirt is hard to clean out of velvet, and I’m probably allergic anyways.”

“So… just cotton or wool then?”

Oxalia nodded. Leaf once made her a dress out of cheap polyester fabric and it made her break out in hives for almost a week. O had previously only ever worn natural fabrics, so learning she was allergic to common fabrics that non-Fae wore was a surprise to her.

Oxalia continued to plant her seeds while Leaf rocked back and forth on her sandals, almost impatient. “Are you sure you don’t need something, Leaf? Oh- why don’t you talk to Anni? I’m sure she would enjoy the company.”

Leaf’s face reddened. “I said I didn’t want to bother her.”

“Why not?” Oxalia asked, ignoring Leaf’s obvious crush on the newcomer.

“I, uh… she’s probably asleep.”

“Have you checked?”

“No.”

“I bet if you asked Mabel to make a snack for the two of you, she’d be more likely to do it.”

Leaf let out a humph and walked away. Oxalia was glad she wasn’t pestering her anymore, but also liked their back-and-forth conversations, in a way. Mabel found Leaf annoying, and Faye even more so, but to O, Leaf was the little sister she never had.