Fortune's Magic Farm

by Suzanne Selfors

  To whom did that angry voice belong? Great-Uncle Walnut had called him Nesbitt. Surely he couldn’t be Isabelle’s grandfather, for she had imagined him to be kind, gentle, and good-natured. And finding a lost granddaughter would make for happiness and rejoicing, not yelling about things coming to an end. What had he meant by that, anyway?

  While wondering about these latest mysteries, Isabelle stood in the Fortunes’ kitchen, which was everything a kitchen should be—warm, colorful, and filled with tempting scents. A wood-fed stove sat in the corner. Pots and pans hung from the beamed ceiling. Sun streamed in through open windows. Nothing in the room reminded her of Mama Lu’s kitchen, which was damp and sticky, riddled with piles of salt, and filled with constant demands about wanting to hear something interesting. Since leaving Runny Cove, Isabelle had encountered enough interesting to make Mama Lu’s head explode!

  The Fortunes’ kitchen also happened to be a complete mess, which didn’t bother Isabelle one bit. Plates sat stacked in the sink and a family of mice ran along a little trail they had made across the dirt-covered floor. Red-breasted and black-crested birds flew in through the windows, helping themselves to overturned bags of corn meal and hazelnuts. Bees flew in and out of a doorless icebox that sat unplugged and empty, except for a mud-packed hive that dripped with golden syrup.

  While the marmot dug a hole in a potted plant, Isabelle peered into some drawers. The first was filled with fat green worms. The second contained polka-dotted melons. One squirted at her; the stinky fluid just missed her shirt. She went to open another drawer but its contents growled fiercely. Best not to look in there.

  A door slammed. Walnut emerged from the hallway, his face scarlet, swinging his arms and breathing hard as if he had just climbed to the fourth floor.

  “Hello,” Isabelle said, ducking as a songbird flew by. “I’m all clean and ready to explore.”

  But Walnut didn’t bother to look up. “Stubborn old fool,” he mumbled, stomping right past Isabelle and out the front door.

  “Great-Uncle Walnut?” she called. “Come on, Rocky. Let’s see where he’s going.” Isabelle pulled the marmot from her new hole.

  Outside the thatched roof cottage, Isabelle looked for her great-uncle. She called his name but only a goat answered, bleating as it ambled toward the field. Rocky wiggled free and started digging another hole.

  Where had Walnut gone? She looked around one side of the cottage. The barn sat quiet, its double doors closed. “Great-Uncle Walnut?” She ran to the other side, a wilder side with a forest and looming mountains, hoping for a trace of checkered coat and white hair. Still no sign of him. She sighed. She’d have to explore on her own, but she had plenty of experience doing just that. Maybe she’d find some interesting things to put on those dusty shelves.

  A tall post stood near the forest’s edge, covered in arrow-shaped signs. THIS WAY TO THE LAKE SHAPED LIKE A HALF ROUND OF CHEESE. THIS WAY TO THE SWAMP THAT MAKES RUDE NOISES. THIS WAY TO THE CAVE THAT SWALLOWS THINGS THEN SPITS THEM BACK OUT. She pushed aside some tall blades of grass to read the last sign. THIS WAY TO THE TENDER AND FARMHAND CEMETERY. The arrow pointed down an overgrown path, its stepping stones barely visible. She had only visited Runny Cove’s cemetery one time, a sad and eerie place of cracked headstones and prickly thornbushes. Maybe she’d find some answers about the rest of her family in Tenders’ Cemetery. It was worth a try.

  “Rocky,” she called, hoping the marmot would join her. A cemetery would surely be less creepy with a furry friend by her side. But Rocky didn’t appear, so Isabelle took a deep breath and set off down the trail.

  A solitary dark cloud hung gloomily over the cemetery. Many of the headstones stood as tall as Isabelle. She wandered around, peeling back ivy vines to read the engravings. Dozens of Fortunes had been buried there, some of whom Walnut had mentioned and others, like Caesar Ragweeder Fortune, Pollenminder Veritas Fortune, and Sunflowery Millicent Fortune. Etched beneath each name was the cause of death: DIED MOST UNEXPECTEDLY FROM A FALL OFF A LADDER. DIED MOST PEACEFULLY WHILE NAPPING AT A PICNIC. DIED MOST REGRETTABLY IN A DRUNKEN DUEL. Only one tombstone did not list cause of death and its single name read: DAFFODILLY.

  In a separate part of the cemetery she found a clump of headstones that bore only single names like Bob, Poke, Curly, and Gus, followed by the statement, A LOYAL FARMHAND TO HIS DYING DAY. These also mentioned cause of death, though in one-word form only: EATEN, SQUEEZED, SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUSTED, LOST. No doubt about it—farmhanding was a dangerous occupation.

  Isabelle searched and searched but no headstone read: MOTHER TO ISABELLE or FATHER TO ISABELLE, or PARENTS OF THE CHILD WHO WAS LEFT ON A DOORSTEP. Walnut hadn’t said that her parents had died. He said she no longer had a mother and father. That could mean something else besides death, couldn’t it? Maybe. Hopefully.

  A whistle rang through the cemetery. Isabelle, who was becoming something of a Marmoticus Terriblus expert, knew that marmots chirp when discussing things and whistle when they feel threatened. She ran back up the trail to the thatched-roof cottage. Maybe that goat was getting too close to Rocky’s new hole. Another whistle sounded from somewhere in the field. “Rocky?” She stood on tiptoe and strained her green eyes, searching for a furry brown head. At the center of the field, something orange rose out of the grass, hovered in the air, then sank back down. Rocky whistled again.

  Isabelle hurried across a red bridge. Not too far ahead, another orange object floated above the grass, hovered, then disappeared. Heading that way, she crossed a green bridge and came to a pond. “Rocky,” she cried out, relieved to find the marmot sitting at the water’s edge. “What’s the matter? I was worried.”

  Rocky squinted at the water. Orange fish, about the size of Mama Lu’s salt canister, swam to the side of the pond and stared up at Isabelle with bulging black eyes. They swam in place, huddling together, shiny scale against shiny scale. “Fish,” Isabelle said. While she had heard many stories from her grandmother, she had never been face to face with a real fish. She lay on the bank, resting her chin on her arms, watching them as intently as they watched her. Rocky climbed onto Isabelle’s head for a better view. Were these the same kind of fish that Grandma Maxine’s father used to catch in Runny Cove?

  One of the fish grew bored and swam to the center of the pond, where it nibbled on a round-leafed plant. The fish took a few bites, then floated up out of the water. It didn’t look surprised as it hovered. It flapped its tail and slowly sank back to its watery home. Grandma Maxine had never told her that fish could fly!

  Rocky climbed off Isabelle’s head and wandered closer to the edge, where she snagged one of the round leaves. She sank her buckteeth into the leaf’s flesh, tapping her feet as she happily chewed. Apparently the pond plant made a delicious meal because she reached in and pulled out another.

  Isabelle sat up and laughed, watching as another fish took a bite, then enjoyed a midair float. What lucky fish, Isabelle thought, to be able to float like that.

  Rocky stopped chewing and chirped. She cocked her head, then rose off the ground. It’s the plant, Isabelle realized, not the fish. “Oh Rocky, you shouldn’t have eaten that plant.”

  The marmot whistled and frantically pawed at the air. Apparently, while goldfish enjoy mid-air floating, marmots do not. Isabelle leapt to her feet and tried to grab Rocky’s stubby tail, but she was already out of reach. Squealing and writhing, the furry rodent rose higher and higher.

  “You’ll be fine,” Isabelle called. “You’ll come down soon.” Hopefully. “Don’t be afraid.” A silly sight, to look up in the sky and see a marmot rump floating past, but Isabelle felt too worried to giggle. Rocky was her friend, her responsibility. The slugs and the potato bugs had died because she hadn’t been strong enough to fight Mama Lu. And she hadn’t been brave enough to fight Mr. Supreme. Had she been, she could have gotten home in time to save her grandmother. She wasn’t about to let anything happen to her marmot. She ran as quickly as she could, following the marmot’s shadow.
If Rocky fell…

  But Rocky didn’t fall. Isabelle held out her arms as the trembling rodent descended. “You scared me.” After a wet nose kiss, Rocky wiggled free of Isabelle’s hug and scampered off. “Don’t eat anything else,” Isabelle called.

  Though that advice seemed wise for a marmot, Isabelle found herself wondering what it would feel like to float, not across an ocean, but on air. She wandered back to the pond. No sign read: DON’T EAT THE PLANTS. No one stood there yelling, “Yer not supposed to float, ya hear me? Keep yer nasty little hands off my plants!” Isabelle reached into the water and pulled out a leaf. It tasted bitter, but nothing happened. She ate another leaf, then another. Maybe I’m too big, she thought.

  Her body went numb. She knew she still had legs because she could see them, but it felt as if they had run off. It felt as if her entire body had drifted away.

  Then her feet left the ground. Like the marmot, Isabelle grabbed at air, looking for something to hold on to. Oh, what have I done? She floated higher and higher but in a matter of moments she got used to her weightlessness and relaxed. So this is what it feels like to be a cloud, she thought, smiling. Gwen and Leonard would love this!

  A breeze slid beneath her, lifting and carrying her back toward the cottage. Her white shirt billowed as she drifted. She moved her arms and legs but couldn’t quite figure out how to control direction—that probably took some practice. She rested her hands behind her head. Why would anyone bother to walk around the farm with floating as an option? If Great-Uncle Walnut allowed it, she’d eat those leaves every day.

  The breeze carried her over the thatched-roof cottage. She drifted toward the tower that loomed behind the cottage, right up to its single dark window. Grabbing the window’s ledge, she held herself in place and peered through the glass. A man sat hunched in front of a fire, his back to the window. Orange streaks ran through his short white hair. Eve the cat nestled beside him.

  Isabelle knew, from the way he sat all curled up and small, that the man felt terribly sad. Most of the workers at the Magnificently Supreme Umbrella Factory sat in the same way.

  “Isabelle, what are you doing up there?” Walnut stood in the yard, clutching a basket. “My oh my, you shouldn’t be looking in that window. Come down, my dear.”

  “I don’t know how to get down,” Isabelle called back.

  “Push away from that window before he sees you.”

  But it was too late. The man turned abruptly and all Isabelle noticed were his eyes, at first gentle and sleepy, but then they widened and blazed. His voice boomed through the glass panes. “How dare you. Get out of here!” He swept an arm toward her. “GO!”

  Terrified, Isabelle let go of the ledge, but she didn’t drift away. The air beneath the tower’s overhanging roof was still and lifeless. She hovered as the angry man stormed his way to the window, his fists clenched.

  Walnut cupped a hand over his mouth. “Can you hear me? You need to come down.”

  “I’m trying,” Isabelle cried, kicking her legs. She wanted to get down more than anything. As the man glared out the window, she kicked with all her might, dislodging a clump of thatching in the process. Another kick and she managed to float free.

  “Stay away from that window from now on,” Walnut called. “And when the Floating Fronds wear off, meet me in the greenhouse.” He pointed toward the immense glass building. “I’ve got to get these roots into some water right away.” He hurried off.

  “No, don’t leave,” Isabelle cried, but Walnut didn’t seem to hear.

  As she floated away from the tower, the angry man opened the window. “You’re not wanted,” he snarled. “Go away.”

  After a long, venomous look, he slammed the window closed and drew its curtain.

  You’re not wanted.

  As the Floating Fronds wore off, those hurtful words rang in Isabelle’s head. “You’re not wanted” is a rotten thing to say to a person who has just arrived. It had to be a misunderstanding. After all, Sage had traveled across the ocean to find her and Great-Uncle Walnut had been waiting with the caravan to greet her. They wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble if she hadn’t been wanted. That man in the tower must have mistaken her for someone else.

  But who was he? And why was he so angry?

  Isabelle glanced up at the tower window, now shaded by a curtain. If she walked to the uppermost room in the tower and introduced herself, said something like, “Hi, I’m Isabelle. I’m a tender and I’m very happy to meet you,” then surely he’d smile and tell her that he had forgotten to put on his glasses and had mistaken her floating shape for a giant hornet or a storm cloud or something.

  “Isabelle,” Walnut called from the greenhouse. He waved a shiny blade in the air. “Come along. I’ve got so much work to do.”

  As Isabelle’s feet touched the ground, the numbness wore off. Reunited with her body, she hurried across the yard to the large glass building. “Can I float like that every day?” she asked her great-uncle, who was plucking a daisy from his bald spot.

  “Best not to overdo the floating. Too much and your body gets befuddled. I learned that when I was your age. Woke up one morning after a particularly long float and found that my hands thought that they were feet. And my toes thought that they were fingers. Have you ever tried squeezing lemonade with your toes?”

  Isabelle shook her head.

  “Makes your toes stick together. Don’t recommend it.” He raised the blade in the air. “Good thing I found my old machete. Now that we are without farmhands, the weeds have taken over. We’ll have to hack our way through.”

  Hack, whack, hack. Walnut swung the blade from side to side, slicing through the fortress of tangled vines and leaves. Isabelle kept a good distance as her great-uncle’s arm flew wildly about. Chopped bits of leaves sprayed onto her hair and face.

  “Never… seen… it… this… bad.” Walnut attacked a shrub that was putting up a fight. “Yet another reason why I will never find myself a wife. Difficult enough to find one when the farm was running smoothly, but now that the farm’s falling apart I’m doomed to bachelorhood. What sort of woman would be willing to deal with this mess, day after day?” He grunted, swinging the blade above his head, then held it in midair. “You wouldn’t happen to know any unmarried women in Runny Cove who have farm experience, would you?”

  The only unmarried woman she knew, other than Mama Lu, was Gertrude, and even if she had “farm experience,” and maybe she did, Isabelle wouldn’t tell her great-uncle about it. No way was Gertrude coming to live on the farm.

  “They’re all married,” she lied. It is perfectly acceptable to lie when it means saving someone from a fate worse than being eaten, squeezed, or spontaneously combusted.

  “I suspected as much.” With another grunt he brought the blade down upon a thorn-covered branch.

  “My grandmother wasn’t married. She’s the one who found me.” Isabelle ducked as a thorn flew past. “She died and the undertaker took her. You would have liked her.”

  “I’m sure I would have.”

  Beads of sweat trickled down Isabelle’s neck. Though a gentle mist drifted from the ceiling it did not provide relief from the greenhouse’s humidity. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve.

  Walnut stopped hacking and wiped his forehead too. “The tropicals love this heat,” he explained, catching his breath. “Especially this one.” He plucked a yellow pod from a tree. “This is called a Suncatcher. I always try to keep one of these in my pocket. They come in handy when it gets cold.” He cracked open the pod and sunlight spilled across his hand. “Great for warming up your bed. Once the sunlight is released, the pod evaporates.” Which it did, right before Isabelle’s eyes.

  “Oh, and these are blades of Glow Grass.” He picked a blade and stuffed it into his pocket. “I always keep a few in case I find myself in the dark.” Isabelle remembered the blade from their trip through the tunnel.

  “Great-Uncle Walnut,” she said, shaking an incandescent beetle off her h
and. “Who is that man in the tower?”

  “Ah.” Walnut paused thoughtfully. “His name is Nesbitt. Nesbitt Rhododendrol Fortune. My older brother. Your grandfather.”

  “My grandfather?” How could that be? “But he said that I wasn’t wanted. He yelled at me to go away.”

  Walnut pulled loose a vine that had begun to curl around his neck. “Your grandfather has been in a bad mood lately. Well, for about ten years, to be exact. But he’ll come around.” He frowned. “That’s our hope, anyway.”

  “Why would he want me to go away? Why isn’t he happy to see me?”

  “We can better discuss that in the Depository.” He slid the machete into his belt. “I think we’re nearing the end. Just have to get through this forest of Belchiferus Bamboo. I highly recommend that you hold your breath.”

  Walnut got to his knees and began to crawl between thick brown stalks. Isabelle followed, her hands pressing into the rich greenhouse soil. Burping sounds erupted overhead. Thin streams of black gunk oozed down the stalks. She couldn’t hold her breath any longer.

  “Yuck,” she said as a noxious stench shot up her nose.

  “That, my dear, is the bamboo’s natural defense mechanism. Surprisingly, that secretion makes delightful pancake syrup. Ah, here we are.”

  He pushed aside some soil to reveal a small door, set in the floor. After pulling it open, he handed Isabelle a blade of Glow Grass. They started down a steep flight of stairs, the air cooling with each step. “We’ve found it best to store our seeds underground. They can sleep down here for hundreds of years, if need be.”

  The stairs ended in a large room. While the Glow Grass was too dim to illuminate the room itself, it bounced off multiple pairs of red eyes. “This is the Seed Depository,” Walnut announced as he lit a cluster of candles, bringing the room into view. The eyes belonged to a group of black squirrels, caught in the act of stuffing their cheeks with seeds. “Shoo!” Walnut said. The squirrels squeaked, then darted into various holes in the walls. “Thieving pests.”