Oh, I feel so strange! How long shall this spell last? Goodness, let me try to explain. Dear reader, we were viewing the results of our experiments, and the last of the tiger lilies opened today, and well… goodness… it, well… right now I feel very silly, but also elated, and ever so giggly… but no, I must try my best to explain.
Lorenz and I have been keeping track of the buds —the ones we poured the magical water onto— and the results have been fascinating. We noticed a few days ago that sadly one of the buds was damaged, maybe by an insect of some sort. But later on, when the flower opened, it looked perfectly fine, just a lovely white tiger lily with berry-colored spots. Lorenz and I agree that the water must have healed the flower. “An uncommon ability, to be sure,” he remarked. It reminds me of Dorothy’s skill or the legend of the unicorn that Lorenz shared. Oh, he was so sweet to lend it to me and it is such a pretty book… but wait… oh, yes, the next flower!
Its transformation is rather stunning, hard as a stone and translucent and shiny as a gem, and because one can see through it like glass we saw what looked like water flowing up from the stem through the veins of the crystal petals. Certainly nothing will be able to harm this bloom now that it’s become so solid and sturdy. I wonder if it will last longer because of it. Will it be preserved like stone? Or will it melt away like salt, oh or sugar? Now I want something sweet… later, later. The next set of tiger lilies.
Yes, umm, the third one we almost missed for it had become covered by a crawling vine, and when we did manage to untangle it the flower that opened appeared to be quite ordinary. But I had my suspicions; much of the forest’s magic is not what it first appears to be. So I offered that we return in the evening, and sure enough, as we approached the spot we could see a faint light flickering. It looked like fireflies, which was not far off. The little flower’s spots were actually blinking on and off, and oh goodness, as they did real fireflies began to flutter their way from the forest to the flower, the same way bees and butterflies might have done in the daytime. It was really so charming. I hadn’t seen the fireflies for some time, and Lorenz said he hadn’t seen them since he was a boy, and I was so happy we could see them together, and they looked just like little stars landing on our clothes, and… oh… well, I think you understand, dear reader… it was a lovely summer moment.
The next tiger lily, well, it felt familiar… and I mean that: it felt. The flower was perhaps a little rosier in color that the others, but besides that not unusual, that is until I touched it. The petals were extraordinarily soft, and well, it put thoughts and feelings into me, sort of like the stone at the Well of the Green Sister. I closed my eyes and I could sense sunshine, then rain, the smell of the musty soil, then the hum of something fluttering nearby. I opened my eyes, but nothing around me had change. Lorenz asked me what had happened and I told him to touch the blossom as well. He too felt it, and added that there was a ‘contentment’ to it all… like pleasant memories. Could we two have been sharing in the flower’s memories?
The last of the lilies opened today and goodness, it… it made me feel as though… well, dear reader, you must first realize that the flower looked common, as many of the others had. But the aroma, oh goodness the aroma was overpowering! Both Lorenz and I gasped when that scent hit us. Such an earthy, honey-sweet perfume, and …we … we began to feel different. My face grew hot, and I giggled uncontrollably when he passed me the ink for recording our notes… and Lorenz, well, Lorenz began to loosen his cravat and stretched his arms about as though he were full of energy. “Oh Miss Sonya, what could all this be?!” He couldn’t stop glancing up and smiling at me, hard as he tried to stay focus on his notes. Some part of me knew what was taking place; it came from years of practice and experience. “I think…” I told him, “I think it’s Impressional magic, but as a smell.” “Well, then do tell what feeling this is.” I dare not put a name to it, it was so complex, some sort of dizzy elation, but somehow I also felt too shy to try and recognize it out loud. My face blushing, I turned away giggling again. He gave a little “oh” as if he recognized something, and buried his face in his notebook. His ears were red.
Oh goodness, I feel so embarrassed about the whole thing now! And I am incredibly relieved that Alexander was not here to see the two of us behaving so foolishly… perhaps that means the effects are finally wearing off... they weren’t unpleasant, really quite the opposite… it’s just… well… Anyway, we’ve recorded everything about the tiger lilies we witnessed. It was all so wildly varied! Some of the magic I recognize, like the glowing, similar to the pale mushrooms of the forest, or the familiar arts of Healing and Impressional Magic. But why those things happened is unclear. Perhaps the water met the needs of the flowers, like with the healing, or gave them some unexpected benefit, like with the sturdy crystal and the fireflies. In the case of the last two, well, the water seemed to allow the flowers to share something with us. When I look at the water from the well, iridescent, swirling and glowing, it looks like pure magic, endless possibilities. Perhaps with such an enchantment one can really only expect the unexpected.