BLOOMS AND BOOMS: BOTANICALS FOR THE BRAVE & THE BEWILDERED.

 

Oscar hesitated. It looked... chaotic. He preferred order. He liked his magic in neat, geometric circles and his potions in labelled vials. This shop looked like a greenhouse had swallowed a laboratory and then had a bit of a lie-down.

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He pushed the door open. A bell chimed—not a normal bell, but a sound like a tiny, silver trumpet fanfare.

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"Just a second! Don't move! If you step on the Snap-Dragons, they will bite your ankles!"

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The voice was frantic, high-pitched, and endearingly frantic. Oscar froze mid-step.

From behind a massive, overflowing display of what looked like sentient ferns, a head popped up.

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It was a young man, perhaps Oscar’s age, with a wild mop of chestnut curls that seemed to have a life of their own. His face was smudged with dark potting soil—a streak across his cheek and a thumbprint on the tip of his nose—and his eyes were a bright, startling green that crinkled at the corners. He was wearing an oversized apron covered in pockets, out of which sprouted various trowels, seed packets, and a very confused-looking toad.