By the time Alvar felt well enough to get back to work again, weeks had gone by and the crisp chill of autumn had turned into frost. Snow gleamed on the distant mountaintops and the trees stood bare and forlorn.

One sunny morning, when he stood before the garden, a sad sight greeted him. His flowers had all dried up, and dark red poison ivy leapt all over the hedges. All magic that had once graced the garden had vanished, leaving behind nothing but desolation in its wake.

Hands in the pockets of her breeches, Aunt Elena came up and stood beside him on the porch.

"Don't look so glum, my lad. We can fix this," she said, and when she thumped his back it was enough to knock the air from his lungs.

Aunt Elena looked younger than her forty two years, with a rather striking resemblance to Alvar, although her time as a sailor had graced her with a bronzed complexion and a strong, stout built. She did not seem to have a mind to return to the sea anytime soon, though. All through the past few harrowing weeks, she had remained by Alvar's side when a terrible fever kept him bedridden for days on end.

It was about time he showed her some proper hospitality.

"I'll fix us some breakfast," he said, rolling up his sleeves. "I'm making pancakes."

Restoring what had lain abandoned for such a long time was no easy task. Gran's garden used to be forever in bloom, even in midwinter. But not even magic could withstand neglect. Alvar hoped the magic that kept the place alive would return once again, if he worked hard enough and made up for the last few months.

He spent the day pulling out weeds and raked away many days' worth of fallen leaves. He dug a pit in one corner of the grounds and dumped the waste in it. Then followed all the washing that had piled up until then. He finished hanging them all on the clothesline while Aunt Elena swept the floors and aired the rooms.

When he sat down for lunch at last, he wolfed it down in minutes. It seemed ages since he had such a great appetite.

After they'd finished eating, Aunt Elena opened one of her bags and brought out a huge package wrapped in paper.

"How's this for dessert?" she said, unwrapping it to reveal great blocks of fruit-studded chocolate--a treasure brought from her travels.

"Brilliant!" he said, though he was full. One always has space for dessert.

She even had a tiny hammer and a pick to break the chocolate apart into clean, blocky pieces. It tasted divine.

She placed some of the pieces in a little basket, along with some dried fruits and a big loaf of bread, and tied the whole thing up with a ribbon.

"Here," she said, handing it to Alvar. "A little something for Mr. Wizard. He came to check on you so many times, you know?"

He went red, clutching the basket in his hands. "He did?"

Aunt Elena nodded. "You were burning up with this terrible fever, and I just didn't know what to do! He did, though. But what a strange fellow he is! I wanted to pay him, but the lad refuses to take any money."

Alvar shook his head and smiled. That was just the way he was. Lars never charged the folk of Frostspire for his services. But the villagers had found their own ways to repay his kindness, just like this small gift he now carried in his arms. Though he wondered if it was enough to pay him back.

The path up to the mountains stretched long and winding through the woods. Amongst the trees there lay a deep silence, as though the snow, underfoot and over boughs, glittering in the afternoon light, soaked up all the sound. Not a leaf stirred.

High on a cliff facing the sea there stood the wizard's house, two-storeys tall, with a turret jutting out from its side. It had stood there long before Lars moved in two years ago. The pale blue tiles on the roof were cracked in places, and ivy climbed the walls on one side.

He knocked on the front door.

No answer came. A cat meowed somewhere, but no sign of Lars.

Alvar waited for a bit on the porch. He lowered his red scarf and blew on his hands, his breath turning to steam. When he was quite sure the wizard was not home, he hopped off the porch and strolled down the pebble-lined path leading away from the front door. It went skirting round what had once been a garden. Now it was all overgrown with weeds, the hedges thick with brambles, the rosebushes a tangled mass of tough brown stems and jutting thorns.

Someone ought to fix this, he thought. He could picture Lars hurrying through this mess to collect a herb and getting all scratched up by the thorns. No, I have to fix this.

Something rustled in the bushes, and for a moment Alvar thought his ideas had come true--that Lars was actually stuck somewhere in those hedges. That would explain why nobody answered the door, of course.

But it was only a cat. A lovely, chubby cat with a glistening black coat and eyes like blue fire. She threw him a questioning look before giving her tail a twirl and falling into step beside him.

"Hello," said Alvar. She did not say it back, of course, but she walked with him and zigzagged across his steps, which was just as well.

The garden path ended at a flimsy wooden gate, over which the cat leapt elegantly. Alvar pushed the gate open. Below, he could hear waves crashing against rocks and a smell of salt was in the air.

He wondered if Lars had gone fishing.

Steep stairs were cut into this side of the cliff, leading all the way down to a small dock. A strong wind blew, ruffling Alvar's hair and tossing his scarf, so its frayed end smacked him in the face. "Oh!"

He swung an arm through the basket of presents and held it snugly as he climbed down the stone stairs, one careful step at a time. The lower he went, the more broken they were, slippery with sprays of sea-foam and covered in moss in some places. The black cat skipped effortlessly ahead of him.

Lars was not out fishing either, it turned out. His little boat was moored at the dock amidst rocks dotted with barnacles. Floats attached to shrimp traps bobbed in the choppy waters, painted bright red and yellow. A green glass lantern sat at the end of the pier.

The rushing of waves, the chill but refreshing wind, the tiny flame flickering in the lantern--all seemed to put him under a trance, bringing him peace like he had not known for the past few months when Gran was on her deathbed. Now he felt like a boat unmoored, free to traverse the oceans at its will, for she was free too, in the lands beyond the Bridge of Stars where one day they would meet again.

He wondered at the strange turn his thoughts had taken. Perhaps dwellings of the magical folk were imbued with such soothing powers that made one think in ways they had not before.

By the time he headed back to Lars' front door, it was snowing.

Alvar hardly noticed when he'd drifted off to sleep, sitting on the porch. He stirred awake, hearing keys jingle. A shock of flaxen hair and a green hood flitted past his line of sight in a blur. The wizard had come home.

"Next time, wait inside," said Lars as he brushed snow off his cloak. "The kitchen door is always open."

"You leave your door unlocked just like that?" said Alvar.

Lars shrugged. "No thieves sneaking about this high up. Besides, I've got no treasure that's worth climbing all this way."

Alvar was no better in figuring him out than the rest of the village folk. No one knew what to make of it, the way he lived in solitude like a young hermit, yet at the same time, showed up for anyone who asked for his aid, or the way he would wander the mountains and the forests surrounding Frostspire, leaving his door unguarded.

He was a man who had nothing to lose. The notion seemed melancholy, yet oddly freeing to Alvar.

"Come on in," said Lars over his shoulder--then smacked his head on the doorframe on his way in.

"Watch it!" said Alvar.

Inside in the parlour, the russet glow of sunset streamed in through the curtains drawn across the windows. The air here was wonderfully warm and smelled of woodsmoke and old books.

Taking Alvar by surprise, the black cat from before sauntered in through his legs and tumbled on the rug, playing with a red ball of yarn. The house was smaller than it seemed from the outside, every surface cluttered with strange knick knacks. The kitchen was merged into the living room, and in one corner stood a workdesk under a pile of papers and books. Bunches of dried herbs hung from a string of twine above the kitchen, and the rafters were overhung with cobwebs, their silver threads fine like silk.

He gave Lars the basket. "Thank you, for...well. Everything."

Lars shook his head and smiled. "The way you folk keep spoiling me..."

He then peered inside and discovered the chocolates. He broke off a corner and popped it into his mouth.

"On second thoughts, keep it up! This is incredible," he said, then offered Alvar a piece. "Here, you simply must try some!"

Alvar finished it, and then not knowing what to do with his hands, stowed them in his pockets and stood watching awkwardly as Lars shrugged out of his cloak and tossed it over the armchair.

It was baffling how much his 'wizardness' came from the cloak. Without it, he was just a young man, like Alvar himself, and not at all some mystical being far out of reach. It was as if Alvar too could put on a cloak like that, grab a staff and discover strange powers at his fingertips; find magic in the ordinary, like he found ordinary in the magical.

Lars threw himself down on the armchair with a contented sigh. He reminded Alvar of a windswept willow; limbs a bit too long for his shirt and breeches, his pale gold hair mussed and unruly.

"So what do you think of this humble abode of mine?" he asked, when he caught him staring about.

"Hmm." Alvar scrutinized the home carefully before answering, for he was not one for forcing politeness.

"Too many cobwebs," he concluded.

Lars' eyes widened, as though he hadn't expected so blunt an answer, for when someone asks you how their home is, you are supposed to respond with praise. He laughed aloud.

"Too many indeed!" he agreed. "But I can't bring myself to sweep them away. It's not fair. The spiders aren't good tenants, mind you, for they do not pay rent. But they do catch a fly or two sometimes. They're productive, unlike some."

He glanced at the cat, who was busy training her claws against the side of the armchair. The material was coming unraveled.

"Mrrp?" she complained when her claws got stuck in the threads.

"Well done, dear," said the wizard, and gently picked the threads apart to free her paws. Even then she was very offended and grumbled a lot.

Alvar chuckled at the sight. "Very well," he said. "Keep your cobwebs. But you ought to do something about your garden. If I may be so bold--the state of it is downright horrifying."

"Is it?" wondered the wizard, and walked to the window to have a look.

Alvar came up and stood beside him. "When was the last time you weeded your garden?"

"Oh, there is no last time. The weeds aren't half bad. It looks all dreary now, but come by in summer. It's wonderful when the dandelions bloom and this whole mountain turns gold," he said with a smile that sent Alvar's heart tumbling every which way.

Outside, snow fell steadily, soft and silent.

Lars went to the kitchen and set a pot of water boiling over the fire.

"Tea?" he offered, opening cupboards and sifting through jars.

No one ever said no to tea, of course. The wizard placed two big steaming cups before him, and a tray of sugary biscuits, which he produced from a ceramic jar, hand-painted all over with feline shapes.

"I could help you restore your garden," said Alvar. He sipped his tea with the most professional coldness he could muster, because Gran's customers would never take him seriously as a twenty-year-old is to be taken.

But Lars was dead serious. "Perhaps I could use your help after all. I let my plants grow the way the earth wills them to, for there is beauty in chaos. But chaos can be dangerous when it gets out of hand."

Alvar blinked slowly. "Do all wizards speak like that?"

"Eh?" Lars wondered. “What do I sound like?

"You sound..." It was hard coming up with an answer when he stared that intently into his his eyes. "Wise."

"Wise?" Lars repeated to himself. "Oh, no. Do I seek wisdom in this vast universe? Indeed. But I'll never truly gain all of it. Though I'm wise enough to know that tomato is not a fruit, if that's what you mean."

That was certainly not what Alvar meant and he was quite sure that tomato was indeed a fruit. Perhaps Lars was not very wise after all.

"You still gave me no answer to my offer," he said.

Lars looked startled to be taken out of the silent debate in his mind, concerning tomatoes, no doubt. "Oh!" He seemed to remember at last. "Oh, yes. I gladly accept. But this is such a huge and burdensome task. How will I ever repay you?"

"None needed," said Alvar. "This is repayment on my behalf. For saving my life."

Lars gazed at him for such a long moment that Alvar thought he'd slipped back into his previous contemplation.

But that was not the case. The wizard reached out and thumbed away a speck of sugar Alvar didn't realize was sticking to his chin.

"Very well," said Lars at last. "But you may find it quite challenging."

Alvar found the brambles and poison ivy were the least of the problems. It was the soil. Gravelly and sandy and infertile, it gave rise to naught but thorny bushes and weeds. It took him a week for the clean-up alone. Lars helped, although he seemed a bit skeptical about the success of the endeavor. One morning, Alvar brought a bag of seeds with him, along with his shovel. A flowerbed was made ready at the back of the house.

"Nightshade, eh?" said Lars, examining a handful of the dusty brown seeds.

Alvar nodded as he worked the soil. "I'll plant all the herbs you need, so you don't have to go searching in the woods anymore."

Lars sat on his porch and began stuffing his pipe with mint leaves. "But I like those trips to the woods."

A gust of wind rose from the sea and swept across the cliff. Alvar's hair swelled like a cloud. The winds were strong up here, and sometimes it seemed they would carry him away, if he wasn't careful enough.

Lars came over and watched as he sowed the seeds in the freshly prepared soil.

"How you would restore a garden in the middle of winter is beyond me. I'm no expert, but I doubt these will grow," he said.

"Oh, but that's where you are wrong," said Alvar. He finished planting the seeds and wiped his brow with a weary but satisfied smile. "You're not the only one in Frostspire who practices magic."

Now that he had not one, but two gardens healing under his touch, Alvar was very much back into his element. He grabbed a handful of the nightshade seeds from the bag and showed them to Lars.

"These seeds, you see, are enchanted. Come rain or frost, they'll grow. No disease can take them, and their roots go deep, drawing sustenance from the most barren of soils," he said.

Lars took one and held it before his eyes. "You performed the enchantment?"

"Oh, no. I got no talent for all this arcane stuff. It's all Gran's work. All things that come from our garden hold her magic."

"Fascinating..." Lars trailed off, rooting around in his cloak for his monocle. He set it up with two more lenses, and looked at the seed up close. Dusty and dull and ordinary it looked. A moment later he frowned. "Now this is strange. I cannot sense any magic in this, Alvar."

"Indeed?" he asked, and had a look through the lenses as well, though he couldn't really tell the difference. It was always Gran who handled the magical part.

He did the hard work of tilling the soil, spreading fertilizer, building fences, and everything else that required no magic, but a strong pair of hands. Every now and then Gran would ask him to learn some of her craft, but he'd always put it off for later and the later never came. He sighed.

"Let's see how these ones fare, before we plant more," he said at last.

Days came and days went. The overgrown hedges around Lars' house were carefully pruned, the thorny vines rooted out. Sunrays once again danced on the grass after year's worth of dead leaves were swept away. Sometimes in the sunny mornings, Marcella would come out and roll in the grass for hours.

But to Alvar's dismay, the nightshades did not grow. The flowerbeds were all plain and bare, not a sign of green to be seen. One bright midday, he sat before them, looking morose.

Footsteps sounded behind him, and along with it came the sweet smell of mint leaves burning.

"It's alright," said Lars.

"No it isn't," said Alvar, even as another gust of sea wind rose to ruffle their heads. "I think it's the soil after all. These rough winds have stripped them bare of the essentials the plants need. Even so...why has the enchantment worn off?"

"You can think of that after lunch," said Lars, and picked a dry leaf from Alvar's brown curls.

It was turnip stew for lunch. For someone so soft-spoken and gentle as Alvar, he harboured a rather intense dislike for that particular vegetable.

But today he changed his stance on it, as soon as he had his first spoonful. He didn't know what on earth the wizard put in it to make such a plain thing taste so delicious. Garnished with chopped herbs, seasoned with spices he'd never even heard of, the stew tasted as wonderful as it looked.

They sat facing each other across the round kitchen table with spindly legs as they ate. The sea could be seen through the window, gleaming in the midday sun. Far away, blue and hazy, stood distant cliffs and sea-caves. Marcella played in the garden.

Alvar cheered up somewhat after lunch and made up his mind. If the magic was really wearing off the seeds, they would have shortage of supply down at the shop as well. He made the hike back home.

Aunt Elena's eye looked huge like a saucer as she peered through the great brass-rimmed magnifying glass.

"The lad's right," she said, tossing the nightshade seed to Alvar. "There's not a bit of sorcery left in this thing."

He took her glass and tried to look too, but he didn't know what he was supposed to look for; some visible magical aura or faint sparkles--or lack thereof. More and more now he regretted not learning the craft from Gran when there was still time.

"What do I do now?" He sighed. "We've got a tough season ahead, if the magic's wearing off. Soon there'll be no more flowers to sell."

Aunt Elena was calm as ever. She cleaned the glass and put it on a table by the window. "Of course the magic is fading away. The one who cast those spells is no longer in this world after all. To keep it alive, you just have to cast them again."

He shook his head. "You know that I haven't--"

" --got the talent for such things," Aunt Elena finished for him. "I know. You've said that a dozen times already. But come on, now. Look at this place." With a gentle arm around his shoulders, she gestured out the window. Gran's garden was still lovely, even if the magic was dying.

"You've worked hard to create this--you and Mother both. Would you rather see this wither away? You should give it a try, at the very least."

"Or you could do it instead," said Alvar. "I think I'll just end up making a mess of things. You could do the magic part, like Gran, and I could handle the other things, like I've always done."

She shook her head and smiled. "If we stick to doing only those things we've always done, we'd never grow. I could do this for you, sure. But you have tended to this place for so long. The very soil here knows your soul. Now, would it respond better to your touch, or mine?"

And then he had lunch for a second time, to make up his mind. Today Aunt Elena revealed yet another wonderful thing. It was no treasure brought from her travels, but something that was discovered in their own little house.

"Clearly, Mother left this for you," she said, bringing out a leather-bound red journal. On one corner of the cover, in huge flowy letters it read: Luna. Gran's name. Inside, on the first of the lined, yellowed pages there shone her elegant handwriting.

To dear Al,

For 'later'.

He could almost hear her admonishing tone. "And when is this 'later', my lad? Next year?"

The pages were cramped with copious amounts of notes, some filled with diagrams and charts and strange letters he couldn't read. Her powers were not inherited, but gained from many long years of learning and practice.

And she'd left him her life's worth of knowledge.

Alvar ran his fingers over the pictures and symbols. "Can you make sense of these?"

Aunt Elena squinted hard. "Eh. Magic was never really my thing. She once tried to teach me the basics, though. That didn't go too well."

He gave her smug look. "So you're another case of later."

She shrugged, offering an awkward grin. "I've always been the adventurous sort, haven't I? I ain't one for sitting around and reading. And this stuff can get boring real quick, until you get to the part where you can shoot fireballs or lift people up in the air. Wait--are there actually that sort of spells in here?"

She flipped through the pages. There were pressed leaves and flowers, along with hand-drawn pictures and notes. Here was a whole chapter expanding on enchanting flowering plants to bloom all year around. There, a list of medicinal herbs and spells to aid in their growth.

"See, it's all gardening stuff," said Aunt Elena, a little bit disappointed.

"Can you help me with this?" asked Alvar, looking at one of the diagrams and wondering if the letters were upside down.

Aunt Elena flashed a smug grin. "Why ask an old sailor while there's a perfectly good wizard in your village?"

Alvar thought she had a fair point.

"Who's going to look after the shop when I'm off to see him?"

"Why, the one who's been running the business while Master Alvar is busy fixing up a wizard's garden!" She rolled up her sleeves for emphasis that wasn't needed. "You're in luck, lad, 'cause I'm here to stay."

Alvar dropped the book. His eyes lit up and he could barely contain himself. "Really?"

"Aye," she said. "I think this is as good a time to retire as any. And if I gotta settle down, put down my roots, as they say--better it be here in this village, with Mother's memories and everything."

She then shoved the book back into his hands. "Now! Run to your wizard! Quick. Don't you keep him waiting."

He went red up to his ears. "He's not my wizard."

He didn't think Lars could belong with anyone so plain such as him. No, he belonged with the misty forests, the snowy mountains, the rocks, the streams, starlit nights and grey dawns, and all those beautiful things the world had to offer, the vast open world whose wisdom he seeked to gain.

When Lars heard of Alvar's hesitation to learn magic, he set Gran's journal aside and laid back down where he was previously stretched out on the dock under the cliff, watching the clouds sail by. Alvar didn't know what to do, so he sat beside him, toes dipped in the cool waves that came and went.

"Magic, beyond a certain point, cannot be taught, no more than one can be taught how to breathe," said Lars after a while. "It takes a willing heart to look within yourself and discover your own potential. Such hesitation will soon become a hindrance in your way, my friend."

"I don't want to hinder anything," said Alvar quietly. "I just want things to stay the way they always were."

Lars got up and gestured him to follow. They walked up the stone steps, and back to his house. In a corner of the living room beside the workdesk there stood a bookshelf, lined with spellbooks, vials, and bottles of strange shapes and outlandish colours. He retrieved one of those bottles. A lovely thing it was, made of clear blue glass. A wisp of silver smoke coiled inside it.

He handed it to Alvar. "It's your dream from that night."

The bottle warmed at his touch, as if a candle were burning within.

"Oftentimes, your dreams hold the answer to the trouble you're having. For us, they're useful tools because they help to see what's wrong and find out ways to alleviate the problem. Have a look within yourself and see what you find."

Alvar held it against the sunlight. Visions played inside his mind, as though he was recalling an incident he didn't realize he'd forgotten.

"You've always feared change," Lars told him after he'd relived that night's dream.

“I suppose I do,” said Alvar.

Lars' expression changed from sombre to a playful one.

"Perhaps it's presumptuous of me to ask," he said, picking his words carefully, "but I wonder if the same fear of yours is why you never actually made a move? Apart from those flowers, of course.”

He sputtered. “What--”

Lars waved him off. “Oh, I am no master of my craft, but don't take me for a fool.”

He noticed everything --the way he would peer from under the brim of his hat whenever Lars visited the shop, the longing glances, the shy smile when he stopped to say hello.

Alvar went tomato red and found the wall to the left rather interesting. He said nothing, yet his silence was answer enough.

Lars went to make some tea.

Alvar looked like he needed it.

He stood by the kitchen door, fingers pulling at a frayed thread on the unfinished edge of his scarf. At this rate he was going to unravel it all.

But still he uttered not a word.

Stubborn little thing, thought the wizard fondly.

"You may keep the bottle, if you wish," he said. "And as for taking up Gran's work, the decision is up to you."

Alvar sat clutching the bottle all the while. Marcella passed him by, giving his legs a nudge with her head and a swish of her tail.

At last when tea was almost done and Lars had set out a bowl of food for the cat, he mumbled something so quiet that eluded the wizard's hearing completely. It was something only Marcella could've picked up on, if she could understand human speech.

"Pardon?" said Lars.

"I said, did you like the chrysanthemums?" Alvar asked the floor. "The ones I gave you?"

He'd put them in a vase until Marcella tipped it over, and kept them pressed inside a journal when they dried.

"I loved them," said Lars. "I loved them very much."

"Good to know," he muttered, and that shy smile returned to his face, which Lars liked more than the flowers.

Then a crooked grin lit his own face. "Too bad there won't be any more of those lovely flowers from the magical garden. I would've liked to order some. Ah, well."

Alvar cleared his throat. "How'd you know that? I didn't tell you my final decision yet, did I?"

"Better hurry up, then," said Lars, "tea's getting cold." Which was just the worst thing in the world.

Alvar assumed a very serious, contemplating face as he munched on a sugar cookie baked in the shape of a bird. "Well, I must not turn away potential customers."

"No indeed," mused Lars, adding spoonfuls of sugar into his tea.

"And there're a lot of customers."

"The whole village is looking up to you," added Lars, stirring his cup with a spoon.

"And I ought to carry on her legacy."

"Spoken like an ideal grandson!" the wizard chimed in, taking a noisy sip.

"You stop that," said Alvar.

“I'll stop,” said Lars, and took his tea in silence.

Then Alvar made up his mind at long last when the dregs in the bottom of his cup had gone cold.

"Fine then, Mr. Wizard. Teach me your ways."