The repotting had been going well until the lavender decided to have opinions.
Rowan had her hands deep in a fresh clay pot, working a sprig of rosemary into position — fingers spreading the roots apart with the patient pressure she'd learned from years of kitchen-garden work. The rosemary accepted this without complaint. Most of the herbs did.
She reached past it to collect the trowel from the worktable's far edge, and the whole plant — every stem, every spent flower head — turned toward her hand. Not a draft. The window was latched. Rowan held very still.
Her thumb pressed the surface flat, and the resinous smell that lifted had nothing sweet about it — the kind that cleared the back of the throat and made the eyes water slightly if you breathed it too close.
