Belonging

Tired on Tuesday -Madelyn Watson-

Madelyn Watson

Tuesday Morning

Madelyn had an extremely long night. The project was fun at the beginning, being out of bed after hours and everything had added a fun energy to the group... for the first few hours. Their flower took its sweet time opening. The moon was not enough for the damn thing, it did not want to give seedlings until after midnight.

Each little offshoot sprout floated out of the mother pod on a cotton wisp designed to float to the soil below. Not so in the greenhouse, they had to be plucked from the air and placed into a cup of soil, and Professor Sprout had worked it all out to a science to make sure they germinate. The cups had to remain on the opposite side of the structure where there was not a scrap of moonlight to taint the soil. The grabbing and hasty planting of seedlings had been a non stop crisis of not enough pots and soil from midnight until 2:00am. Professor Sprout kept shouting she was proud of her 'girl' for giving so many babies this year. She refrained from actually helping with the shortage of prepared pots, in favour of eating their snack supplies. Not that they could have eaten them, they all had dirty hands and were sweatily rushing around to save each baby from the overly moon rich soil that was too alkaline for them to thrive.

At 2:00 when the large open flower finally closed, the mother plant then also needed repotting in Professor Sprout's custom compost blend. They had to wash off all the soil from the roots. The plant was very picky about how much moonlight it had on it, or else it would only flower every dozen years instead of once a year. That had taken till almost 4:ooam. She had had more energy than her classmates because she had just hibernated for a full day. So she had led most of the charge, but her energy was not so fortified that she did not feel dead as she fell into her bed.

In the morning light the normal noises woke her at the normal times but she longed to stay in her bed. It felt as though she had only just closed her eyelids for a second. When she saw her hands in the morning sun, she realized her late night scourgify had not in fact cleaned her in the ways she thought. She picked at her fingernails.

"Maddie are you up?" Bethany asked. "Can you tell us now? About everything?" She asked from the bed beside Madelyn's.

"Gotta shower," was the two word answer she could manage. She shuffled toward it like a zombie. When she stripped off her nightgown she found her whole body was much dirtier than she thought last night. For a moment it looked like she had chest hair, but it was just soil. The shower woke her up and kept the questions at bay.

"Was it weird working in a group with Thomas last night?" asked Norah after Madelyn exited the privacy of her shower.

"It was fine, he didn't say a word," Madelyn answered. She had been avoiding answering all questions about her mate, and bonding. She had succeeded due to a busy schedule yesterday, but now she was so tired that her friend's curiosities felt like a mountain she was not prepared to hike this morning. She fell backward on her bed in her towels and glanced at the clock. She wanted to dilly dally, but she also wanted to make sure she had enough extra time to see Severus this morning. As she lay there privately smiling and trying to pretend to be asleep and unable to answer questions a little note bird fluttered down on her bed beside her.

She sat up and snatched it into her hand quickly unfolding it, suddenly she felt very awake. It read I missed you all night, little mate. You had better come to my office and give me a kiss before breakfast or I shall go mad. Madelyn squealed in happy excitement before she could stop herself. The man's stilted script was thrilling her wide awake. The fingers that held the quill to write this missive had made her feel such things yesterday afternoon.

"Is that little birdie from your lover?" asked Norah, trying to peer around her shoulder. Madelyn clapped the note to her chest.

"Private!" she scolded her friend, folding the note up protectively.