Nuns, possibly magical—Mary never could get the story from her mother straight—raised her mother. They provided her food, and care, and love—and left her with a legacy. Because when Mary reached maturity, it came with a surprise: plant magic.

But Mary must figure out the secret left by her mother—A kiss? How can a kiss be a secret? Which kiss? With whom? And when?—if she ever hopes to use her powers for good.

For everyone who longs for magic and a happy ending

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A Kiss is the Secret

A kiss is the secret, my mother always said, and it made absolutely not a jot of sense to me for the longest of times. She’d grown up in a convent, you see; not a nun herself—obviously, because me—but with the nuns, raised by them, for she had no idea who her parents were.

Well, that’s ungenerous. She knew exactly who they were; the nuns were kind in that respect. But her parents had no idea who she was, nor any desire to know; they, unlike the nuns, were not kind. 

So, my mother grew up in a convent, where as a rule there is not a whole lot of kissing, unless of course it is the mother superior’s ring, or something like that. 

Do they kiss the mother superior’s ring? I’m not even sure. 

But regardless, there were no boys in the convent, and Mother was never allowed off the grounds except under strict supervision, and so naturally there wasn’t much kissing of the real sort in her life.

I used to think perhaps that she meant a kiss was the reason she’d left the convent; a secret kiss, stolen opportunistically in a private moment from my father, whom of course she ran away and married. 

But secrets are never that straight-forward. 

For a happy interlude, they thought that nothing was wrong. They eloped, bought a house with my father’s savings, started a little cheese-making business with three sheep and five cows and a goat, and by all accounts were very, very happy. 

Then they had me.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Neither of my parents ever insinuated for the slightest of moments that I brought them anything but the usual delight of a baby (which is to say, a fair bit of frustration and the distinct possibility of momentary loathing, all underscored by a whole lot o’ love). 

And for a while, that was true. 

But one day, much later on, they discovered that I’d brought with me into the world rather a lot more than your average ordinary baby.