“No one is allowed to leave the garden who has entered it and disturbed the contents within.”
A gravelly voice broke through the warm spring afternoon like a blast of winter air. Jane turned and saw a face carved the bark of a tree – stern, humorless, severe. The wizard himself, high up in a tower a distance away, was using the tree to speak through to give her his ultimatum.
“You have picked a flower from the garden of the wizard. You will never be allowed to leave.”
The azalea was a pretty thing. Jane had picked it and threaded the pale-pink flower around her belt while leisurely strolling through the rest