“Forty-seven," I said, doing my best to avoid the thorns on this long-stemmed rose as I clipped the stem with a pair of shears.
I had gotten them from the garden shed. I'd actually found several pairs and was trying each of them out to see which worked best. So far, that one was my favorite pair. It cut fairly cleanly, but it was still taking forever to harvest all of these roses. The stems were covered with thorns.
And I hadn't found any gardening gloves.
Theo was standing off to the side, and I had to assume he was looking around, trying to figure out if there were any tunnels or secret doorways out there, but I was a little annoyed that he wasn't helping me. He was standing in the shade of a large flowering tree, while I was sweating beneath the hot sun.
“We heard from other servant
