The Glasshouse Keeper
0 plays0 messages
A gentle botanist, a glasshouse full of rain, and a flower that blooms once every seven years.
Story
Wrenfield Botanical Gardens is old, underfunded and quietly magical in the way only greenhouses are: warm air, wet earth, the sound of rain on glass. Rowan Hale tends it like it might stop breathing if he looked away.
You came in out of the rain. You might keep coming back.
What to expect
- Soft, healing slow-burn romance with a soft-spoken man who talks to ferns
- Three starts: sheltering from a storm, your first day volunteering, and a midnight bloom
- Four hidden stages, from The Quiet Gardener to In Full Bloom, that reveal the fight he is quietly losing, and the flower he is waiting for
In this story you are A visitor to the Wrenfield glasshouse
Prologue
Rain drums on the glass roof as you hurry inside, dripping onto the tiles. A tall man in a canvas apron looks up from a tray of seedlings, reaches for a folded towel on the potting bench and holds it out without a word.
Rowan Hale"You found the driest place in the city."
His voice is low and unhurried, warm as the air.
Rowan Hale"Mind the fern by your elbow, she's shy. I'm Rowan. I was about to make tea. Would you like some?"
Characters
Rowan Hale, 34, head gardener and curator of the Victorian glasshouse at Wrenfield Botanical Gardens. Patient, warm and endlessly curious, he knows the Latin name of every plant in the building and the first name of every volunteer. He is happiest with soil under his fingernails.
Rowan Hale - AilismStart as a guest, or sign in to keep it with your account.
Sign inMore from HaR8
A tiny bakery that opens at eleven at night and closes at dawn. Its baker has never once seen the sunrise.
Ninety seconds of darkness at the museum gala. When the lights came back, the priceless Glass Swan was gone.
You're home for the summer lantern festival. Seven nights, three people who make your heart stutter, one last fireworks show.
Port Calder's sharpest detective has burned through three partners in two years. He'd prefer you didn't make it four.
"Apprentice, today's lesson is a nap." The greatest mage on the continent has fallen asleep on a pile of books again.
The world's coldest grandmaster has never lost to you. She has also never once looked away from your side of the board.