Chapter 59 - Leap (excerpt)

The sprout opened her leaves for the very first time. Her tender stem barely held her weight, leaning on shallow roots who struggled to support her. A gentle breeze wiped a water droplet from her shoot, dropping her onto a dry twig that lay alongside her. Her senses clear, she gazed at the newfound world, trying to take it all in, all at once.

She felt drizzle on her face when the trees above her couldn’t restrain the rain, soaked in the sun when the mountain from across the sea launched him into the sky, gently swayed in the breeze tempered by swaying grass, watched butterflies grace blooming flowers with their busy feet, and bobbed to the sounds of the forest humming all around her.

Until she closed her leaves to sleep.

When she opened them again, solid walls of brooding stone had replaced the protective woods. A high ceiling of hard crystal stood between her and the sky lights. And her soft loam of nurturing earth found herself bound by marble slabs, left consigned to a remote corner of an empty room.

A tear rolled down her leaf, and then another, falling back into the soil from whom they’d come. She felt no wind, no murmur of the woods, no siblings nearby with their comforting presence. Even a distant skylight struggled to make himself seen, sneaking into the room through a crack in the wall, leaving her to adjust to her newfound home in the heavy dusk of loneliness.

A woman walked into the room. She poured water at the plant’s base, crooning as she worked, and then settled into a nearby chair. The plant drank thirstily, until the water brought on a memory of rain-doused trees who used to shelter her, and the abiding grief of their absence. She lived on in her corner but didn’t flourish. The woman continued tending to her needs with water and fresh earth. But tall as she had grown, buds would not form nor flowers come.

Until she felt the knobbly hands wash down her leaves with a moist sponge, leaving them glistening and wet as if showered by rain. Hands hardened by the labour of tending to the plants. The care in their touch stayed with her, and she responded with cautious affection of her own.

She grew buds, small and tentative at first, unsure of their welcome. The hands caressed them, surprisingly gently for their worn skin. The buds began to rouse, revealing soft petals of lavender and wine. Seeing them, the woman’s face broadened into a warm smile. The buds opened further, spreading into flowery blossoms as the plant bloomed for the first time in her life.

The woman showed her off to visitors who nodded with approval, and the plant added new flowers to her shoot, with oversized petals to drown out her solitude. Children ran in and marvelled at her bulging flowers and scent that filled the room. She etched lines of ginger and rust into their burgundy hue, each a pain of separation from the kinfolk she had known, a memory of grief for what she had lost. With each new visit she grew further still, dwarfing her forest siblings with her towering frame, forming patterns unseen on flowers of her kind.

A commotion erupted outside the house. Screams of terror and clanking of weapons. The woman barricaded the door, but it caved to the blow of an axe. A spear found her from across the room, piercing her chest and tossing her into the wall. Strange people walked in, but they didn’t dwell, yanking the spear out and rejoining the turmoil in the street.

The plant reached out with her lower leaves, lifting and caressing the lifeless hand, her stem rocking in fitful motion, teardrops collecting on the petal edge. Her vibrant flowers stained with fresh pain. Her floral fragrance masking the stench of death.

The woman’s people eventually came to collect her remains, with slumped shoulders and faces raked with grief. The plant’s leaves waved their last goodbye, her petals fluttering in the stale air, her old life leaving her this time. She watched the woman being carried away, the only one whose wellbeing she had learned to care about other than her own.

The gift of caring stayed with her in the quiet, empty house. It burned in her as she rose to leave, tearing her roots, leaving them in place, the discarded grounding of a being who had outgrown them.