8:19
Siobhan looked around and blew out a hard breath. This was the first time, separate from at night protected by multiple locks and several – okay many – creative alchemy traps, that she had been alone since her abduction. What before had appeared to be a beautiful, and tempting, landscape now stretched around her with a lot of potential places for someone to be lurking.
No. She clenched her fist until her knuckles popped. She couldn’t think that way.
Practice your breathing. In. Hold it. Out. Hold it. In. Hold it. Out. Hold it. Her heart picked up the rhythm. She envisioned calm flowing along her veins with every pulse, imagined the tension seeping out through her pores; an alchemical process breaking down the bad and leaving the good like she was a crucible. That image, of a crucible, had come to sustain her in the time since she was taken. A vessel, meant to heat a compound, boil it down to its essence, empowering through transformation. Her experience didn’t break her – it transformed her.
She could do this. This was possible.
Stepping back on the stone path, she lifted her skirt to avoid the hook bristled fruit nestled among the lanceolate leaves and pretty white four-petaled flowers of a galium odaratum encroaching on the edge of the stones. In doing so her foot landed on a growth of creeping rosemary and sent a wash of the distinctive scent of the herb into the air. She made a concerted effort to avoid stepping on any more of the bush forming a carpet of green and light purple flowers some seven feet along that side of the path.
The temptation to literally step off the garden path was so strong.
“No, Siobhan. You have a job to do. Focus!”
‘But, look at that gorgeous stand of zingiber officinale!’ her traitorous, and apparently easily distracted, mind offered. It was a nice growth of ginger, that was for sure, Siobhan acknowledged, taking in the reed-like plants standing close to four feet tall with clusters of white and pink buds interspersed with yellow flowers.
No. Focus. Deep breaths. Like you tell your kids. Your bigger than those kids, aren’t you? If they can tune out distractions, then darn it, so can you!
Knowing if she didn’t pick a specific destination she’d end up wandering the garden, tempted this way and that by the magnificent specimens, she firmed her intent and focused on the brook. It was a solid landmark in the riot of growth and color and its flowing water offered a welcome distraction from all the distractions.
She closed her mind to the dark green scallop-edged velvety leaves of betonica officinalis, a cousin to mint and sage, though the movement of the cloud of butterflies sipping from the tubular purple flowers growing on spikes jutting from the explosion of green kept catching her attention from the corner of her eye. No. No! Her fingers itched to pick some of the herb which could be used to treat migraines and neuralgia, close open wounds, affect concussions, relax tension, and could stimulate blood circulation. She had betony at home. She did not need betony.
But it was so lush and the flowers were so picture per-
No! Moving on. Moving on.
Butterflies floated on the still air, drifting from the betony to a two-foot high growth of tagetes lucida, sweet marigold as it was commonly called, likely drawn by the promise of the licorice tasting small, gold daisy-shaped flowers clustering on it. The single row of petals made an ideal surface for butterflies to perch upon while sipping nectar. A weak tea made from those petals was an excellent cure for digestive problems as well as hangovers. A strong tea produced a state of euphoria and mixing it with wild tobacco produced psychotropic effects.
“Zap!” Siobhan pointed her finger at the marigolds, imagining zapping the distraction away as she taught her students. “Zap! Zap! ZAP!”
The reprieve from distraction lasted for, oh, a solid twenty feet and then her attention was caught by a four-foot stand of ocimum tenuiflorum with its hairy stems, purple blade leaves and light purple flowers growing on elongates racemes. Tulsi was uncommon enough that she had to stop and look at it. And then she had to finger the leaves. Brush a pedicallate flower with her fingertips.
“Ah!” She yanked her hand back like the plant could burn her, then made a gun and snapped, “Zap!”
At this point she kind of needed the imagine a cattle prod instead of a gun to really get the Zap to do what it needed to do to keep her on track. Or, she looked down at her feet, planted up to the instep in green, on the path.
“Zap zap zap,” she muttered, matching her footfalls on the stepping stones to it. “Zappity Zap Zap!”
The brook beckoned from beyond a growth of houttuynia cordata as high as her hips growing beyond . It was the chameleon plant version of houttuynia cordata, green, pink, and white flowers on spikes surrounded by four white bracts thrusting from clusters of acuminate leaves. Siobhan’s hands lingered, buried in the greenery, as her mind wandered to the immense potential this plant had for an alchemist. Rainbow plant, as it was otherwise known, had anti-mutagenic, anti-obesity, anti-viral, hepatoprotective, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, and anti-allergic applications. And if that wasn’t enough it was also adjuvant, which meant it modified the principal ingredient in recipes and enhanced the effectiveness of them.
She considered what she had in her bag that would allow her to take some of it back with her. She could make cuttings and grow- Ugh! Zap!
No. No, this plant was worth a little wool gathering. She stooped down and examined where the plant grew out of an inch or two of water.
To take the entire thing or just cuttings? She clicked her tongue while she considered, then eventually decided on a “why not both?” approach. She tried to tear a part of her skirt off to use a root wrap. The cloth did not want to give. They always made the process seem so easy in books!
Digging in her bag she found a pair of scissors. She applied these to the skirt, cutting off a two foot piece off the entirety of the bottom. This she dipped into the water the houttuynia cordata grew from, then wrung it out so the cloth was moist but not dripping and leaned back to lay the cloth on one of the stepping stones of the path.
Selecting a plant that didn’t grow more than eighteen inches high, figuring that was a more workable length than the three-foot plants, she carefully dug her fingers down into the soil beneath the water and gently worked the roots free. She reached down with her other hand, tracing her fingers out through the soil to follow the roots to their ends, making sure not to clip them and cause the plant shock. The leaves of the plant gently curved around her arm as she did so. She took this as an indication it wanted to come with her. Or at least wasn’t adverse to the idea.
“I promise I’ll take good care of you,” she whispered as she drew the plant free of the water, then twisted at the waist to lay it gently on the dampened cloth with the roots about four inches from the bottom. She folded that cloth up like an envelope to hold the roots then carefully rolled the plant so it was loosely cocooned by the wet cloth, leaving about a foot and a half unrolled. Then she turned back to the growth of houttuynia cordata, moving a foot or two towards the brook and another foot or so over so she didn’t take her cutting from the same area.
Once she was satisfied with her position she gently excised several cuttings from five different plants with her scissors, careful to not over cut from any of them. She placed the cuttings on the extra cloth she’d left unwrapped and proceeded to roll it up so the cuttings were folded around the whole plant.
Carrying it might make a fight awkward, should they have one after she left the garden, but she just couldn’t leave the houttuynia cordata behind. She picked it up and pushed through the rest of the houttuynia cordata one-handed, aiming towards the water. She didn’t know why but she just felt like it was the right place to search. Or she hoped it was. Because otherwise this was a whole lot of garden to search for a small piece of glass.
Crouching next to a bacopa monnieri, she couldn’t help but pause and look at it. Yet another rare herb, water hyssop was known to improve memory and also boost-brain output. Yeah, that sounded all new agey and Magick and stuff but if you dug deeper the science proved out as water hyssop contained phytochemicals such as nicotine, desaponin glycosides, and herpestine which were known, even in scientific slash medical circles, to improve brain function. She might want to gather up a little of it too. Maybe it would help with her search.
Yes, that was why she wanted to gather it. Totally why.
Along with the effects water hyssop had on the brain it was also an anti-diabetic, anti-epileptic, anti-pyretic, liver-enhancer, analgesic, anti-bacterial, and it relieved stress and depression. Not that she thought she needed those effects right now. Well, maybe a little less stress would be nice?
Laying the bundle of houttuynia cordata down on the bank of the brook she took her scissors out again and hacked off another foot or so of her skirt, leaving her with a jaunty, if ragged, mini-skirt that hit just above her knees. She gave an experimental swoosh, focusing on whether she felt air hitting her bottom. She did not. Good enough! She’d just have to be careful not to bend over in front of anyone.
Stooping down she dunked the skirt in the water, then wrung it out, and laid it out to roll the single plant she dug up along with the cuttings she took from other plants, just as she had the houttuynia cordata. She laid the bundle of water hyssop next to the one of rainbow plant, removed her bag and placed it beside the two bundles, then stepped into the river and squatted down. Her boots were already wet and the shearing of her skirt to above her knees meant she didn’t have to hold it up from the water. Of course that was kind of moot as she squatted down on her heels to get a good look at the stones at the bottom of the brook and her skirt went floating out in a corona around her.
Something hit the water with a plop and she jerked upright, arms tensing, hands curling into fists. Because that was her strength. Punching things.
A small bird drifted by on the brook’s gentle current. Siobhan released a hard breath through pursed lips and loosened her fists, then gave the bird a tentative smile.
“Hey, birdie.”
The current turned the bird. Siobhan had a spare mikro to think ‘hey, that isn’t normal,’ before the bird’s head submerged. As it drifted on past her it didn’t make any effort to pull that head out of the water. Instead it just drifted there, belly up, legs stiff at odd angles.
Crap! Not even really thinking about it, she rose from her squat and waded down the brook after the bird. She scooped her hand under it, muttering, “Don’t peck me. Don’t peck me!”
She could have saved her breath. Two mikros of holding the completely unmoving bird and Siobhan realized she was actually holding a corpse.
“Eep!” She yanked her arms back, dropping the bird. It fell back into the water, the current making it spiral then carrying it further down stream.
Siobhan rubbed her hands repeatedly down her sides from armpits to ribs, wiping off the feeling that she was still holding the small dead weight. Yuck.
She followed the progress of the bird until the current carried it around a bend in the brook. Then she heaved a big sigh and squatted down to flip over some rocks on the bottom of the brook to dig up some dirt which she used to thoroughly scrub her hands with.
“I’m an alchemist, not a doctor,” she muttered to herself, subverting the famous quote from the famous sci fi show from years before.
Once she was reasonably satisfied she no longer had corpse on her hand, she settled her attention on the stones she’d tossed up to get to the cleansing dirt. The thought crossed her mind she might have to flip every stone in the brook. She looked back upstream and sighed. That was a lot of stones to turn.
Whoever said ‘never leave a stone unturned’ was not looking at this brook with its bottom carpeted by stones.
Oh, well, she sighed. Better get to work. She walked back to where she’d left her things on the bank of the brook and got back to squatting. Only to jerk less than a meros later as something else plopped into the water to the far side of the brook near a cluster of Sparganium stoloniferum growing from the water along the bank.
Dread and a sinking certainty a rock in her stomach, she looked to see another bird corpse drifting on by. She looked at the sky. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
The sky did not respond.
One dead bird. That was nature. It happened. Two birds? Dropping in the same place? That wasn’t natural. Probably not natural. No, definitely not natural. That was something else. Something, she thought, her stomach sinking further, she probably needed to investigate.
Great.
Gathering her skirts and her determination, she grabbed her bag and slung it over her chest, then collected the two plant bundles and pointed herself towards the opposite side of the brook from where, ostensibly, the birds had flown. A short distance from the brook a huge stand of curcuma longa grew. It was a testament to the odd nature of the garden that a plant whose rhizome was known to rot if stood in water or grew in overly-soggy soil grew so lush and tall. It had to be at least five feet tall and its large leaf blades formed a dense screen that was impenetrable to her eyes.
No stone path lead along this side of the brook. Instead Siobhan had to walk through and, at times, upon plants as she made her way along the bank.
“Sorry,” she murmured, gently holding aside the velvety white shoots of a three foot tall teucrium fruticans, careful not to dislodge any of the small pale blue flowers clustered on the evergreen. The teucrium, or shrubby germander in the vernacular, spread some twelve feet, giving way at its margins to a mat of achillea tomentosa. The fern-like foliage of the evergreen tickled her bare calves with its wooly hairs and the clusters of large golden yellow flowers swayed towards her, brushing her skin with the delicacy of the butterflies that were drawn to their flat surface.
She found the next dead bird nestled in a patch of thymus citriodorus beyond the yarrow. It must have fallen a little before because while the air was flavored with the scent of lemon, likely released when the bird plummeted from the sky, but the aroma had dissipated to an extent. The bird lay on the lush mat of lemon thyme. The variegated bright green ovate leaves with their lighter edges cushioning its small form made a beautiful contrast to the green and purple iridescent sheen of its black plumage. It was a beautiful picture. Or would have been if there wasn’t something so terribly awful in the way the bird lay there with black eyes fixed on a sky it would never soar through again. Siobhan shied her eyes away and blinked to clear the tears blurring her vision.
One bird – natural. Two birds – notable. Three birds? She heaved a sigh and forged through the rest of the lemon thyme and into a small sea of lavandula. Butterflies hovered over clusters of soft violet flowers held high on spikes above finely haired acicular leaves. The scent that some called soothing and others called astringent drew the butterflies. It also drew the profusion of bees that clustered on the flowers, drawing deep of their pollen. Though Siobhan loved a nice lavender honey, she did not love being stung. While honey bees were really unlikely to sting when they were away from their hive, they were known to do so if stepped upon or handled roughly. It just made sense to skirt the lavender.
That thought in mind she moved along the border between yarrow and lavender until she came to a dense patch of morning glories. The slender stems and heart-shaped leaves tangled to form a dense ground cover. It was covered in densely packed buds, suggesting it was one of the few varietals of morning glory that bloomed at night. She couldn’t help stooping down to get a closer look. Slanting a glance at the sky to determine the position of the sun, she gently traced a finger along the edge of a bud. It unfurled and a large white flower with a pale green star stretched its petals to brush her fingertip and showing it to be a belle de nuit, or moonflower varietal of morning glory.
She cupped the flower in her hand, shielding it from the sunlight, and leaned in to whisper, “You are beautiful. Now, go back to sleep.”
The petals spiraled inward and the bud closed. Gently laying the bud back into the heart-shaped leaves Siobhan rose and eyed the carpet of vines. Bees preferred to not collect nectar from trumpet shaped flowers as they were harder work than something with a flat surface like yarrow or easily accessible blooms on spikes like lavender. She should be able to make her way through the morning glories without risking stepping on a honey bee. That in mind she very carefully picked her way through the carpet of vines, doing her level best to avoid buds.
Imagining a straight line from the brook to the third bird she extended it out. It headed straight across the bee laden lavender. So, she kept her gaze peeled on the yarrow as she walked as close as could to the margin between it and the morning glories. Her intuition proved itself out a few mikros later as a small swarm of swallowtails flew in towards the lavender then stopped dead and all fell at once from the sky. As they were black with subtle variations towards the edges of their wings the effect was a bit like the drift of smoke in reverse or maybe the tattered drift of ash.
Siobhan swallowed hard and continued along the verge between the morning glories and the lavender. The moon flowers flowed into white petunias. The size, shape, and color of the petunia blossoms echoed the slightly more angular shape of the moonflowers. Siobhan imagined when the sun set and the moon flowers unfurled their blossoms the effect would be quite stunning.
At the same place the moonflowers ended and the petunias began, the lavender merged with a growth of aconitum, tall erect stems sporting clusters of large blue hood-shaped flowers along their length. It seemed a fairly natural progression from the lavender with its purple flowers growing upon spikes to that of the slightly darker purple of monkshood clustering on stems. Not that she’d ever plant them together but she could see if someone was designing a garden for purely aesthetics they might make such a grouping.
Holding a hand up to shield her eyes, she scanned the air above the plants, looking to see if she saw any more things suddenly dropping dead. Nothing immediately presented itself so she carefully walked through the petunias. Beyond them was a stretch of grass. Like the most beautiful lawn, the grass flowed some thirty or forty feet to a stand of trees. From her position Siobhan couldn’t quite make out just what kind.
She looked around again, then edged to the right so she was once more following the invisible line from brook to thyme to lavender corresponding to the dead creatures she’d noted. Once she was aligned with that invisible line she headed across the lawn, aiming for a tree that appeared to have Adirondack chairs set beneath it.
Halfway to the tree a patch of blue beckoned her a bit to the right. She approached cautiously to find a tumble of dead eastern tailed-blue butterflies. The sight of them, tumbled by construction paper cutouts on the the verdant stretch of lawn, hit her like a hammer to the heart. Pressing her hand to her mouth, she looked away then forced herself to look back because she was the only one here to witness their fall and, damn it, they deserved someone to mourn their passing.
Lowering her hand she squared her shoulders and focused on the tree. Something about it compelled her attention. Not in the way the plants did. Well, maybe in the way the plants did, but also something more. Like she needed to get over there and look at it. So she did.
It quickly resolved into a magnolia officinalis. Its branches began their spread less than three feet from the ground, spreading up and out. It was in full blossom, the branches covered in pink blossoms. From far back they jut appeared a pink blur softening the lines of the tree but up close they showed the classic bowl-shaped wide-petaled blossoms. Siobhan ducked under a branch and cupped a blossom in her palm. It overflowed it. She guesstimated the blossom was close to a foot wide. The petals were a soft rose with white interiors and showed no signs of the powdery mildew disease magnolias were prone to. All in all it was a stunning specimen.
While she was a plant expert she claimed no such knowledge of animals, so she couldn’t say if the dead lizard draped over the arm of the chair nestled up to the tree trunk qualified as such a specimen. All she could say was it was about eight inches long, had four legs, and five stripes running down its body from head to tail. And dead. Very clearly dead because no creature, no matter how slinky, was going to lay with its lower body on the arm of a chair and its upper body off and its front legs held stiff mid-stride like it was struck dead between one step and the next.
She looked back then nodded. Definitely a clear line from the tree to the blue butterflies and back to the lavender and its blanket of dead black butterflies. Turning back around she shifted side to side, assessing the area past the magnolia. The grass traveled maybe another ten feet beyond the stretch of magnolia branches before terminating at a small stand of weeping cherries.
The soft pink blossoms of the cherries complimented the slightly rosier pink of the magnolias, the flow of the colors one to the other combining with the sway of the pendulant branches creating a rhythm that beckoned Siobhan forward. She found her feet moving of their own accord, drawn by the call of the trees. She could have fought it, she supposed, but the cherries were on the direct line of death so she was bound to head that way anyhow.
She ducked to avoid the brush of branches then stood upright next to the trunk. Unlike the magnolia the cherry’s branches didn’t begin until they were above Siobhan’s head so she didn’t have to worry about clocking her head. She walked slowly around the trunk, searching the ground for any sign of dead things. Then she craned her head back and looked into the branches. Still nothing.
She moved to the cherry’s sister tree and did a similar search with equal results. Then she walked to the side away from the magnolia, and therefore further into the garden, and gently brushed aside the trailing pink fronds of blossoms clustered on a swaying branch so she could see what lay beyond the cherries.
A magnificent weeping maple held a place of prominence about twenty feet further back. Unlike the cherries which stood at a respectable fifteen feet or so the weeping maple stood maybe ten feet high, about the maximum such a tree might grow. Siobhan turned her head to look back, noting the magnolia stretching at least forty feet into the sky, then the step down to the fifteen foot cherries. She turned back to the maple and its ten feet. There was a definite symmetry to the flow from tree to tree. The magnolia’s pink flowers and height flowing to the lighter pink of the cherries on pendulant branches; the cherries pink flowing to the deep pink fading into purple-red of the maples leaves. It was actually not quite the right color for a weeping maple. The pink and purple-red, which would change to a deep red in the fall was more likely to be seen on a bloodgood which grew to twenty feet and did not have pendulant branches.
But it did fit the aesthetic.
“I see what you’re doing here.” She looked up and shook her finger at the sky. Looking down at the trunk of the maple she muttered, “Interesting,” then crouched to look closer at what had caught her mind first and then her eye.
Clustered low, almost at the ground, ganoderma ling zhi, grew from the bark. They displayed the classic kidney-shaped cap and were a deep red hue, their surface shiny like it was varnished. The color beautifully complimented the color of the maple’s leaves. Only one or two out of ten thousand trees would show ling zhi growth. It’s wild form was very rare and usually only occurred on aged or rotting trees. Siobhan planted her hand on the trunk and dropped her head back to look up into the branches. This maple was neither aged nor rotting.
Ling zhi was excellent for recipes for relieving pain and also could stop bleeding. She used it in some of her healing formulas. It was not that easy to find and once more she was tempted enough that she dug around in her bag, pulled out a small knife, and carefully excised one of the growths from the trunk and placed it carefully in her bag. It didn’t need to be kept wet so it would be fine in there as long as she didn’t knock around too much.
Note to self, do not knock around too much. That thought solid in her head she rose to her feet and walked around the trunk, looking for signs of dead things. There were none. The same proved true of the branches.
She stepped around to the relative back of the tree, when taken in alignment with the imaginary line in her head, and ducking so she didn’t knock her head on one of the reaching branches. A purple red leaf drifted lazily down to land on her head. She reached up a hand to brush it away, but it was tangled in her flower crown. Rather than take the thing off and remove the leaf she just left it there, a souvenir of the garden.
Slightly further back a weeping willow stood beside a brook. Siobhan snapped her head around, her gaze seeking out the brook she’d left. She held up a finger, tracing its remembered shape. Maybe…? It could have looped around in a wide arc, winding to this point.
She shrugged. Not relevant right now, except maybe that everything was leading this way? That wasn’t proposing at all. Nope. Not at all.
The closer she walked towards the willow the taller it seemed to get. She questioned if that was perspective or… perspective. Like it loomed large in her eye because it was meant to loom large in her mind? That sounded a little far-fetched but it wasn’t like The House hadn’t thrown hints at them before. Either way she picked up her pace, only to come to a real hard stop before she tripped over the corpse of a lizard.
The lizard lay on its belly. Its back legs were splayed and kind of resembled a frogs although it had really long fingery things – she wasn’t an alchemist not a herpetologist! – on the back legs and its tail was longer than its body. It had to measure a foot heat to the tip of that tail and it had dark stripes on its back, the edges of those stripes accentuated by little dots that made it look almost like the back was ridged. She didn’t touch it to test that.
She gulped and shied her eyes then refocused on the weeping willow.
Weeping. She was noticing another theme. She’d say she was just projecting but, she counted them off on her fingers, weeping cherry, weeping maple, weeping willow. That was a theme. She just really hoped the last entry in that set wasn’t a weeping Siobhan.
A little trepidation kept a girl on her toes. That in mind she approached the willow slowly. It was one of the healthiest specimens she’d ever seen, its gracefully arching practically dripping with leaves.
Nestled among the leaves were yellow catkins. A fact that made Siobhan’s eyes cross. The weeping cherry and the willow could, maybe be blooming at the same time because willows flowered in late winter or early spring and weeping cherries were early bloomers, their beauty wiping away memories of winter’s blight. Maples took on the almost fuchsia hue displayed in the tree she’d just left in summer, far later than a cherry bloomed. And yet, here all the trees were at their showiest, like pretty ladies putting on their finest frocks.
She wasn’t sure why she was fixing on these abnormalities. She’d already accepted that The House did what it would, when it would, how it would. Maybe it was that focusing on the beauty, no matter how forced, was better than dwelling on the trail of death she followed here or speculating on what might await her beneath the willow.
Yes. Now that she considered it, that made perfect sense. And once she accepted she was putting off seeing what hid beneath the willow’s leaves she was able to push that aside. Once they were pushed aside it was only a small matter to eel her hand between the leaves and push them aside too.
The leaves formed a cave of sorts, or maybe a tent would be a better image with the leaves being the canvas and the stout trunk at the center being the tent pole. The light was dim, golden, filtered through the leaves. Small spikes of light pierced the gold, pure white where the sun found its way beneath the tree with the shifting of leaves on a negligent breeze. Siobhan hadn’t noticed a breeze upon approaching the tree, nor in any other part of the garden.
‘Aesthetics, again?’ she projected, slanting a look up at the curtain of leaves.
“Stop! Come no closer!” The voice, female, soft, came from the other side of the tree trunk. The trunk was large enough that Siobhan could not see who spoke, though she craned her neck to do so.
Sticking close to the leaves she sidled sideways slowly. First she saw bent knees, covered in a long skirt. Then as she moved a few more inches to the left a shoulder resolved against the darkness of the trunk. Another few inches, steps slow like she was approaching a scared dog, and she could see the profile of a young woman facing in the direction of the pond the willow arched over on that side.
Her skin was pale, what some poets would likely call porcelain. There was a flush where cheek flowed to nose, emphasizing the curve of the woman’s cheekbone. Her hair was that light shade that danced the line between blonde and red. It was pulled low in a braided chignon through which pearls had been woven. These were very obvious against the dark willow trunk, despite the muted gold and green filtered light.
She must have heard Siobhan’s movements because she turned and looked at Siobhan. “Please. No closer. For your own safety.”
As if the point needed emphasizing a lizard skittered down the trunk of the tree and over the woman’s shoulder. As it did so it stiffened then toppled to land in her lap. With a sniff, she reached a hand gloved in white lace and lifted the lizard, cradling it in the palm of her hand. The look she turned upon it was so sad Siobhan felt a knot of tears form in her own throat.
If Siobhan had any doubt that she had found the source of the trail of death the dead lizard in the woman’s hand put it to rest. She held her hands up in a placating gesture.
“Okay. I won’t come any closer.”
The woman gave her a smile so full of sorrow it could have defined the term then turned and placed the dead lizard to the side Siobhan could not see. Siobhan really hoped she didn’t have a tidy pile going there, but she suspected that was not the case. Her task done the woman turned her full attention back to Siobhan.
“Okay. Hi. I’m Siobhan.” She gave a tentative wave then pointed over her shoulder. “Did you notice-”
“The dead animals? Yes. I did that.”
Siobhan tensed. Despite her good intentions she was really tempted to dart. Then curiosity, that horrible thing, over took her sense. As it too often did. “You did?”
The woman’s lips curved on another sad smile. “I kill everything that comes too close to me.”
“On purpose?”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head and pressed her hand to her chest, the movement languid. “Definitely not.”
Her gesture drew Siobhan’s attention to the necklace she had somehow missed before. Probably because of the whole dead lizard thing.
It was a piece of stained glass in the shape of a rose hanging from a fairly thick gold chain. “Uh, nice necklace you have there.”
The woman looked down and lifted the rose in her lace-gloved hand. The same one she’d used to move the lizard. Ew. “This? I found it.”
“I know this is going to sound presumptuous, but would you be willing to part with it?” The woman lifted her gaze from the rose to give Siobhan a questioning look. Siobhan hastened to explain. “I happen to be here looking for something and that something is that rose.”
She took a small step towards the woman, two fingers gesturing at the glass. When the woman snapped, “Don’t come any closer!” she jerked and then lowered her hand. Looking behind her to make sure there was nothing in the way, she slowly started lowering herself to sit. “Sorry. I’ll just stay over here.”
“Please do.”
Realizing she needed her hands to facilitate sitting unless she wanted to smack down on her bottom – she did not – Siobhan twisted to lay the bundled plants she held on the ground then settled herself next to them.
The woman followed the motion with her eyes, her attention clearly focused on the plants more than Siobhan. “I’m curious about those.”
Siobhan looked down at the plants then back up to meet the woman’s gaze. “The plants?”
“Yes. I would ask if you were picking a nosegay but there are no flowers upon those stems, so I wonder what it is you do with them?”
“I’m sorry. Are you the guardian of this garden? If you are and I shouldn’t have uprooted these, I am sorry.”
“Oh no. I am no guardian.” The woman waved the suggestion off. “I am Beatrice. Beatrice Rappaccini.”
“Siobhan.” Even though she had said it upon entering the grotto formed by the willow branches, it seemed polite to repeat. “I’m pleased to meet you, Beatrice.”
“As I am you, were you to be what I hope.”
“And that is?”
“A person who knows plants. I do not and I have need of someone who does.”
“Oh?” Siobhan blinked. Could it be that easy? “Why?”
Beatrice tilted her head and looked off into space of the arch of the willow branches. She sighed, her mouth curved on a tragic smile. Then she focused on Siobhan again. “It is a tale.”
“I’ve got time. And a comfy seat.” Siobhan reclined back on her hands, like she had all the time in the world. Which, considering she needed that rose and she wasn’t planning on leaving until she had it, was close enough to the truth.
Enter The Woods 