Ch. 1 – No. 6: People Like Us
Events from Clove’s past come back around.
Damp, fragrant air wafted through the great greenhouse as a breeze filtered through open glass panels. Trilly carried a basket of bundled herbs in one hand while her young nephew slept in a woven wrap on her back.
“May the road rise to meet you,” the old gardener bid her farewell.
“Thank you Jozzelma. We’ll see you again in autumn, stars willing,” Trilly smiled.
She turned toward the greenhouse doors. Looking over her shoulder through a maze of potted plants, raised beds, and laden trellises, she beckoned to her young daughter concealed somewhere among the leaves and blooms. “C’mon Clove! We’re leaving!” she called.
“Coming mama!” a small yet eager voice carried back through the greenhouse.
“Mama! I want to have a garden when I grow up!” Clove called to her mother, her expression that of ignited inspiration, little feet trotting on wooden boards with a rhythmic, hollow percussion.
“People like us don’t have gardens, my dear,” Trilly called back, cresting the threshold into the open air. “Come now, please help us finish packing the wagons.”
Slowing to a stroll, face falling guardedly neutral as she cast her gaze to the worn boards below her feet, Clove trudged toward the door.
“Young one,” a voice murmured. Clove looked up, around, finding Jozzelma the gardener approaching her.
He towered over her for a moment but quickly knelt, meeting her curious yet cautious gaze.
In the weathered leather of his gardening gloves, his outstretched hand held a seed. “For your garden,” he whispered. In the other hand was a small cloth bag into which he dropped the seed. He tied the bag shut with a thin ribbon while Clove looked on with wide eyes.
“Thank you Mister Jozzelma,” she whispered as he placed the bag in her open palm.
He winked and grinned. “Keep it safe, and it will be viable — meaning, capable of growing — for a very long time, whether you plant it tomorrow or in fifty years. Just keep it safe.” He nodded solemnly and stood, retreating down the rows of plants, away from the little nomad. Pocketing the gift, Clove jogged down the aisle and through the greenhouse’s doors into the expiring afternoon sunlight.
The Circadian Forest hummed and chirped around Clove as she stepped out her front door into the midmorning sun, a spoon in one hand, a clay pot in the other, and scooped soil into the vessel. Inside the stone house she placed the pot onto the table, and as she poked a hole in the soil with her finger, she imagined her younger self looking on in wonder.
She placed the seed into the pot, burying it in a layer of soil. Drizzling water onto the surface, she savored the scent of moist soil for a moment before setting the vessel onto the sun-warmed windowsill above the table. A deep breath, then a long sigh, the air in her lungs having a certain sense of clarity, a weightlessness.
And then her perception began to shift, the translucent stars of another world taking shape around her as the atmosphere darkened. A warbling, echoing thrum contrasted by a tinkling, muted treble met her ears. Motes of luminescent dust swirled in clusters here and there while threadlike fibers radiated from Clove’s body, ethereal and shimmering, meandering in the air and passing through the stone walls, out of sight. Translucent fractal shapes radiated from Clove’s movements, perfect and beautifully complex, almost imperceptible as they pulsed outward and away. Plant-like forms and amorphous crystalline structures appeared outside the window, glowing amid a dusky atmosphere of little stars and glistening dust, translucent such that the forest beyond was still visible.
“Not again,” Clove breathed, dashing over to the pail of water on the floor, falling to her knees and removing the wooden lid. As she gazed into the water, two glowing eyes stared back at her from the reflective surface. She placed her hand over one eye and one of the bright orbs disappeared from the reflection. A deep sense of unease bloomed rapidly in her chest and as she touched the water’s surface, the reflected light dissipated in small ripples and faded entirely until all that was left was her faint silhouette. Gone were the otherworldly features around her. She sat on the floor, bewildered, looking around at the stone walls and wooden rafters, the scent of fresh lumber lingering heavy, the distant staccato of a bird call rising beyond the dwelling. Fig had raised his long snout, eyes fixed on her with a calm curiosity.
Rising, she collected her fishing gear and departed.
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