“My mother will never-ever-reven believe this,” Levana whispered as she slowly went closer to the flowers, her hand outstretched to touch them.
“No touching!” said Blue.
“Webite!” said Yellow.
I looked at the others one last time, just to make sure Iwas still here, that I hadn’t fallen asleep or something, that I wasn’t dreaming.
“Talking flowers,” Seth whispered as he went closer, too, to see better.
We all did—how could we not?
“Don’t make us blush,” said one or the other.
“Wewillclose.”
“We’re quite shy, in fact.”
“How are you real?” asked Anika, and she made to touch Blue, but the flower snapped her little mouth as if she was going to bite her and moved to the side fast—unreal.
Anika giggled. “Time’s Teacups—she’sso cute!”
“How can you speak? Are you…alive?” Mimi asked next, and we were all standing around them now, leaned over, watching, unable to really believe our own eyes.
They were flowers. I could see them perfectly fine. Flowers with stems and petals—and eyes and mouths and teeth, too. They waved their leaves around like arms, and it was the most curious thing.
“Of course we’realive.” The Yellow flower rolled her eyes, just like a person would. “We’re part of the Tree of Years, silly.”
“What’s left of it, anyhour,” said Blue.
“And nothing’s going to remain if you keep shouting like that—theywillwake up!”
“Who?”March asked as he looked at the flowers skeptically. “Who’ll wake up?”
“Them!” Blue and Yellow said at the same time, and they looked about like they were suddenly afraid. “They’re here somewhere, and they’re hungry. So keep your voices down.”
“Who are they, andwhereare they?” Anika fell to her knees in front of them. “Just tell us. We don’t see anybody else here.”
“Hush, hush!”Blue said, panicked. “Just keep quiet!”
“Butwho?” asked Mimi. “Just tell us—who?!”
“Them!” Yellow said. “They’re alwayshungry—them!”
Something snapped behind us, and we all jumped. All my instincts were on high alert, and I was about to start either fighting or running as fast as my legs could carry me.
But there was nobody there.
We looked, searched the layers of the tree, and we didn’t find anything else moving except for us.
“Holy Hour—they’re gone!”
Once again, we all turned to find Anika pointing at the flowers. Their eyes and their mouths that had been there on their flowerheads were gone. Disappeared. And the leaves on their stems didn’t move anymore the way they just did—like they were arms.
Curiouser and curiouser.
We tried to get them to come back in any way we knew how. We tried calling them, poking them, pleading with them, too, but the eyes and mouths remained gone. It made us wonder for a moment if we’d made the whole thing up—but what were the odds that all of us had hallucinated the same thing at the same time?
“Let’s just keep moving. Let’s keep going,” Russ said, and so we did.
