Ancient looking wooden beams stretched across the ceiling, drawing my gaze across the large space to an open kitchen. I couldn’t see much in the dim lamplight of the apartment, except for polished cement counter tops and some copper pots gleaming in the moonlight, which found its way in through several large skylights. It had so muchcharacter.
Alistair gave a low, buzzing laugh as he set my pot down near the shelves and turned to walk over to the kitchen. He pulled out a drawer and dug around before returning with a metal spatula. “I gave him a kiss and a wink and told him he was handsome.” His fangs showed as his mouth pulled into a wide grin, and he gave a low chirp. “I’m teasing. I own this outright. The building was originally all condos, but an investor came in and bought up a bunch of the units to turn into student or apartment housing.” He gave a small shrug and lifted a potted pothos off of his shelf.
I drifted toward the couch to watch what he was doing, reaching out unthinkingly to touch a soft, chunky-knit blanket that was piled on one end. The fibers were soft and dense, and my fingers came away covered in iridescent glitter.
The big mothman set the pothos next to my potted tree on the floor and tilted the tree toward it. He used the spatula to prod the low-fae out of their pot and into the pothos. “Oh, they’re gonna be quite angry about this,” he grumbled. “Ack! Oh, dear. So sorry!” he squawked as one of the littlest mushrooms tumbled out of the pot and onto the floor. “So very sorry!” Alistair repeated as he carefully slid his metal spatula under the mushroom and lifted it back to the pot, gently situating it in the new pot before addressing the rest of the fungal group. “Now, listen, you lot don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here in this tree pot. It’s going up on the roof and it’ll be too sunny for you. You’ll bake! But you’re welcome to use this little pot in the meantime,” he reassured them. After he got them moved, he handed me the pothos-mushroom pot—a ceramic pot with a pretty blue and bronze glaze. “This is yours now,” he informed me. “Because you don’t have any plants left in your apartment now, and every home needs a plant.”
I took the pot, feeling strangely touched, and peered down at the little toadstools. They were all hunkered down in the soil now, with their faces hidden. Sure, I still had the plants at thestore, but that wasn’t the same as a plant in your house to make your heart happy for the sake of it.
“To the roof,” Alistair instructed, easily hefting the tree pot again and leading the way to a metal door located in the wall behind the kitchen. He pushed it open and led me out into the night on a black metal stairwell connected to the side of the building, giving me a rueful grin that made my heart hammer in my chest as he paused to stick a doorstop under the door. “It locks when it closes, and then I’d have to fly you down, which I don’t think you’d be too pleased about,” he informed me with a chuckling buzz.
I felt my neck heat with both the embarrassing memory of being too scared to climb down from the tree yesterday and the unexpected image of how it might feel to be held tightly by all four of Alistair’s muscular arms.What has gotten into me??
He was still chuckling to himself as we climbed the last of the stairs and stepped onto the rooftop. I stood, clutching my little pot of pothos vines, and stared. The entire space was covered in rows upon rows of potted sapling trees and flowering shrubs. There was an iron arbor supporting a stout vine covered in blooms that dripped with nectar. The scent that hung heavy in the air was intoxicating.
“Oh, Alistair,” I breathed, completely at a loss for words. As I looked around, I realized nearly all the blossoms were white, the perfect shade to reflect the moonlight in what had to be a purposefully planned little moon garden. Long, silvery grasses rustled in the slight breeze, and I spotted a rare night-blooming sorenvine. Fireflies blinked their lights slowly in the distance.
Alistair gave a cheery buzz, his head pulling back slightly into his fluff but obviously pleased that I appreciated his little moon-lit sanctuary. This was clearly his happy place. “You like it?” he asked.
“I love it.” I couldn’t stop gazing at all the various elements.
The noise he made was very nearly a purr, and he practically hugged the apple tree pot to his chest. “I’m so glad. You’re welcome to join me up here any time,” he told me with a shy note to his voice. He stared at me for a short beat before seeming to shake himself free. “Come, let’s put your tree over here where it will get the most light.” He led me to a corner of the roof that was mostly dominated by glistening succulents and sun-loving wildflowers, where he tucked the pot next to the outer wall, chattering all the while about the sun’s path of travel and proper airflow. After fussing with it for a moment and ultimately deciding he was satisfied with its placement, he drifted here and there to tell me about his favorite of the different details he’d incorporated—his favorite plants and the decorative elements he’d worked in.
Eventually, we sat in silence on a bench near the center of the space and simply breathed in the heady perfume of the surrounding flowers, content to watch the fireflies and the leaves that rustled in the breeze.
I was in heaven.
Chapter 5
Lilith
The little pot ofvines felt like it had always existed on the side table next to my living room window. The toadstools eventually settled into their new home, though I suspected they preferred the apple tree to the pothos. Alistair assured me they would leave if they were terribly unhappy, but I had no idea how.Mushroomscould just up and leave my locked apartment? But he’d sounded completely sure of himself. My apartment remained frog-free as the days went by, so perhaps my upstairs neighbor had finally been the solution to that unusual problem.
I thought of the mothman strangely often as I went about the next few days, thinking back to the deep vibrating rumble of his voice as he talked me down out of the ibec tree or the careful way he phrased his suggestions so as not to come across too pushy or harsh. The soft clicks he made as he thought about his answers and the way his antennae seemed to have a mind of their own. His personality was as unique as his appearance, at least to me, since I’d never met anyone like him before. I wondered what he did for fun, other than gardening, and what kind of communityhe had grown up in. The more my thoughts lingered on him, the more my appreciation for his uniqueness grew.
Sometimes, when I heard the scratch of his talons start up at night, I’d consider inviting him down for evening tea. Then I’d remember that he’d said he didn’t like to eat that early, so I’d drink my evening tea alone and go to bed. I’d even considered taking him some cookies as a way to thank him for taking care of my tree, but I didn’t know if he even ate cookies, and in the end, I chickened out. He’d said I could come visit my tree any time I wanted and had seemed rather enamored at my reaction to his rooftop garden, but I didn’t know how to approach him about it in a way that wouldn’t seem like I didn’t trust his skills as a horticulturist.Hello, Alistair, I would like to check on the health of the tree you so generously offered to maintain for me.That would just be awkward.
I found myself looking for him at the corner market when I shopped—surely he would shop there too, since it was the closest market—and was suddenly acutely aware of everyone’s comings and goings at the apartment, but I never saw him.I even went back to the orchard one afternoon to buy a box of apples—it wasn’tstalking; I’d wanted one anyway!—but he wasn’t there. Our schedules must have been too disparate, or maybe he simply didn’t want to be seen. The thought caused an odd pang in my chest and made me wonder what I was doing, so I decided to push him from my mind and refocus on the plant shop. Making friends here would just be a distraction anyway.
But then, one evening, there was a knock at my door, so timid and light I might have missed it if I hadn’t been lost in my own head. I blinked at the mushrooms, and they blinked back at me, obviously having no answer for me about who might be calling, so I hauled myself off the couch to answer the door. A wall of gray greeted me through the peephole. Alistair stood looming in my doorway again, this time with his fluff in perfect order andhis delicate antennae gracefully arching above his head. They only gave a tiny twitch this time before he gained control of them. He cleared his throat and hitched his fluff higher around his head, making me realize I’d been staring at his antennae. My face heated.
“Hello,” he said before I recovered enough to greet him politely. His fingers were steepled between each opposing hand. “I was wondering if perhaps you might like to come over—if it’s not too late, I mean—and visit your tree this evening. But if it is too late, then I completely understand and I apologize for bothering you!”
My mouth quirked at his invitation.Visit my tree? How cute is that? And why hadn’t I thought of that excuse?
He kept going before I could respond. “Or we could discuss plants. Or if tonight isn’t a good time, we could obviously reschedule for another evening. I just thought that since you hadn’t been by to see your tree, maybe you would like to see how it’s doing.” His taloned fingers began to twist around each other as he gave a nervous sounding click.
A smile spread across my face. “I would love to come over and visit my tree.”
He stood, staring at me owlishly, as if he were too surprised to respond.
“Would you like for me to bring up some tea for us to drink while we discuss plants?” I asked.
He gave an interested buzz, and his eyes brightened. “What kind of tea?”
And so, what started out as innocent tree-visiting and plant discussions quickly became fruit salad making—while he enumerated the various ways to determine which strawberries were at perfect ripeness and ranted about how honeydew melon was the worst fruit in existence—and spur of the moment jaunts to the smoothie stand in the student district. Then there wererooftop garden parties which consisted of actual gardening, not just sitting around eating cakeina garden, although that happened occasionally too, as long as the cake had fruit in it. Moon Blush apples randomly appeared in crates on my welcome mat, and Alistair started stopping by the plant shop just before closing.
He’d been hesitant to visit at first, even though he seemed to want to, but he finally came to see our new set up and even ended up chatting with Artem about various splicing methods. The old dryad didn’t seem to know what to make of my talkative neighbor and all of his ideas about various ways to cobble trees together to build thebesttree. I laughed every time I thought about my employee’s baffled expressions at some of Alistair’s suggestions, but I’d been so impressed at the way Alistair managed to pull Artem out of his proverbial shell. They had been like wary cats when he first walked in, each unsure of the other with nothing more than a prickly greeting and a quintessential man-nod. But Alistair’s enthusiastic excitement as he exclaimed to me over every tiny plant baby in the store had quickly won over the old man, who tip-toed closer to hear the mothman’s words of praise about how healthy this one looked or what an adorable leaf structure that one possessed. It wasn’t long before Artem was discussing the finer points of mycorrhizal inoculation in homemade potting soil and the preferred PH of stone fruits.
