November 30th, 1845
Final assembly complete. Hawthorne stands six feet tall, humanoid in shape but clearly not human. His skin has a greenish pallor from the vines beneath. We will have to keep him locked in the house, away from curious tongues.
When we introduced the Verdant Vespera sap to his system and applied electrical stimulation to his core vines, he moved.
M. and I both stood there watching, hardly daring to breathe.
Hawthorne stood, walked, and turned his head when we spoke to him. He can follow simple instructions, and even responds to basic commands, but his eyes are empty. Whatever we have created, it is not fully conscious. It is not aware.
M. is convinced plants have memory function, that if we can create memories for Hawthorne, consciousness will follow.
I disagreed with her. Hawthorne will never experience human consciousness or be able to maintain memories without the neurological function of a brain.
The entries ended there. The remaining pages were blank, as if the research had ended abruptly.
I closed the journal slowly, my hands trembling, my mind unable to process the shock of what I had just read.
They had created Hawthorne.
Dr. Ambrose and whoever the mysterious ‘M’ was had created him from a vine that grew on freshly dug graves. Hawthorne was not a man, or a person at all. He was a botanical construct with a plant woven through his circulatory system, a creature built with bone and tissue…
The image of the woman I had seen in Dr. Ambrose's bedchamber flashed through my mind, luminous vines spilling from her bloodied lips.
Was it the same vine?
The connection formed unwillingly, each piece clicking into place with the inevitability of a lock turning.
Was M. his wife? She must have been. The few entries that had been in her flowing script had referred to him by his given name so familiarly. She had contributed to the journal just as much as he had, suggesting an intimate relationship.
Had she also been his assistant at one point or his partner? Was that what had happened to her? Had Dr. Ambrose used his own wife as another experiment? Had he grafted that death-fed vine into her living tissue to see what would happen?
The thought made bile rise in my throat.
I told you,the voice said, amusement threaded through.He killed her.
Oh God.
I glanced down at the red rose Hawthorne had given me and lifted it from my bed, twisting the stem in my fingers. The petals were full, the stem cut at the perfect moment. Something about it made my chest constrict uncomfortably. I stood on shaking legs and crossed to the window, staring out at the gardens and the greenhouses beyond as I stroked the silky blooms.
Somewhere in those glass structures, they had cultivated a vine that reanimated life.
Hawthorne was a plant…
I turned back to the bed, looking at the closed journal.
I needed to know more. I needed to understand what had happened between these entries and now, between M.'s enthusiastic collaboration and her death.
You know what happened, the voice observed darkly.
I bit my lip, trying to think rationally.
I could not confront Dr. Ambrose with what I knew. There was no one I could ask, not even Agnes.
Agnes, who had kept this secret from me. Who had deliberately avoided answering my questions, who I had, without a doubt now, seen watering Hawthorne like some common houseplant.
I crossed back to my door and opened it, checking the hallway.
Empty.
