“I don’t know what we’re going to find,” Yarrow admitted.
“Come on. Lotti will be waiting for us.” She led the way, with Emeral curled, as usual, around her neck like a furry and feathery scarf. She ignored her own imagination, as it helpfully supplied her with all the ways it could have gone wrong after they left last night, starting with the others being cruel to Lotti and including all of them reverting to catatonic states as her spell failed for some unknown reason that she couldn’t fathom but could still be possible.
She took a deep breath as she opened the door, and then thechatter from within hit her like a wave. Grinning back at Yarrow, Terlu stepped inside the sentient plants’ greenhouse.
All the plants were clustered on the walkway, their pots abandoned. The ivy was in a coil like a snake, and the thistle was laughing, its leaves quivering and its burrs bobbing back and forth. Bits of soil fell off its soil ball, wrapped in roots.
“Thisis how humans dance!” the daisy cried, and it bounced in a circle with its petals flapping as it waved its leaves up and down.
The fireweed cackled, nearly falling over.
“No, it’s more like—” The thistle trotted on its roots, while shaking its purple flower back and forth as if it were a head bobbing to a drum beat.
Lotti laughed and clapped her leaves together. “Yes, that’s it!”
“How about this?” the ivy offered. It spiraled up into a column and then swooped down and began undulating around the other plants while they laughed and cheered.
“Guess they survived the night,” Terlu said, her hands on her hips as she surveyed the dancing plants.Survived and thrived.
“Terlu!” Lotti screeched. “Yarrow!” She hopped toward them, and the other plants hurried to circle excitedly around the two humans.
The winged cat let out an affronted hiss at the chattering and laughing plants before he launched himself off Terlu’s shoulders toward the rafters. Perched above them, he began to lick his feathers, while glaring disapprovingly down at the mobile flora.
Lotti bounced around Terlu’s ankles. “You missed Viria telling us about the time Laiken almost mixed up wild carrot and hemlock.”
Terlu wondered which one was Viria. Except for Lotti and Dendy, they hadn’t shared their names. She opened her mouth to ask.
“Both have clusters of white flowers,” Yarrow said, “but the stem of a wild carrot is covered in little hairs, while the stem of hemlock is smooth. Also, hemlock is poisonous.”
“It’s ooonly funny becaaause nooo one was huuurt,” Dendy said.
“Nah, it’s objectively hilarious,” Lotti said.
“The look on his face!” The calla lily, whom she guessed wasViria, tossed their white flower back and laughed, their yellow spadix quivering. “After that, he insisted his gardeners label every single plant—hundreds of thousands of signs meticulously written out and placed in each and every pot.”
Dendy said in his deep, slow voice, “He remoooved them laaater.”
The laughter faded.
“I liked having a sign with my name,” the prickly pear said in a squeaky voice. “A gardener drew a picture of me on it. I looked pretty.”
Several of the closest plants hastened to reassure the prickly pear it was still very pretty, and the cactus told them they were pretty too—and the compliments flew back and forth, escalating until they’d all fully established that each of them was as pretty as sunshine in the springtime, after which an argument broke out between the ivy and the flytrap about whether the sun was lovelier in springtime when it was sprouting season or summer when they could bask in its heat.
Terlu interrupted them. “Since you don’t have signs anymore, can you tell us your names and whether you prefer we refer to you as she, he, or they? We’d love to get to know all of you.”
Behind her, Yarrow murmured, “Would we? All of them?”
She knelt on the walkway, and the plants bunched around her, each of them calling out their name: the philodendron was Dendy (he), the ivy was Risa (they), the orchid Amina (she), the calla lily Viria (she), the thistle Tirna (they), the fireweed Nif (he), the wax myrtle Ree (he), the prickly pear Hosha (they), the flytrap Sut (he), the morning glory Zyndia (she), the fern Mirr (they)… She committed as many names as possible to memory. “And how are all of you feeling? Are you all right?”
Yarrow added, “Do you need anything?”
The wax myrtle bush, Ree, launched into a sea shanty:“All I need is the wind at my back, the deck at my feet, and the seeeeeeeeeea before me!”He shook his leaves as he sang.
“Hush,” Lotti told him. “Yarrow is serious. He’s nice, and he wants to help.”
And that prompted an outpouring from all the plants: they werefine, they were a little dry, one requested a new pot, one thought the soil could taste better, one wanted more humidity, one said the ivy (Risa) snored, another said the calla lily’s (Viria’s) laugh was too loud, the chrysanthemum wanted to know when her favorite gardener was coming back, and the fern (Mirr) wondered why they hadn’t been mixed up with the other non-talking plants. They all wanted to know what they’d missed while they were asleep. Crowding around Yarrow, they asked him about gardener after gardener, by name, until Terlu thought he was going to bolt through the door and keep running until he reached the dock. He inched backward, shifting behind Terlu, as the plants crowded closer.
Lotti shooed them backward. “Give him space. I told you: he’s the only gardener here, and he and Terlu are the only two humans. Plus the various beasties and bugs that Laiken created. There’s also the cat, Emeral, but he’s a terrifying monster.”
