Stepping into the flower field, I followed the narrow rupture created by my occasional but not infrequent trips to the compost bed. I felt my skirt drag behind me, the flowers gently clinging onto me like a sea of hands, reaching up from the ground, fruitlessly trying to hold me back. Thinking about it some more, the image was a bit disturbing, and I wondered how it came up to mind.
“What do you normally wear with your overalls?” Sophia’s voice followed behind, suggesting she formed a single file with me.
“Uh… A plain beige… shirt of some sorts. Not quite sure what it’s called.”
“Oh. Why not wear that?”
“It’s in the basket.” I felt a crunch at my feet and abruptly looked down, subtly kicking aside the little twig.
“Basket? Like—?”
“Waiting to be washed.”
“Ah, I see.”
We passed by the garden on our way. Recalling our previous chat, I reasoned it would be of interest and I stopped for her. She had taken notice anyway, her head fully pointed in its direction as faithfully as a compass needle.
“Oh! This is your garden?”
“Yes.” I scanned over the single row of dug-up earth, squared-off patches delineated by scrawny sticks whittled from branches, tangled with various stems bearing the bright red fruit of a perennial herb. From this distance, roughly three metres or so, the work truly took on the resemblance of an insignificant hobby.
“All there is to it.”
“Well, no matter!” she piped. Glancing down, watching her step, Sophia made her way towards the garden, hands clasped behind her back, and started to hop the last few steps. Her feet disappeared in the grass, yet her free legs permitted her to move around quite easily. I lagged behind, bringing both arms under my chest to grip each other by the elbow as Sophia circled around the other side of the garden.
“Not too shabby, I have to say! Bears fruit, at the very least!”
“… Thank you.” I did not have much else in mind to say.
She let go of herself and motioned with a flick of her wrist. “What are you planning to grow over here?”
“Hm? Ah, that’s for compost.”
“Oh! I see!” She leaned over the empty looking patch. “Good idea.”
“Might as well.”
“Right.”
It was already quite dark when we finally entered the forest. “Quite spooky!” Sophia softly hummed in a playful air. I told her so, and she quickly laughed, “I’m not scared!” Right around that moment, we started to come across the orbs of light that wandered the forest, avoiding the sunlight. The chirping of crickets were much more distinct out here, making them impossible to tune out. Without reason, she gaily flailed a hand in the air, trying to batter these nomadic entities, only for them to pass straight through and continue as if nothing had happened.
I chuckled. “That won’t do much.”
Laughing, she skipped ahead of me. “Just like playing with light! All you get are shadows!”
There were many of them now, lighting up the dirt path in a manner familiar to my walk back home from the flower shop; the main difference being: this path was much narrower.
“Oh, sorry.” Sophia turned back around and stopped. “You were leading the way.”
I shook my head. “We’ll just walk along the path for a bit. Then we’ll turn around and head back.”
“Oh. Right then!”
“Nothing too adventurous.”
“Well, that’s no fun!”
“I have my reservations about ambling around when it’s pitch black.”
“Fair enough, fair enough.” She was distracted immediately. “Oh! What’s that flower?”
Looking over my shoulder, all I saw was lit silhouettes and darkness. “Which ones?”
“No, right above you.”
I craned my neck to see a dark branch lined with flowers, each containing seven long petals. The glow of the orbs made it appear eerie blue, partially spectral from the light shining through the bottom side of the petals.
“Ah, that’s a rare sight. Those are Hyacinthum flowers.”
“Funny sight,” she remarked. “Seeing flowers way up there.”
“There are trees that bloom flowers,” I reminded. Following the branch down to its tree, the bark appeared rather gnarled and bloated.
“In the middle of the summer?”
“Although, this flower doesn’t come from a tree,” I turned back to her and waved at the trunk of the tree. “It blooms from an ivy that needs a tree to wrap around.”
“Oh, that’s interesting. They’re kind of like friends of some sort.”
“Mm, not quite. They suffocate the trees they grow on.”
Her eyes widened. “Do they?”
I nodded, and looked back up. Their pointed petals took on a new menacing semblance. “Particularly fast too. And once the tree dies, so do they.”
“Oh… That pretty little flower?”
Sophia remained silent for a few moments. They were not that small of a flower. These ones in particular looked prime. I was tempted to try and pick some, though the branch was quite high up. I checked the other branches to see if there were any more, then examined the trunk a little closer.
“Poor tree,” she eventually remorsed.
“At least, out in the wild, it’s not too much of an issue. Trees die all the time. And from the few years I’ve observed them, they don’t really seem to spread very quickly compared to other weeds.”
“Ah, I see. So you’ve read up on them already.”
“Mm, no. I don’t really see them in books.” I thought for a moment. The trunk was indeed shrouded in some sort of ivy, but there was no bloomage. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen any books mention them.”
“They’re that rare?”
“Not super rare, though. Perhaps just local to this forest.” I heard her giggling, and looked over. I could tell from her ineffectively coy smile she had something witty in mind.
“So you know more than the books do.”
“… Yes? Maybe?” I shrugged. “At least, for the flowers here. I’m sure there are flowers not written about in other places I’ve never been to before.”
“You should write a book about them.”
“Me? Nooo.” I dragged my voice. “Not worth the effort.”
“You’re already quite a little encyclopedia for flowers already.”
“Too much of a hassle to find a publisher.”
“George is with the press,” she smiled. “I have connections.”
I paused, musing. It was a linkage I did not even think about. Sophia seemed to take my silence as a pique of my interest, laughing some more.
“Think about it!”
Letting out a breathy laugh, I gazed back up at the branch. “Oh… I don’t know if I’d be up for the calling.”
“At least an article!”
I absently nodded, still considering whether it was worth the effort to try and climb the tree. I eventually reasoned I should not do so in a dress. “I’ll let it simmer a bit.”
In a bit of a jeer, she added. “Not too long!”