Challenge 39: Spring has Sprung

[IsabellaRose]

THE CHALLENGE

Write about a spring-inspired topic. Ideas include:

• Thematic spring concepts like new beginnings, renewal, or rebirth
• Tasks people perform in spring like spring cleaning, planting/gardening, trail maintenance
• Celebrations like Spring Break, Easter, Mother's Day, Hanami...
• Spring Fever

Deadline

• Midnight (EST) , 1 Jun 2025

Limits

• 1 entry per person
• no strict word limit, but please try to keep it around 2,000 words- remember, everyone has to read these to vote

Prizes

• 1st Place: 4,000 EcchiCredits
• 2nd Place: 2,000 EcchiCredits
• 3rd Place: 1,000 EcchiCredits

[Minorikawa]

Cherry Blossoms

Spoiler

Age Twenty-Three

Ken panted heavily as he jogged, his feet stomping onto the paved pathway one after the other. Though the sun was warm and his body heated from exertion, the cool spring breeze carrying sakura petals caressed his sweaty brow and provided a brief respite. He had only recently moved into this city for a job, his first real position since graduating from university, and he found that the park was his favorite place to be on his free days. It was the closest environment to his home far outside the city limits. Today, however, it was a bit more crowded than usual due to the blossoming of the sakura, their gorgeous pink color shining brilliantly throughout the park. If anything, he was the nuisance, taking up the pathway and forcing sight seers to move and leap out of his way.

Until he approached the pathway adjacent to the river, where the crowd seemed to be at its thinnest. Then again, so was his air intake. Slowing to a halt, he hunched over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath. From the moment he stepped out of his apartment his feet had been moving, and now his legs ached as much as his lungs burned. Even so, he stood upright, bending his knee and grabbing his ankle, stretching his muscles to ensure he stayed in good shape to keep going.

It was a sudden gust of wind that blew him off-balance, stumbling off the pavement and onto the grass, the sakura petals seeming to whirl around him. By time he regained himself his eyes were drawn to the river bank, where there stood a gorgeous young woman gazing out beyond the water. She wore a dark blue kimono with a pattern of blossoming pink flowers, the sash a brilliant dark pink, and even her hair a bright strawberry hue done up in a bun, held together by a white comb with red jewels. Ken stood there, gaping, just staring at this sudden appearance of a young woman, his eyes studying her perfect posture, her pale and slender neck, the outline of her cheeks from this profile. Blinking, she suddenly turned and caught sight of him, causing him to blush and quickly avert his eyes. She simply giggled, gesturing for him to approach.

"Um, hello," he said softly, scratching at the back of his sweaty head, stepping down to join her at the river bank.

"Hello," she replied and bowed. "Isn't it just beautiful?" Her eyes returned to the other side of the river, where the whole host of sakura trees could be seen, their pink blossoms swaying in the spring breeze. The river reflected their brilliance with the shimmering light of the sun. Ken stammered an affirmative, but suddenly silenced, his eyes only now noticing the beauty of the sight before him. Even at home he'd not seen the sakura in such a gorgeous state.

"It's absolutely beautiful..." he said softly. The young woman turned to him, smiling.

"My name is Sakura," she said. He looked back at her, even her lips lined with a pale pink gloss. A bit on the nose, that name, but it certainly seemed appropriate.

"Ken," he said with a slight bow. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Age Twenty-Four

Ken had continued to jog in that very same park, but he had not seen her again. Over a few weeks he had forgotten about her, got caught up in his work, managed to even date a girl from the bar he always drank at with his co-workers. Yet it had not lasted. There was something... missing. It wasn't until he found himself back in the park, the sakura petals blossoming once again, that he recalled his encounter with Sakura, the lovely young woman in the kimono. She asked him about himself, his job, his childhood, and most particularly seemed interested in his life experiences in the autumn and winter.

Passing by the river once more, he realized he wasn't as exhausted as he had been last time. His stamina must have improved jogging each day. Nonetheless he paused, gazing down towards the river bank. He gasped, his eyes gazing upon the very same sight as the year before. The same kimono, the same hair, the same comb, standing just the same. Once more she turned, catching him in her sight, and with a smile waved him over.

"I haven't seen you since last year," he said. She nodded, her eyes suddenly downcast.

"Yes, I..." she began, then shook her head. "Did it snow this winter?"

"Oh, um, yes," Ken nodded. He pulled out his phone, his finger dancing upon the screen to bring up a photo album. Sakura leaned forward, curious, almost as if she'd never seen such a device as a smart phone before. "Here," Ken said, highlighting a photo of the park during snowfall.

"Wah! It's so gorgeous!" she exclaimed, snatching the phone from his hand. Her eyes glittered not unlike the frozen branches surrounded by ice, staring at the photo intently. "So that's what it looks like..."

Age Twenty-Five

Ken had not forgotten Sakura this time. She had been in his mind periodically throughout the year, sometimes to his detriment. He had tried dating again, but there was something missing. The women he met were nice enough, and they seemed to like him well enough, but they lacked a quality he couldn't put his finger on. Something that kept bringing Sakura and her smile to his mind.

He jogged once more through the park, only this time carrying a cooler in his hand. He was worried this would not work, feeling the handle warmed by his grip and the sun beating down from the blue sky as the sakura petals once more drifted upon the breeze. His feet carried him back to the river bank, a smile upon his face as he saw that familiar kimono and pink hair. She turned to him, as she did the two years prior, and smiled.

"Good morning," she said, her eyes shining at him before glimpsing down at the cooler in his hand. "What's that?"

"This," Ken said with a grin, "is a special surprise." He sat down upon the grass, Sakura kneeling beside to join him. He popped open the cooler and sighed with relief, the ice packs keeping the snow within mostly intact. "I gathered some in the cooler during the winter," he explained, handing the cooler to Sakura as her eyes widened in surprise, "and put it in my freezer to stay cold." The pink-haired girl covered her mouth with her hand, gazing down into the glistening snow within the container.

"It's beautiful," she said, scooping her fingers into the cold, moist powder. She shivered. "Cold!" Ken chuckled, watching as her trembling digits lifted a handful of snow into her hand. She then leaned forward, her tongue gently licking at the powder, another tremor running up her spine. He could only laugh in amusement as he watched her.

"I never see you any other day of the year out here," Ken said, breaking the silence. Immediately the glimmer from Sakura's eyes dimmed, her lips curving into a sad smile.

"That's because... I..." she began. For several moments there was silence in the air, her eyes watching as the snow began to melt in her hand, water dripping between her fingers. Looking to Ken out of the corner of her eye, she suddenly lunged, yanking the back of his shirt collar back and dumping the snow down his back. He arched, yelping, hands instinctively reaching while Sakura giggled.

Age Thirty-Two

His promotion at work kept Ken too busy to jog as often as he used to. It also kept him too busy for relationships, though he'd abandoned that idea a few years ago. He'd realized what all of those women had been missing. The one thing that Sakura had that no other seemed to.

She appreciated life.

He was feeling more exhausted again, not as bad as that first year, but his joints were starting to ache and his stamina decreasing. He was sweating and panting heavily, yet he crested that hill once again and jogged down that river bank. Despite how routine it had become, he still felt his heart flutter when he saw that ageless face of Sakura turn his way.

"Did you miss me?" he asked with a smile, his hand reaching for hers. Delicate fingers intertwined with his own as the two stood side-by-side, gazing out across the river. There were now buildings being constructed on the other side, and though the beautiful pink line of cherry blossom trees continued to sway beautifully in the wind, there was something tainted by the presence of steel girders and construction machinery.

"Yesterday you were thirty-one," Sakura answered. "The day before, you were thirty." Their fingers grasped one another more tightly. For whatever reason, Sakura only experienced this day of the year. She woke up on a park bench, fell asleep on a park bench, and then the entire year would pass. This has evidently gone on for decades. She has no recollection of when it started, when she was born, or how she came to be. Just that the only day she ever lived was the day the cherry blossoms bloomed.

"I miss you every day," Ken said with a smile. Their hands squeezed together once more.

Age Forty-Seven

His breathing was heavier than ever before, each step dragging more. The inevitability of age began to catch up with him, his joints and muscles screaming in protest with every moment he continued to try and jog through the park. Yet he would not give up this yearly ritual for the world.

Once more he crest the hill, once more he descended to the river bank, and once more she turned and smiled, her hand reaching out to take his own.

"Good morning beautiful," he panted heavily, leaning forward to plant a kiss upon her glossy pink lips. Sakura's eyes closed, taking in the kiss, savoring it as she did every day. When their lips parted she smiled sadly, her fingers tracing the temples of Ken's hair.

"You've got a bit more gray than yesterday," she said softly.

"Well, it has been a year," he said again, kissing her on the forehead.

"Tell me more about your niece," she said with a smile. Across the river bank, many of the cherry blossoms had been uprooted and replaced with housing and businesses.

Age Sixty-Five

"My niece had a child of her own," Ken said with a smile, sitting upon the grass, his arm around Sakura's shoulders as she leaned against him. His arm felt more frail than it had before. Still, his grip on her was strong, as if he was reluctant to let her go. As the days—or rather, as the years—passed, he had stopped talking about his job and the people there and spoke instead about his family, his niece. He did his best to instill in her a love of life, to embrace every day as if it were the only day you were alive.

Now, that niece had a child of her own.

"Here, let me show you a photo," he said. He pulled his phone out, flicking the screen, bringing up a photo of a baby.

Sakura's eyes welled with tears. Could she ever carry the child of Ken? Was there ever a time that could have happened?

Across the river, all of the sakura trees had been replaced by commerce and industry.

Age Eighty-Three

Sakura stood at the river bank, her eyes gazing across at the buildings and skyscrapers that now formed the horizon in the distance. The cherry blossoms that once decorated the other side were replaced by electronic displays and billboards illuminated with artificial imagery, advertising the sakura festival occurring in this very park.

It had been two days—or rather, years—since she had last seen Ken. She could only hope that he was alright, but with human lifespans, and how he'd been the last time she saw him...

With a heavy sigh Sakura brushed a tear from her eye. There was no longer any point in standing upon this river bank. She turned, ready to seek a new place to gaze upon the cherry blossoms, only to stop and gasp as she looked up the hill.

"Ken?!" she exclaimed, but it couldn't be. This man was far, far too young, and his hair was blonde. Ken's was never blonde. Nevertheless, the young man stepped down the grassy hill and to the river bank.

"Are you Sakura?" he asked. His features were softer than Ken's ever were, his eyes a bright green emerald, and yet the similarities were there. The jawline, the chin, the shape of his nose, even his eyebrows.

"Who are you?" she asked, gazing upon him as he approached.

"My name is Kensuke," he said. "My great uncle Ken told me about you, left me this journal." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, pink notebook, the name Sakura written on the cover. "I couldn't believe anything in there was true, but..." Flipping the notebook open, he held it up for Sakura to see. Within was a sketch of her, colored in with pencil, gazing out across the river bank. "It's exactly as he drew-oh! Are you okay?"

Sakura hadn't even realized tears were pouring down her cheeks. She wiped at her eyes, a smile upon her face. "Yes, I'm fine," she sniffled. "Why don't you sit with me? I'd like to read it with you."

 

[NyxAvatar69]

One month had passed since the coup against the king of the underground city, Kingpin.  With the man's death and the subsequent defeat of the mercenaries under the man's employ, the people trapped under Kingpin's rule were free to finally return to the surface.  Alone in a cheap apartment, a man who had many things taken from him as part of Kingpin's schemes sat alone in front of a cheap wooden table.  His once blonde hair had been dyed jet black and his golden eyes lacked the same light they had before a planned encounter led to the deaths of those he formed bonds with while underground.  As he sat alone in silence, one name continued to race through his mind, like it had latched itself onto his thoughts.

'Origin.  That name came up far too much in Kingpin's notes.  But why did I never hear about this figure until now?' he thought to himself.  As the thought raced through his mind, the door to the apartment opened and a man in a white suit stepped in.

"There you are, Kresnik.  I've been looking for you," the suited man said, but he only got a glare in response.

"I told you to stop calling me that,"

"Old habits don't die easy.  You've been Kresnik ever since your first match down here, after all.  You're really planning on going back to your old name?  Calling you Damien again would get pretty boring," the suited man replied.

"Nobody asked for your opinion.  Did you finish the arrangements?" Damien shot back.  The suited man sighed and pulled out a letter from inside his suit, tossing it down onto the table.

"Took a few days with all the transfers going on, but yeah.  Congrats, Damien, you now own your own place in the Village of Outcasts.  You're lucky the person in charge there owed me a few favors.  But why there of all places?" the suited man said while Damien picked up the letter.

"That's easy.  People there keep to their own business.  Nobody will ask any questions."

"I guess that makes sense, considering the damage those church types did to your reputation.  It's probably better to lay low in a place like that," the suited man said as he started walking towards the open door.  He stopped just before heading out, but didn't turn to face Damien.  "One other thing.  We're moving Maya and The Crusader's graves to somewhere topside.  Just figured you'd want to know.  I'll give you a call when they found a good spot," the man added before he stepped outside, leaving Damien alone to finish gathering his things.

 

After one last check over his things, Damien stepped out of the place that had been his home for the past several months and walked outside.  The streets of the underground city were in ruins due to last month's battle.  Buildings were either completely destroyed or long since cleaned out, mana powered streetlights were collapsed on the road and bloodstains were littered about the area.  With next to nobody left in the city, Damien's footsteps echoed through the empty streets.  Ahead of him was his destination, the former site of Kingpin's penthouse, which Damien had destroyed during his battle with the underground's king.  When he thought about his fight with Kingpin, his thoughts would drift back to what he read in the man's notes.

'To think, all of this was just part of a game.  He used every one of us like pawns on a board.  Even though he's dead, the game isn't over.  Maybe Kingpin was just another piece on the board,' Damien thought to himself, making his way past the ruins of Kingpin's penthouse and to the iron door that sat beyond it.  The door had been left wide open, revealing a flight of stone stairs leading up to the surface.  He walked for a few minutes until he reached a second iron door at the top of the stairs.  Light filtered out from the bottom of the door.  Damien reached out for the knob and slowly opened the door.  Light quickly poured into the dark cavern, forcing Damien to cover his eyes with his arm.  When his eyes finally adjusted to the sunlight, he found himself in a large, open field.  A light breeze blew through his hair and the warm early spring sunlight was a relief from the months spent in the cold underground.

As Damien took the time to take his first breaths of fresh air, a long shadow began to loom over him from high up in the air.  The man looked up to find a large bird with beautiful rainbow wings flying through the air above him.  The creature reminded him of an old fairy tale he had heard as a child about a legendary phoenix.  It had been caged and tormented by a cruel, sadistic man.  From having it's beautiful feathers torn off to being generally tortured, because of the creature's ability to revive itself.  One day, the cruel man got careless and left the cage of the phoenix open, and the bird got it's revenge by incinerating the man.  Damien wanted to deny the possibility that the bird he saw flying across the sky was the same as in the story, but the thought reminded him of another task he had to undergo.  He had promised an old friend he would find his sister and deliver his final gift to her.

 

The underground city had taken many things from him.  Damien's reputation had been destroyed when the true nature of his power was exposed.  The people he had come to trust and keep him grounded were senselessly killed to push him to greater power that he didn't even want.  He had nearly lost what remained of his humanity all for the sake of destroying Kingpin.  Even with all the chaos he had endured, Damien had chosen to continue moving forward, and on that day, guided by the rainbow made by the flying phoenix, Damien Kresnik took his first steps towards his new beginning.  His old self had long since died, and a new version of himself had risen from the ashes of the underground to walk a world of chaos once more.

All for the sake of destroying those who ruined his life.

Edited yesterday at 01:29 PM by NyxAvatar69

[WickedCadrach]

A Garden Story

Spoiler

“Mom, I’m fine. It’s just… part of the process.” As she spoke, Kara’s words were broken by a soft grunt of effort, and her eyes twitched against a flash of harsh sunlight.

She pulled off one of her thick, yellow gardening gloves with her teeth, hooking a finger through the dark earth to get under the entrenched weed her trowel had been working at. As she did, she tossed her head back, trying and failing to get some of the stray strands of walnut brown hair to break from the sweat on her furrowed forehead and fall back in line with the rest of the simple braid lying against her shoulder. Until you do it yourself, it’s hard to appreciate how much work goes into proper gardening, however, while Kara hadn’t had her palms in the earth in years, this last couple of weeks, it was all coming back to her like the lyrics of a song you haven’t sung since you were a teen.

Kara felt the small, thorny pricks at her palm, wincing and readjusting around the sting—the change in posture also giving the sun another chance to blind her. She could use the trowel, but the weed was in a tricky spot among the tomato stakes and the chives, and if she didn’t get all the roots, it would just be back in a few weeks.

“It’s not good to be alone so much, Kara,” her mother said back, the note of admonishment breaking through both the cellphone’s speaker-phone crackle and the veneer of concern she’d applied. “Sometimes life isn’t what you want. But you can’t just give up. You’re so talented, but if you take so much time from work they will move on. I’ve seen it before. And I’m not saying Jason was in the right, but if you go around looking for problems with people, you’re going to find what you—”

“Mom.” Dropping her head, Kara’s lip drew in, her wide mouth becoming small as she closed her eyes a moment and allowed a breath for the afternoon sun to cook off some of her frustration. Intellectually speaking, she wasn’t about to give any ground to her mother’s typical controlling alarmism, but Kara could feel from the way her heart had suddenly leapt from a walk to a trot that other parts of her were listening. “I’m aware. I get it. I really do.”

The heat felt oppressive now, and Kara’s skin was starting to feel rough in the way that told her she’d need to take a water break soon. But as she looked up, a sudden breeze swept through the garden with a rattle of leaves and a shimmering through the branches of the gnarled pecan tree.

The sun must have moved because now the branches of the pecan tree formed a screen that shaded her, allowing the refreshing wind rattling the stakes and vines to cool her skin and her mind—at least a little.

“Thank you,” Kara mouthed silently, smiling her broad-lipped smile to the tree that her grandfather had planted.

It was her tree, planted in their garden the day she was born, and her grandparents had always made a point to remind her whenever she came to the old house. And just like Kara, the willowy sapling had matured and grown and was now an adult, a productive member of the garden by the rattle of the pecans not quite ready to fall. Yes, quietly doing its duty, her pecan tree was contributing… she was certain her mother would be proud. Perhaps she’d prefer a pecan tree for a daughter. It would certainly be less hassle judging by how much of a burden Kara’s troubles seemed to be to her.

“I don’t think you do ‘get it’, Kara,” her mother rebutted, breaking Kara from her reverie in the same mildly irritated cadence she had heard since childhood. “Look. As long as you’re maintaining the place, your aunt and I are fine with you staying at Grandpa Kip’s old house, but you can’t become a shut-in.”

“I’m not a ‘shut-in’, mom.” The words came out a bit sharper than she meant. But the tense conversation would only get worse if she tried to work in an apology and allowed her mother an excuse to play the victim.

Setting down her phone, Kara grabbed the weed by its thorny stem with her gloved hand, her bare fingers working the soil under it until it shook loose in a small shower of dirt over the brown toes of her boots. And with a relieved sigh, she dropped the choking bit of thorny flora and picked up the phone in her ungloved hand.

“I just need time to figure things out.”

Her mother’s exasperated sigh drew a hard, narrow-eyed frown across Kara’s face, and she swept her thumb up the dark screen on impulse, lighting up the red ‘end call’ bar as she flatly announced, “I have to go. I’m making stuffed peppers, and I don’t want them to get too mushy.”

All of those things were discretely true, and though Kara had yet to even start her dinner, it wasn’t strictly a lie. Her mother being the sort of woman she was, allowed the abrupt farewell: Hurt feelings could always be mended, but an overdone roast could do real harm.

Kara tried not to let that thought hurt her feelings as she hung up, but with closed eyes in the wild quiet of grass and rising frog song, Kara could feel how tight the conversation had wound her heart. It was as if her tendons were twine weaving a net that stopped the organ from releasing a full beat, and when she took her next breath, the breath she did finally draw was halting and stumbling.

Cool shade dappled her sun-toasted skin, and the sigh of leaves settled her breathing as Kara calmed enough to stand. The shade overhead seemed to follow her as she did, and another swell of gratitude to the tree that shared her birthday filled her breast.

When Kara opened her eyes, a curious spot of red against the green made her tilt her head and lean forward, hands on her knees.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, reaching out and running a finger over a bright candle-wax crimson of a strawberry. It was too early, and as she looked over the attached plant she could see the rest of the sensibly developing buds behind it. All was as it should be except for this one firm, red heart—mature and ready to eat.

Blinking a little in confused excitement, Kara’s lips parted in a smile to the softly waving green of the garden and she plucked the ripe fruit, inhaling its sweetness before taking a juicy bite. The pressure to her lips felt like a kiss and the bright taste made the tension melt from her, settling her hips as she leaned against the bark of the pecan tree and indulged in the strawberry’s wild wholesomeness.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to cheer me up,” she said aloud, her eyes glistening a bit at the sugary scintillations on her tongue from the freshly picked fruit while she looked over the garden and the connected pecan tree.

Another gusting breeze rose, pushing the loose strands of her hair behind her ear, and an odd feeling—a sense like the uncertainty of hearing your name called when there’s no one in the house—made Kara pause.

But she was alone.

Just her and the garden, just her and her tree.

***

August heat began to fade as September cool rode North winds down through the treetops to rattle the fence and dance between the clicking pecans. Kara spent more and more of her days in the garden, and one day, without really noticing, she’d begun to leave her phone behind in the house while she did.

Maybe it was the way any errant text or call set off anxious feelings of guilt for simply being here. Though, when Kara did think of it, that explanation didn’t feel totally honest. No, it wasn’t so much about keeping the world out as it was about acknowledging what this garden had become to her.

It was peace. It was comfort. It was holy ground.

Every time Kara pulled a weed and saw the herbs grow all the taller and stronger for it, each moment she saw the small green knots of fetal fruits and berries blossoming into full ripe color, and even in the muddy days where rain had poured the night before and she saw the wash of muck threatening to bury the delicate undergrowth between the taller stalks… Kara felt love flowing from her into the soil. And the more time she spent kneeling and crouched in the green, the more she felt a part of those low bushes and vine-wrapped stakes—as if she could feel her love of the garden flowing back from the plants into her, as if the garden loved her as much as she loved it.

Kara never felt this impression more than when she rested from her work, lying with her back to her pecan tree, her hip nestled in the roots the way she used to rest between Jason’s thighs in bed, the thick trunk like his chest against her back. And it seemed whenever she opened her eyes from those moments of rest, the garden would have a new gift for her: a berry growing brighter and larger out of the bush, a tomato that seemed to rush ahead of its brothers and swelling red as if trying to catch her eye.

Even quieter moments felt this way to Kara. A loose leaf fell from her twin, the pecan tree, landing on the tip of her nose as soft as a butterfly kiss before slipping to the ground. And each time she lay against the bark, it seemed the branches knew whether she was chill and needed the afternoon sun to come and warm her, or if the heat of the day was too much and to move to shade her. Sometimes it felt that the branches would move in time with her rising hand, providing their relief before her own fingers could find the right angle to protect her eyes.

Kara soon found she didn’t miss Jason the way she had when she first came here. It didn’t sting to think of her ex every time he strayed across her mind, and when her mother’s calls brought his name back, Kara had begun to feel a numb indifference… an annoyance rather than the mingled doubt and yearning that had plagued her at first—at least during the daytime, while the sun was shining and her silent companionship with leaf and loam felt strongest.

Maybe that was why it was so easy to leave the phone behind, to not think of him during the sunlight hours.

…the garden was a friend… and like a friend, it felt rude to interrupt their time together to take a call or to walk one of the dozen digital paths offering glimpses of what the man she’d lived with was doing now.

Compounding this feeling was the way she’d begun to speak to the garden, each plant feeling like a member of a small circle of friends she could be completely honest with. But out of all of them, Kara found her most rewarding ‘conversations’ came during those moments of rest, leaning against her pecan tree.

But that was during the day.

At night, in the chill of her bed, Kara tossed restlessly. In the dark, all her mother’s words and the whispers of her own doubts needled at her. What if she was becoming a shut-in? What if this time wasn’t healing but actually making her weaker? Why was it taking so long to feel right again? To feel like herself?

If she didn’t need him, then why did she feel so alone?

Groaning in her bed, her face scrunching in agony, Kara pressed her palm to her forehead, the insistent pressure helping, if only a little. Light struck her eye and through the slit in the curtain of her bedroom, Kara saw a full moon shining over the back garden, her pecan tree sitting in the chill night air, waving in night breezes as if beckoning to her.

Without really thinking, Kara wrapped her blanket around herself, bare except for the loose band T-shirt covering her to her hips and the soft, comfortable shorts she put on to sleep, she padded through the house, the hinges creaking as she gently settled the screen door closed so that it wouldn’t whip shut with a bang.

She walked barefoot through the trod grass, following the path she walked every day to the garden as dry stalk and blade crackled and scratched at her bare ankles, the wind mussing at her walnut hair and tugging it free from her improvised, bedsheet cloak.

“Hey…” Kara said to the tree, licking her lips as she did. For some reason it felt like she needed to offer the greeting before lying down as she usually did. Under the moonlight it felt… different. Meeting someone in the day is certainly not the same as coming to them in your pajamas… in the middle of the night… under the stars…

Kara felt the flicker of a crooked grin on her lips. It was silly to feel this way over a tree, even a tree as special to her as this one. But she also couldn’t bring herself to ignore the feeling. And so instead of sitting in its roots, Kara sat down cross legged in front of the pecan tree, staring up into the trunk and branches.

“I guess you can’t sleep either,” Kara joked, her voice low and a bit rough with fatigue. But as she did, she felt the anxious fears that had been pricking at her mind killing the meager attempt at levity, and she began to blink and then shiver and then to cry. A tear broke from the corner of her eye as she bent forward, wrapping the blanket closer about her shoulders as she hunched into the awful feeling folding her stomach in half.

On the back of her neck, Kara felt the small brush of a fallen leaf, or perhaps one from the nearby stalks moving with the wind. Either way, the tender feeling set a ripple through her spine that opened her throat, and she began to give her wordless pain voice.

“It’s not that it hurts to give so much and get nothing back,” Kara croaked out, coughing a little as she did and swallowing to clear her voice. “You don’t give just to get. It’s not about that. It’s not a trade. I wasn’t with him because I wanted something back from him. I mean… I did, but it wasn’t why I was with him.”

Kara didn’t bother explaining to the pecan tree that she was talking about Jason again, her twin tree had been listening to her idle processing and small moments of reflection for days on end. If it knew her at all, it would know what pain she was talking about.

“But to pour your love into someone and see them… rot…” Kara winced, hugging her stomach under the blanket as the words boiled up through her. “To see them dying… their glow disappearing, their eyes getting harder, their words getting sharper…” Painful memory welled up behind each phrase as the ghost of the man she’d tried to leave behind seemed to stab at her all over again. But the words were already flowing, and Kara wasn’t going to stop until they were out.

“You start to wonder. What changed? Maybe you overwatered? Too much sun? Too little? Was the soil not right?” Was I too needy? Too mothering? Too boring? Was I just the wrong person from the start? Talking to herself, thoughts and words wove in a sudden gush as Kara laid bare her pain to the moonlight and her silent friends. “Perhaps if you’d seen it… you could have let them go. If you let them go, they could set their roots somewhere good, where the ground wasn’t poison. Because maybe you were the poison all along.”

And that was really it. The insecurity of it all. When someone is one way, and then after being with you… after being yours… then they’re another way… one has to wonder…

The garden rustled around her, and Kara instinctively grabbed at her covering. But she did not feel the expected chill.

A moment of unease made Kara stiffen where she sat. There was no breeze. No cold, night wind to make the leaves shake.

But they were moving.

It took her a moment to realize it, and Kara felt her breath catching as she tried to listen through the blood drumming in her ears. But despite the lack of guiding currants in the air, the stalks and vines around her were shifting, moving as surely as stretching fingers and arms in the sleepy movements of someone rousing from a deep slumber.

The smell of earth and verdant life seemed closer suddenly, as rich as it did whenever Kara turned the garden soil. And the coriaceous texture of mature vine flesh traced behind her ear, curling over the slope of her neck tenderly and drawing a ticklish tension into the tendons there.

Kara started, turning on her hip and tangling in her blanket as she let out a gasp, the whites of her eyes bright and stark as she faced the dense green of her garden with her heart thundering against her ribs.

Vines were lifted and curled toward her like twists of green smoke running parallel with the ground; fruit bloomed and ripened before her eyes in pulses like heartbeats. Leaves turned in the windless air, coming together and parting with shuffling scrapes that hissed like the faint breath of a sleeper. White and yellow honeysuckle wove between them, growing up between her vegetables and joining green strawberries that swelled into full, red sweetness so quickly that Kara wiped her eyes in disbelief.

And in front of her face, a swirl of leaves, flowers, and fruit curled in, meeting like a spiral in highlights of cream white, gold, and red.

A face appeared then, or the illusion of one. Formed from the plants, the shape of a nose developed around a strawberry, white honeysuckle eyebrows arched over dark hollows that stared at her sightlessly. But instead of pressing forward, the lips and mouth seemed to form deeper back, as did the nose and the leafy brow. In fact, the whole appearance of the face felt like staring into the inside of a mask… all the right features present but with shadows inverted from what they should be.

It was a dream. That was the only explanation. But despite her mind’s rejection of the evidence of her eyes, Kara’s heart knew that what she was seeing was real. Her garden was alive. No, that was oversimplifying. It was no more alive than it had ever been—she’d always felt the ground and plants here were brimming with life—it was simply alive in a new way, a way she didn’t expect. And even if she were asleep against the pecan tree and would start awake with the morning sun, Kara felt sure that this vision was no nightmare. There was a reality to it that she felt in her bones and in the prickling gooseflesh of her skin under her tightly curled fingertips.

Her heart was racing, her feet and hands freezing as the surreality of the moment fought for purchase in the logic of her mind like trying to plant smoke in rocky soil. Her vision swam and darkened at the fringes as the face tilted, the vine at her neck stroking her lovingly while another coiled in slow insistence around her far shoulder to form a thin embrace.

She knew in that moment, she was looking into a living face: The face of her silent twin, who shared her birthday.

“Kara…” the face whispered.

And the last thing Kara felt as consciousness fled was the way the green tendril supported her head, lying her down in the grass gently as her nerveless body collapsed into the shock and exhaustion pulling her down.