Moonflower's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Moonflower sat cross-legged in a shady glen, chewing a bitter blue-veined herb she had picked at dawn. The stream beside her hissed over stones. Her rainbow dreadlocks hung heavy against her sundress. She had come to these woods for one reason: to build a hidden garden of every plant, herb, and fungus that could heal or kill. She knew them all. But a healer's garden needs a guardian, and so far nothing had answered her call. The herb did its work. Her mind loosened and drifted outward, past the roots, into the wet dark under the soil. She listened. Something listened back. An image struck her behind the eyes. She saw a plant unlike any she had grown. Thick tentacles curled from a rotted stem. Green pods snapped like jaws, ringed with yellow teeth. A dead red bloom drooped at its center, dripping. The picture came sharp and whole, sent straight into her thoughts by whatever grew below. Moonflower opened her eyes. She understood at once. This was no vision from her own mind. A creature had shown her a real plant, buried somewhere close, and it wanted her to find it. She knew the danger. A plant that killed could still teach. If she could tame it, feed it, learn its poison, no thief or beast would dare touch her garden. It would be her guardian and her greatest specimen both. She stood and followed the pull. Her sandals sank in cold mud. Past a wall of ferns, the ground turned gray and lifeless. Nothing grew there but one thing. The Cryptbloom Trap waited in a pit of dead leaves. It stood taller than she was. Its tentacles dragged through the muck, twitching toward her heat. The center bloom opened, and a wet green stink rolled out. Two smaller pods swung on stalks, teeth clicking. Moonflower did not run. She knelt at the edge of the pit and spoke softly, the way she spoke to every plant. She pulled a fresh rabbit from her satchel, meat she carried for wounds and study. She tossed it into the open mouth. The bloom clamped shut. The tentacles curled inward, satisfied. For one breath, the whole thing went still. Then a new image filled her head, clearer than before. She saw herself standing among rows of growing things, the Cryptbloom rooted at the center, guarding them all. It had accepted her. Moonflower smiled and reached into the mud. Her fingers closed around the base of the stem. She would dig it out and carry it home to her garden ground. A tentacle snapped tight around her wrist. It did not let go. The bloom turned toward her, teeth wide, and she felt herself pulled forward into the pit.