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Strange things.
The first was two weeks ago. I’d had some seeds in my hand that I found in an unmarked envelope in the cupboard under the stairs in the house. I had no idea what they were and was thinking about just throwing them in the freshly made garden beds and seeing what happened.
I didn’t have high hopes, considering it was the middle of summer and I didn’t know what the seeds were, let alone when they were meant to be planted. I’d stood in the garden, between two of the long garden beds, next to the arches I’d prematurely erected.
The seeds were nearly just over a centimetre in length and black with white stripes. I was about seventy-percent sure they were sunflower seeds, but I was willing to just roll the dice.
I had the little black seeds in my palm, staring at them, thinking about thepossibilityof them… and I’d felt a tingle in my hand. It was pleasant and warm.
Then they started to sprout.
Like little popcorn kernels in my palm, their little green shoots popping out of their shells like excited caterpillars.
I’d dropped them all in shock, and then quickly scrounged along the gravel paths, all freshly laid and raked by yours truly, to find the precious babies and get them in the soil. Turns out I was right, and they were sunflowers.
Now they are six feet tall.
I’m definitely not a professional gardener, but that seems a little fast.
The other seeds I’d thrown in, again all unmarked from the cupboard, have also been sprouting fast, too. I have a trellis overflowing with cucumbers, more tomatoes than neither I nor Mauvy know what to do with, and a very delicious fruit I don’t know the name of with thick purple skin and vibrant green inner flesh that is sweet and tangy and my new obsession.
I have plants growing,thriving, that are more than out of season. They shouldn’t even be grown here. I make sure I give them the best love and care that I can, even in my ignorance, so I haven’t put the phenomenal growth down to anything suspicious. I just thought maybe they were enchanted seeds Inigo had picked up, you know? Maybe it’s the soil from the Woods.
But then there are the storms.
Seff was over, and we were cobbling together an irrigation system between the rain water and the well. Honestly, the wholelack of electricity thing out here was enough to drive me around the bend.
We were both getting frustrated with the piping, and I’d thrown myself dramatically on a garden bed declaring, with every ounce of feeling in my body, that it would be easier if it would justrain.
The sky had been a brilliant clear blue, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, thick black clouds rolled in, dumping fat raindrops over the tavern grounds. Seff and I had scurried to the house to escape the deluge, laughing and giggling like mad. But then, when we’d collapsed on the empty floor of what will one day soon be my living room, he looked at me with a curious look on his beautiful face.
“Was that you?” He’d looked at me more keenly than, I admit, I’d ever given him credit for. It was easy to take Seff’s playfulness for ignorance, but it would be a dangerous mistake to make. He was all wolf underneath the sweet exterior.
I stared at him, confused and a little bewildered because it was a pretty shocking coincidence. But then, with the sunflower seeds and the garden?
When the clouds rolled in, there had been that same peculiar tingle as the time with sunflowers, or the warm buzzing feeling I get when I’m tending to the garden… almost like before. With my gifts, my powers. But different in a way I haven’t pinpointed yet. Even now, it’s been too sporadic and surprising to pin down.
“How could I have done that?” I’d shoved a finger in the direction of the nearest window to the rain dumping down.
Seff turned his head just in time to see the rain cease and the clouds lift, bright sunshine beaming through the window like we’d imagined it all. He’d turned back to face me, his eyes narrowed, carefully considering.
I’d felt horribly exposed. But then he’d broken into his usual goofy grin, wrapping one big, thick arm around me to pull meunder his armpit for a noogie. He’s such a shit. We’d managed to get the irrigation set up easily after that—not that the saturated grounds needed water that day.
Andthenthere are the creatures. Just the thought has me quickly checking the shadowy perimeter of the Falls. I feel like I’m going mad eventhinkingit. Which is why I’ve explained this all to absolutely no one, not even Roan.
And I tell him everything now.
Well, except all this.
And everything with Darius.
Ok, I tell Roan some of the things, more than I tell anyone else.
It started on my second trip back to the Falls on my own. I’d been walking along, trying to remember the path, though it didn’t have the tendency to change or confuse a traveller like the other paths of the Whisper Woods.
It was hot, and I’d been lost in my thoughts. Mainly thoughts about how Roan had sucked my cock so well that morning that I’d pulled a neck muscle when I came.
My neck was aching, and I was massaging it as I walked. But then it started to feel strange, like eyes were on me. Watching. I’d paused, finally paying attention to my surroundings, just as a nabras appeared from the shadows of the trees. I’d nearly wet myself in fright facing the giant creature and its giant yellow eyes watching me intently out of its massive bird-like head.
