Page 3 of May: Bloom & Bane

“I am scared,” I whisper. “I woke up in the dirt, and I don’t remember anything. Things keep dying when I touch them, but you—” I gesture helplessly. “You’re fine.”

Because you want me to be fine, it confesses. When you’re not scared, you smell like fresh grass. I like fresh grass. So I came back.

Its cottontail flicks against my thumb.

The silver fox was very scary. Death-smell. Made everything cold. But you’re not all death. You’re also flowers.

“Flowers?” I repeat.

Mhm. The bunny yawns, revealing tiny teeth. Pretty ones. White and purple. They grew when you held me before. I liked them.

I stare at the creature in my hand. This impossibly small, brave thing that came back… for me.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll hurt you?”

Will you?

“I don’t want to.”

Then you won’t. You smell gentle. Even when you’re scary big.

“I’m not gentle. I have claws.” I flex my fingers slightly, careful not to shake him. “And everything I touch either grows or atrophies.”

So don’t be scared, and things will grow, he says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Easy.

“It’s not easy.”

Maybe not yet. You’re new. He cleans his ear. But you’ll learn.

A warmth settles in my chest.

“Do you have a name?” I ask.

The bunny’s ears perk up.

My mother told me that one day someone would find me and give me a name. And that’s how I’d know.

“Know what?”

That I was theirs.

“Would you—would you like me to give you a name?”

He leaps in my hand, twisting in the air before landing back in my palm.

I guess that’s a yes.

“Hm…” I think. “How about Droot?”

Droot! he squeaks. Like root and droplet. I love droplets.

A real laugh bubbles out of me this time.

Droot curls into my palm. For the first time since I clawed my way out of the earth, I smile.

“Okay, Droot,” I whisper, my voice steadier now. “If I’m supposed to learn how to be gentle, I’m going to need your help.”

His ears twitch toward the deeper part of the meadow where the fox vanished.