Pickin' Up Horticultural Vibrations

Day One



The house was but a cold shell after Millie’s murder. What was seemed as a sealed jar containing life had now been upended, haunted by sheer desolation.

Greta, her best friend since youth, looks beyond her own reflection to a portrait of a young Millie on horseback. Javers was the horse’s name. A stallion. Millie would spend countless afternoons on that horse, and even won a couple of regional championships. It was an exquisite steed…

Hands grasp Greta’s shoulders. She jumps up, almost dropping the portrait. Looking back, she sees a young man looking at her, a smug look on his face. “Irvine… You love startling people.”

Irvin rubbed her shoulders. “I knocked.”

“Knocking would grant you right to privilege into people’s homes unannounced?” She drops the picture on the table, and covers her face with both hands. Tears rolling down her cheeks, through the breaks between her fingers.

Irvin rubs her back. “There, there...”

“Her parents will be in tomorrow. Their flight got delayed.”

“Is there anything of hers that need packing up?”

Greta exasperate, arms in the air. “Like, everything!” She shakes her head, “Forgive me. I’m just really taking the day to reminisce.”

“Are you going to take anything home with you? You know, like memorabilia?”

“I wouldn’t impose. I imagine there is some law about next-of-kin getting first claim to the property of a deceased.”

“It’ll make you feel better. It could be something they could do without.” Irvine scans the room, and approaches a plant. The exotic plant is greenish, yellow, with six-pronged leaves. “Take this!”

“Heavens, it’s hideous…” Greta laughs to herself. “Millie got it from her trip to El Salvador. Do you remember that study abroad course she took in the rainforests?”

“I’ve heard horror stories…” Irvine’s voice trails.

Greta suspects something amiss about Irvine, but dismisses all suspicion.

She eyes the plant again. “It would look great in the bay window. It’s sorta empty right now.”


***

That night, Greta tosses in her dreams.

She is in a dense jungle. Heat rising, perspiring from the humidity.

She feels eyes upon her.

A twig snaps.

She turns.

A black smoky figure emerges from the thick. Gaunt fingers stretch out to grab her.

Greta springs awake, thanking all things earthly it was but a dream.


Day Two



Greta scoops her hands under the limping plant, covered in white matter. “What do you suppose it is?”

Jude, a botanist Greta befriended junior year as undergrad, studies the plant. “I could imagine it is fungal. I’m not at liberty to give a definite prognosis, seeing how this plant is not native. In fact, I have never really seen a plant such as this before. You said Millie got it in El Salvador?” Greta nods, tears. “And you said it was healthy yesterday?”

“It didn’t have all that white stuff on it, if that’s what you mean.”

Jude nods. “This my first time making a house call.” His joke goes well over Greta’s head. “Plants are like film negatives. They absorb not only one’s emotion, but the very atmosphere surrounding. It would be of no surprise, since Millie’s passing, if this plant is going through a phase of withering.”

“Is there a cure?”

“Time. Nurture. The ways of the old wives.” Jude looks into Greta’s eyes. “I’m terribly sorry, but I have a class to instruct at eleven. I wish I could be of more help. Final advice: get some downtime. Draw a hot bath. Relax. Doctor’s orders.” He winks. Finally, a single laugh escapes Greta.
Jude departs.

Greta studies the plant. “What is it you wish to say?” No response. “I thought so.”

***

A hot waterfall rushes out of the faucet. Greta, under a body of bubbles, drifts soundly asleep.

She is abound a vast bog. How and why she got there is but a mystery. She wades, knee-deep, through the morass. The ground below sucks her into the muddy earth.

Footstep-by-footstep, she pushes through the muck.

She stops.

Below the hanging moss of a cypress tree, stands the same smoky figure from her previous dream. It ambles on the water’s surface with unprecedented grace.

She struggles to turn. One-by-one, vines shoot from beneath the still waters, wrapping around each of her limbs. She screams in agony as the stems twist, reeling her beneath the murk.

Greta shoots up, legs kicking and arms flailing, splashing bubbles across the tiled floor.

Gasping for breath, she wonders what the dreams try to tell her.


Day Three


Greta pours water into the pot. Granted never having a green thumb, she is fighting against all will to save the plant. If the plants she killed were equivalent to that of humans, she would be a registered serial killer. Hell, she would be public enemy number one!

This is no ordinary plant. It is an exotic plant; probably costs more than she would pay for an entire garden. Beyond that, it was Millie’s. The very last remnant of life Millie left behind. If the plant was to die, all would be lost.

She tried everything. Talking to it. Feeding specialized dietary plant-food. Even fungal medicine showed no signs of improvement.

She kept telling herself it was too soon for results to show, but she was growing restless. Maybe her impatience was vicarious with that of the anxiety she felt over Millie’s family. They were still stranded in Chicago. Last she had spoken with them, Millie’s father was too proud to take a train, book a greyhound, or even rent a car. It was airplane or bust for him. Millie was left in a symbiotic state of limbo and purgatory in the meantime.

A leaf falls. “No. No. No…” She whimpers, trying to attach the deadened leaf to the serrated end of the stalk in all desperation. She slams drops to the floor, mourning in folded arms. It is too much for her to endure.


Day Four



Greta had completely lost track of the hours spent nursing the plant. She had grown more of an attachment to the plant than practically anyone else in her life. To her, the plant has become more an infant than property.

To her great surprise, however, she marvels at the sight of a single bud beginning to sprout.

There is hope.

***

That night, she dreams of a place all too familiar to her.

It is Millie’s house. Except something is different about it. From floor-to-ceiling and every room front-to-back is covered by plant-life. The house had turned into a converted nursery.

The air is inviting, practically invigorating, embodying a cool mist about the premises.

Greta examines the vicinity, mesmerized by the transformation.

Suddenly, she stops. An all-too-familiar feeling creeps up within her. She is being watched.

She turns, Irvine glares at her with glossy eyes. His arms spring forward, wrenching her throat.

She fights back, but he is too powerful. His eyes glow yellow.

He leans over Greta in a dominating force.

“Millie…” He moans in a zombie-like drawl, centipedes and grubs spilling out of his mouth.

Greta awakens to the dark confines of her bedroom. Out of all of the twisted elements of the dream, only one thought stains her mind: why did Irvine call her Millie?


Day Five



Irvine sips black coffee prepared by Greta. In a state of extreme urgency, she spills everything to Irvine regarding the dreams. Irvine nods in the same fashion as a therapist who plays the role of listener, observing every detail, while cranial cogs spin. He returns. “Mm-Hmm.”

Greta laughs. “You must think I am daft.”

“No more than I thought before.”

She chuckles. “Thanks for the supportive words.”

“Would you like to know what I think?” Greta nods. “Everyone exhibits different ways of mourning. Yours just so happens to come in horror-movie fragments . Whether pure imagination or symbolic of something subconsciously greater, I’m not in the position to say.”

“So you have nothing.” She puts her coffee down in disappointment and stands up.

Irvine watches Greta turn on the radio. The Beach Boys play "Good Vibrations". “What are you doing?”

“I’m making the plant feel happy.” The blank expression on Irvine’s face speaks everything. Embarrassed, she adds, “Just as music is remedy for the soul, it is also therapeutic for plants. Jude’s word, not mine.”

“You are daft.”

“You shut up.” She banters and dances toward the plant, humming. Spirits uplifting. “I still don’t know what you were doing in my dream. And for you to mistake me for Millie. Maybe I am daft.” A sharp pain explodes in her back. A blade slips out and slides into her lung. She gasps, coughing out blood. A few more brutal stabs steal away her life.

Greta drops down beside the plant to Brian Wilson’s voice floating in the air.

Irvine looks down at his artwork in great appreciation. A single leaf falls down and lands on Greta’s cheek. Irvine leaves, whistling the notes to the upbeat song upon departure.