Page 30 of By the Orchid and the Owl
Lander stayed with us deep into the night, until the rest of our sector finally trickled back into the bunkroom after the music from next door had died down.
In the end, it was Emelle who got him to break out of his sobbing fit—not by attempting to cheer him up, as I did, but by telling him softly of her own breakup the year before, and how much her heart still lay in pieces over it.
You’d think such a thing would have made him cry harder.
I was still pondering it the following morning, when we reached our first class of the day, The Language of Plants 101, taught by none other than the same instructor who’d pulled our names out of that sunflower hat. Mrs. Wildenberg.
Like Mr. Conine, Mrs. Wildenberg met us outside Building 3E. After we’d all gathered, she led us to the arboretum situated between the back buildings and the rising slope of the mountainside.
Here, rather than a jungle floor tangled with ferns and thorns and roots, the ground rippled with soft grasses and rows of flowers between the trees. A sanctuary of sorts, courtesy of Mrs. Wildenberg’s guiding magic.
“Now, I want you all to lay down on your backs,” she told us in that warbling voice, slowly bending to meet the grass on her hands and knees. Once she was firmly on the ground, she eased her frail body backward to sprawl out. “Close your eyes and listen to what you hear. We will discuss it during our next class period, but for now, just take note of each different sound.”
We did as she said, Rodhi whispering that this certainly beat wading through the crocodile marsh.
I closed my eyes and let the warmth of the dry season sweep over me.
Like the night before Branding, when all the five magics had teased me before that shapeless power burst out, I could hear the grass shrieking beneath my weight. But the more I listened, shifting from side to side as if to alleviate its pain, the more I realized the sound was actually a high-pitched whistle. A calling, of sorts, to the heavens. Even the blades that weren’t smashed under someone’s body let out that whistle, faint but shrill and piercing all the same.
I shifted my attention to the trees on either side of me.
The roots… I could hear them sucking up water from the soil, a crinkling, slurping wet sound. And the leaves themselves were—I squeezed my eyes tighter, straining to listen—humming. Yes, that was humming, low and pulsing, like a mother shushing her baby to sleep. Tuneless, but calming.
Apparently, the Branding hadn’t just made me understand animals. It had sharpened my hearing, too, letting me in on nature’s song if only I concentrated hard enough.
A song that was disrupted, once again, by the hissing laugh of Jenia.
“I wish,” Rodhi whispered to Emelle and me, “that girl could just be exiled right now. That would give me a nice night of sleep, I think.”
“Don’t joke about that,” I breathed back. “Please.”
The thought of banishment and pirates still left my gut in knots, because that would have been me without the pill Coen had given me.
“Sorry,” Rodhi muttered. “No more ‘mean girl gets exiled and relieves us all of our pounding headaches’ humor. Got it.”
I elbowed him. Rodhi snorted.
When Jenia’s laugh had faded again and nature’s song flooded back into my ears, I focused on the flowers. Each one, it seemed, crooned a different tune.
The lilacs sang out distinctly feminine songs, twirly and bright. Their voices made me think painfully of Quinn and all the times we’d climbed trees together, slept under the stars together, braided each other’s hair.
I shifted my concentration again before a lump could form in my throat.
The violets’ tune was rather sexy and somehow… breathy, like they were constantly ramping up their verses with increasing vigor and passion. Their voices made my stomach curl and flutter. A face flitted in my mind against my will before I could swipe it away, so I shifted my concentration once again to avoid thinking of Coen.
The orchids—the orchids sang with such clarity it brought tears to my eyes. Charming and pure, their voices made me think of home and friendship and love.
On and on, I listened to each flower’s tune, then brought myself back to the wider range of song. The blend of sounds washed over me, until something seemed to tug at my heart: a tether of sorts, flowing out from me to connect with it all.
Why do I have this dangerous, shapeless power inside me?I asked the lilacs.Where did it come from?
Does Coen have it, too?I asked the violets.Is that why he knows so much about what happened to me and how to keep it locked away?
What am I supposed to do with it?I asked the orchids.Keep it a secret forever, and never let it build or grow, never strive to understand it?
I heard their answers, heard the subtle changing pitch of their songs in response. But unlike tigers and monkeys and crocodiles, I couldn’t instinctively understand them. It was like a foreign language, my understanding fluttering just out of reach.
As if they didn’t want me to know.
