Page 51 of The Salt-Black Tree
But the reflex was so strong. Instead, she laced her fingers together, denying the urge to touch anything on the table, or any of the rustling, curious plants. “So I’ve noticed.”
Marie’s laugh was warm and rich, but with a chill undertow, a frozen current sliding past a swimmer’s thrashing legs. “Well, come on over here, girl.” She performed another turn, military-precise, and strode down a side aisle. “Ah, yes. Right where I left you.”
Nat’s eyes adapted to the gloom. A square, squat wooden planter sat in the middle of a cleared space, the egg-pale stones around it reflecting firefly glow. A tuberous brown root almostoverflowed its confines, rearing out of dry, exhausted brown dust.
Her mother might have identified it with a glance. Nat stood still, her hands knotted together and her head cocked, examining this new strangeness.
What the fuck?
“Do your thing.” Laveaux made an impatient movement. “Then I’ll do mine. I don’t have all night.”
I don’t even know what my thing is.It burned on the tip of Nat’s tongue, her mother’s brusque irritation fighting for release. But that wasn’t quite right, was it?
When she wasn’t busy listening to Maria Drozdova’s voice inside her head, Nat did all right. If nothing else, this little scavenger hunt had taught herthat.
So she approached the wooden planter carefully, examining the gnarled root. It looked charred, as if someone had taken a blowtorch to it in cruel slashing patterns. “Look at you,” she said softly. “Oh, honey. What happened?”
“Don’t sweet-talk it.” Laveaux’s tone turned baleful. “He knows what he did.”
“This will go a lot quicker without your commentary.” Nat was amazed at her own daring. But really, you couldn’t rush a plant.
Everything bloomed in its own time. That was one lesson she hadn’t minded learning from her mother.
Marie’s sigh was the sound of a woman with no time for anyone’s bullshit; the entire greenhouse hushed.
Nat’s knees bent. She sank down as carefully as she ever had in ballet class before Mom decided it was too expensive.
We can sell the shoes, Natchenka, they are still worth money. Go clean your room.
A bad memory, but there were good ones, too. Looking over a weeded row and feeling the relief of green leaves with enough space to breathe, or walking slowly with an old aluminum watering can,careful not to flood or parch but measuring out artificial rain in precise, proper proportion. Bracing a top-heavy sunflower or dahlia with a stake and scavenged string, just the right amount of support balanced against leeway for the stem to swell with wet nutrition brought from spreading roots.
Nat had learned so much, really. You couldn’t help it, living with the Drozdova.
Her fingertips ached. The big, gnarled, dust-choked tuber quivered as she stroked its scarred skin. Its pain rasped up her arm—so thirsty, broken glass slice-burning, mute screams filling her own throat.
Animals could howl. Plants were forced to other measures—the lovely smell of cut grass was, after all, a yell of chemical distress. Roots in soil cooperated with mycelium, entire networks passing along food, moisture, information—and power.
“Mandrake,” she murmured. “That’s what you are.”
Oh, it was so simple—they positively ached to talk, to flood a sympathetic listener with information, wisdom, friendship. Theyrecognizedher, as much as her mother’s roses or lettuce or datura knew and obeyed Maria Drozdova. It wasn’t any great effort to coax a plant into whatever she wanted.
That was true power. Or at least, one form of it. Her eyelids fell halfway; she didn’t need to see. Or, rather, she did see, just not externally.
The greenhouse’s rustling silence filled with warm wind, a patter of rain just this side of cold. Dry dust in the planter turned dark and rich; scars shrank, replaced with smooth brown. The root dove, snuggling into fresh dirt like a tired puppy into a pillow. Tiny creaking noises heralded leaves rising hairlike from its crown, unrolling in fast-forward. Even in the indistinct quarter-light their rich glossy green glowed. Stems rose too, buds swelling at their tips, but Nat halted them before they reached apogee.
The root needed rest.
“A little deeper,” she whispered. Tendrils dove—shefeltthem,sensed the blind questing tentacles as they slithered through the planter’s bottom, pushing aside wood that remembered its own time of quiet growing before axe and saw turned it to dead usage. “There.”
It felt right to stop. So she did, and opened her eyes, drawing her fingers free of thick, loamy soil. Another deep, singing rustle passed through the greenhouse, every living leaf and bole, every root and flower, every insect or burrowing thing aware their mistress had spoken.
Summer could shower them with abundance, and Harvest reap their maturity. Winter, of course, scythed and cleared for the next year’s burgeoning.
None of them could do what Spring could, though. They could notawaken. Nat let out a wondering sigh, the exhale shifting into a soft, disbelieving laugh.
I could get used to this.Did her mother feel it, Nat performing a miracle? Things grew when Maria told them to, of course—they wouldn’t dare otherwise.
But during all the years in the little yellow house, she’d never seen her mother do anything like this. The houseplants needed their special songs and rituals, the garden hours of labor under scorching sun or summer rain, pruning and tidying in fall, the compost heap required turning by hand at precise intervals.
