Almost a year ago, at Riversleigh Manor, I planted two seeds in pots and took them to the garret room I have there. I’m ashamed to admit to this, but when the Manor was closed up for awhile, I forgot all about them; I did not follow the directions I myself prescribed for them. I left them there–without a thought–and moved on to other things, other projects. But now I’m back and am settling into my garret room again. This time, though, I’m determined to set my own path, make my own way discovering things all year long that I never knew before about Nature, my Celtic ancestors and the heritage they passed down, about myself and the Powers That Be–as was my intention last year.
I don’t want to be led astray again. I might not make it back a third time.
Self-recrimination, regret and self-directed horror filled me when I spied the two pots still by the window seat in the direct path of the weak sunlight slanting in from the window across the cushioned seat and down across the wood-planked floor, just as I had almost left them. For, despite my lack of care and absense, in each medium-sized terra cotta pot there was a pitiful looking seedling that had tried growing, only two and a half inches tall. I gasped at the sad sight and groaned in self-reproach as memory came flooding back in a sudden rush. Crossing the room hurriedly from where I stood in the open doorway of the garret room, I absently and unceremoniously dropped my luggage to the floor–which I carried in each hand and from a strap I’d slung over my right shoulder–halfway to the dead seedlings.
Dropping to one knee I groaned again, angry with myself and muttered half under my breath: “Even virtually I can’t keep a poor plant alive!”
Gingerly I touched each one to see, by some slim hope or chance, if either one of the seedlings had survived by some miracle. They hadn’t.
Cussing myself out under my breath, I took hold of the pots and got to my feet. First order of business, then, was to say goodbye to these poor, neglected seedlings. Subdued now instead of anticipatory and excited in reaching my room and beginning my new discoveries, I quietly put the pots in the cardboard box I’d kept nearby and appropriated from the greenhouse so long ago. Carrying the now laden box that revealed my neglect and forgetfulness to anyone who was about in the halls and rooms I had to pass through to reach outside and the greenhouse, I said nothing but mentally chided myself all the way. I should never have plants, virtual or real. No matter what they are, no matter how good my intentions, every plant in my possession has died. I just don’t have a green thumb! But that is a talent I wouldn’t mind having.
Not knowing what else to do I stopped near the compost pile a couple yards or so to the left of the greenhouse and set the box on the browning autumn lawn. Downwind of the odiferous stench emanating the heap, of course. Leaving it and my failed attempt at being a gardner there, I entered the greenhouse to search for gloves and a trowel. Spying what I needed almost immediately on a small square weathered wooden table with peeling light green paint, I put on the gloves as I trudged back to the compost pile. Sighing, I knelt down on one knee again and as gently as I could, removed first one dead sapling then the other with the old trowel I found with the gardner’s gloves. Once they were pulled free I placed them on the ripe, decomposing pile dispassionately, holding my breath all the while against the awful smell, wishing that at least one had survived. And feeling like a failure that it hadn’t.
What would L’Enchanteur say when she found out? For she would find out. Not much escaped her knowing gaze.
Frowning, lost in depressing thoughts and with that unhappy chore done I retuned the gloves and trowel where I’d gotten them. There were two fellow travelers of Lemuria, who were also staying at Riversleigh Manor again over by the weathered butcher block table now, the same one I had stood at nearly a year ago picking out the seeds I had had optimistic hopes for. They were chatting happily while rooting through the contents of the low-sided box. Blank white packets of seeds I discovered, when one held a small package up. Enchanteur is doing the seed assignment again? I pondered as I watched them. Why?
I didn’t realize I’d spoken that last question aloud until one of the travelers turned and looked at me inquiringly, holding a strangely bulging packet that moved as if the contents inside were alive and wanting out of the confining package. “Why what?” she asked.
I was strangely drawn to that packet; I couldn’t take my pale green gaze off it for long. Not even to look at her while bemusedly trying to switch my attention to answer her. “Erm…um… I was wondering why the Enchantress was repeating the seed assignment. Now that she’s called us back to Riversleigh, I mean.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “Well, I imagine since it’s a new year–”
“A new year that’s about over,” her companion interrupted with a gravelly voice, speaking up for the first time.
The first traveler eyed the second for a moment before agreeing with him and continuing: “Yes, a year that’s about over. Perhaps that’s the whole point, though. Perhaps she is hoping we will once again follow the assignment to see what comes of the new year.”
I blushed guiltily at the remembrance of my dead saplings, wishing it was dark enough to hide in the shadows so the warm stain of shame wasn’t plain to see on my face.
“These seeds are different than the ones she had out last year,” the man informed me. He was barely an inch or so taller than his companion, whom I guessed to be 5′5″. His voice was surprisingly deep for a thin man of average height, but it somehow fit his craggy face, his piercing gray eyes and longish graying medium brown hair.
Blinking in confusion and finally tearing my attention away from the woman’s bulging and moving packet to focus on the man, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“These are dream seeds my dear,” the woman answered before her companion could open his mouth. “Seeds that bloom as your dreams come true. Last year, it was just mystery seeds. They could turn out to be anything.”
Once more I was weighed down by my secret chagrin. I would never know now what those seeds would’ve turned into.
“Or if you don’t know what your dreams are, they’ll surprise you and bloom into whatever you were secretly hoping for or didn’t know what you were dreaming of.” the man added. “In the end, they will be the manifestion of your truest dreams.”
“Well,” I said soberly, “my dreams seem to have changed somewhat. And the ones I dream at night are just plain odd. A lot of the time they don’t make sense at all.”
“That’s all right honey,” the first traveler replied, her painted red lips curving into a sympathetic smile. “That’s the nature of dreams. Insubtantial and enigmatic until they’re made real.”
She wore her straight ash blond hair in a striking bobbed haircut that accentuated her Slavic cheekbones and fine features. Her wide set merry eyes were pale blue, reflecting a friendliness and curiosity. While traveler no. 2 could be in his late 40s or early 50s, her age was hard to pin down. She could be anywhere in her 30s or 40s, and if she happened to be one of those deceptively well-preserved women, traveler no. 1 could even be in her early 50s. Though that may be pushing it.
“Have you got your seeds yet?” she asked, half turning to gesture at the box on the old rectangular wooden table.
“Um…no.” I admitted reluctantly. “My last seeds didn’t…do so well. I’m no gardner. I’ve got no green thumb.”
“Well, that’s the beauty of these seeds.” traveler 2 said heartily. “You don’t need to have one.”
My gaze returned to traveler no. 1’s seed packet. It was still moving and bulging, and I swear I could feel its contents’ impatience to be free from where I was standing, several feet away. Impossible! I thought. “I-I don’t?” I said aloud.
The woman, I’m sure, had noticed my fascination with her seed choice before, but only now chose to comment on it. “The seeds inside this package interest you, don’t they? Here. Take them.” Taking a few steps in my direction, she extended her arm, offering the strange, live packet to me.
I put up my hand in a stopping gesture. “I can’t. Thanks though.”
“Sure you can!” she insisted. “You obviously like them, and as Alfred said, you don’t need a green thumb. All they need are sunlight, moonlight and watering twice a week. Mostly they feed on your subconscious, as that is what shapes them.”
“Surely you can do that much.” Alfred said, pinning me with his gray eyes.
“I-I-I…”
“Sure she can!” traveler no. 1 chirped brightly, taking my hand and dumping the white package into my palm. “Hold on to it though, dearie, for it seems to have a mind of its own!”
“I-I-I…” was all it seemed I could say.
Whatever was inside suddenly shoved against the pad of my thumb. Hard. Tightening my grip on it, I blinked bemusedly down at it. “What the–? Are they all like this?” I wondered, taking a few steps closer to get a look inside the old box.
“Nope,” the woman responded. “There’re only two more like it. The rest are inanimate.”
Sure enough, as I leaned slightly forward to see for myself, only two packets out of so many white ones jumped, bulged and moved. The lady picked one of them up for herself. “Ok, Alfred, ready to go back to our room.” She turned and waved to me in farewell. “See ya, dearie!”
“Bye,” I called, still in a state of befuddlement. I looked down in consternation at my still concealed seeds. What was I going to do with them? I could always put them back, I thought, taking another step in the table’s direction to do so. But as if sensing my intention, the seeds went quiet. They stopped moving. I jiggled them. Nothing. I poked the small bag with a forefinger three times. Still nothing. They remained placid. “Did you fall asleep?” I asked them, as the crazy notion entered my head.
In the end I took the packet with me to my room, depositing it on the desk situated against the wall in which the door is set. Pinning it down with a spherical blue and white glass paperweight I determined to think about what I would do with them. It wouldn’t harm them to stay in the packet a few more days while I decided if I was going to plant them or give them back.
“Dreams,” I murmured, staring at the blank white pouch that had started moving again, this time gently, up and down as a person’s chest would in sweet repose, “dreams change. They are weird, especially mine. Heaven help anyone if mine bloom and become what I dream.”
~Shiloh
