What Could Be
written by: Gabrielle Bryant
It would only be for a night. She swore it. That was all it took for her to feel like she had finally escaped from the wretched estate. The moon watched her as she folded herself out of the window, and the thick curtains slapped the wall against the breeze. In haste, she shut it behind her, careful not to commence another scream and a whip from Father like earlier. Her feet nearly slipped from the sill.
How vast the flower fields extended beyond her sight. They went on for miles on end, all around the estate. She watched them as the breeze breathed through them, bound by their roots. Tonight felt strange. She sat crisscrossed on the flat edge of the roof, taking in the floral wind when she noticed a difference in the scenery. There were the usual sunflowers, roses, lilies, tiny weeds she would get whipped for plucking, and the strange hybrid with little green petals and teardrop seeds. Everything was in place. But not the lisianthus blooms.
They were the first bounty of the thousands beyond her window, the flower her family was famous for cultivating. She was so used to them that even her shampoo carried their dying scent.
Careful not to stir anyone, she climbed down the lattice and landed in the dirt. The flowers indeed were gone, and only the upturned soil remained. She noticed a subtle trail of mud and weeds all the way to the gardener’s tool shed.
She heard a shovel slam to the wooden floor, coming from the open door. A twinge of excitement sent butterflies to her stomach. Her hands touched the doorframe of the little brown shack. She peered inside.
It was empty.
There was no sign of anyone here, only the tool table organized with buckets underneath. She could have sworn someone was out tampering. Perhaps a thief hid in the shadows, rare, if any occurrences had happened before. She thought an adventure was about to await her – fighting off evil, or joining in it. She turned to resume her journey.
Metal scraped against the wooden floorboards, and a girl rushed through the doorway. She flew back as she nearly rammed into her, and she, too, pounced from the steps with a start. She was her age, fifteen it appeared, long black locks littered with dirt. The whites of her eyes glowed under the stars. Sweat dripped from her forehead. She squeezed the pair of clippers in her hand.
“Do you like gardening?” the girl asked.
She shook her head. It was all she could do, what with that withering stare, dark eyebrows spread over her broad forehead.
“Then why come to the gardener’s tool shed?” the girl asked with an amused smile.
“My lisianthus flowers are gone,” she said. “Father must have torn them up, and I know it is because I loved them.”
The girl looked down at her clippers. She pulled them behind her back and lowered her head.
“My name is Petra,” she said. “I am new here and–”
“So you pulled them up,” she answered.
Petra toyed with the tool. “I was told to. They were infected with a parasite that would harm the other plants.”
“You uprooted the only flower I loved.” She still accused her, but truly her anger should have been at herself for being fond of such a finite object.
“But I am going to plant more,” she answered. “Their buds will be in the ground by morning time, noble.”
She looked all around, curling her fingers around her hair. Petra would not understand.
“I would have liked to see them dead,” she said. “Much more than living, if it meant they got to stay.”
Petra furrowed a brow at her as if she was an alien. Then she grinned again.
“You’re too funny. My first night here and I am already being scolded by a lunatic.”
“I’m no lunatic!” she cried. “No one appreciates flowers once they are dead. They uproot them and use them for the soil.”
Petra folded her arms. “Then, I suppose you are one of few. I like how you think.”
“How I think?”
“Yes,” she answered. “If we were all the same, it would be boring.”
She folded her arms, drawn to the answer. On a whim, she pulled around the doorway and plucked a hand shovel from a hook on the wall.
“Let me help you plant the new blossoms,” she said.
Petra shrugged. “If you’re all right with staying up all night.”
She took her down the slope to the upturned dirt and showed her how to get the shovel in deep. She smiled at her as she took it and almost dropped it.
“Wow, they really do teach you nothing about manual labor,” Petra said.
She shrugged and eyed her with subtle curiosity. “How did you learn if you aren’t…?” she asked.
Petra continued digging away, hesitating to answer. “That’s another story.”
“I see. I wish I could have learned before, like you. Maybe then I could grow my own flowers the way I like them,” she said.
Petra laughed. “Shovel harder, then. I’ll teach you. Maybe there will be extra seeds you can grow in a pot to keep inside.”
Together they worked, and soon Petra helped her bury the first roots into the soil. They talked and giggled as they did.
“You know,” she said as she dug a hole beside her, “You’re a natural.”
No one had ever said that to her before. Her heart pounded at the thought that she was truly good at something, and she brought the shovel into the dirt with greater fervor. She hid her excitement behind her hair.
“I suppose it isn’t so bad that you had to take the other blooms away,” she said.
Petra soaked up the sweat on her forehead with her sleeve. “See what I mean now? Anything can regrow.”
She did see it.
Over and over they dug, planted, and covered, until their hands were black and the moon touched the treetops without a wave goodbye. The dawn’s dew dripped from the stems. She and Petra stood as sweaty as two wanderers, their hands on their hips.
“We did it,” Petra said and patted her shoulder.
Her eyes moved from Petra’s to the fresh soil piles pooled around the little stalks, little pink buds shivering in the morning wind. Never did she imagine she would enjoy such a menial task, an escape far different from swinging through town after midnight. She extended her arms to stretch when something caught the corner of her eyes. Father.
He stood on the front porch with a gaze as sharp as fire.
Petra went home after that, raised a defiant brow at him as he yelled at her to take her belongings and find work elsewhere, and to never come back and speak vile words to his child again.
Father grounded her. Behind her locked door from her window, she watched Petra go up the hill and vanish, her elbow on the sill. It felt as if they had not shared the entirety of their lives in a night’s blossom and languish. All was normal again.
The following night, a new gardener worked. Seven days passed in silence, cold stares, blooming flowers. One day, she would leave her house without a trace and find her own way, no matter how people saw her, a woman alone but free. Determined to do this, she came back from supper on the eighth night. She was preparing for her father’s annual evening ball when she found a single lisianthus on her windowsill.
It was withered.
- What Could Be - July 29, 2024
