Blooming

“Anthos, where are you? Anthos?”

I stop panting immediately, my long tongue held between my teeth. Maybe if She can’t hear me, She can’t find me.

There is a clatter behind me, in the cottage, a general rummaging and clanging, then the opening and closing of several doors. Inevitably, the screen door to the porch finally opens.

“Anthos.” The disappointment in her voice curls around my ears, making them crumple and lose their pinprick triangle shape.

“You know you’re supposed to stay inside.” She’s in front of me now, her hands on her hips.

I sigh and look past Her, at the meadow in front the porch, with its sea of green and turquoise grasses, flowers floating in it like colorful ships. A hare could easily be hiding in there, or even, dare I dream, a squirrel! I give Her my best pout, letting the bottom of my eyelids go slack, revealing a thick crescent moon of white. Don’t make me, please.

“There’s work to be done! The village is depending on us.”

I blink once, very slowly.

“Enough, Anthos. You know what will happen if we don’t complete the charms.”

Actually, I don’t. I’ve always been a very good familiar. I have been careful and dutiful and helpful, never disobeying her rules. But the meadow…

My eyes shift behind Her again.

“The meadow will be here when you get back.”

That is both true, and not. Yes, the land will be here, the physical space. But the meadow, as it is now, will have changed by the time we return from the charm-making process. There will be no flowers, no rabbits, no life of any kind, just snow. Cold and endless, dreadfully foreign for a creature like me. I am not meant for the winter.

I lick one of my paws, considering all of this, gently aligning the petals that curve over my toes, one petal per claw. They are soft and cool on my tongue, even though I’ve been sitting in the sun. I’m told that they are powdery blue, though to me they are more of a shimmery gray.

“You’ve had six whole weeks here in the sun, Anthos,” She says, more softly now, although her voice is still a little sharp. “I told you yesterday was the last day.” She reaches out and touches one of the brilliant green leaves on my shoulder, hanging on the vine that has taken up residence around my neck. I can feel her fingers on the leaf, pressing it, testing it. I’ve been fully grown for a whole week now, not that I would tell Her.

I sit up and put one paw on her arm, the yellow pollen from my pawpads smearing down her wrist. Please. Just once. I motion to the meadow with my snout, wagging my tail, which is more of a fern now. The fronds brush against the wooden planks of the porch.

“If you go out there, all of this precious pollen,” She says, pointing to the golden specks on her arm, “will be wasted. We need as much of it as possible for the charms. You know this.”

My tail stops wagging. I only know that She has told me this, every year, yet we’ve never tested it. What would it feel like, I wonder, to run in the meadow? Would the downy brome grass feel soft under my paws, like the earth’s own velvety fur? Would the flowers smell as sweet as they do from here? Would the petals be as light and satiny as the ones covering my paws? What would it be like, to run in a place that was meant for me?

I try to think of the villagers. I do. I think of the worn faces and empty sacks of flour and the thin, scraggly cows that She tells me about. But what about – I dare – me? Must happiness, and freedom, always be the price? Must I always be the one to pay it?

“I don’t like you being so silent, Anthos.” She stands up, putting her hands back on her hips. She sounds more irritated now. “Come on. We have to go.”

Just one time. Surely, I won’t lose too much pollen. I will be quick. Yes, a fast romp around the meadow, maybe just a little chase. I think I see the white dandelion tail of a hare, after all…

“This cursed meadow,” She sighs to herself, rubbing her brow, “every damned year.”

My tail starts wagging again, choosing to ignore Her. The meadow is anything but cursed – it is the most wonderous thing to me. For the last two summers I have been thinking of nothing else. I have laid here, quietly and obediently, day after day, letting the vines split open my shoulder blades and ripen along my back, the leaves growing plump and watery like squashes. I have stepped carefully and slowly each day, careful not to rip a single petal above my paws. And all of that time, all that I have wanted to do, all that I have yearned for, is to run in the meadow. Just once.

I stand up, my mind set. Today is a day for testing limits.

“Anthos…” She warns, her attention snapping back to me. “Anthos, no. We need to go into the cauldron room. The charms have to be started today.”

I look at Her for a moment. I am not angry – She has allowed me to sit in the sun all these weeks, after all. And I have seen kindness in her eyes, here and there, like clouds passing. She has given me food and shelter and even strokes on my forehead when the storms make me shake. But there is one thing that She cannot give me; I know this now. One thing I must take.

I take one step forward, the point of my shoulder aligning with her cheek. The meadow, my freedom, all just beyond…

“The meadow,” She says, her voice serious and low now, “is just there to help you grow. Isn’t looking at it enough? Go inside. Now.”

I cock my head at Her. What does that mean? My tail wags as the hare emerges from behind a distant bush.

She looks between me and the hare. Suddenly, she raises her hands, the thumbs and forefingers forming a triangle. “Don’t make me do this, Anthos.”

Do what? I do not understand. I take another step, gently pushing Her aside, my eyes locking onto the hare’s twitching whiskers.

“Anthos, rex florem, tibi impero ut maneas!”

I still do not understand, but suddenly I can’t move forward. The hare darts back into the bush. There is a pull, a strong one, grasping at my vines and leaves and petals, tugging me back to the cottage. My claws clamber at the wood, but it is no use – I am being forced backwards, towards the door as it slams open.

“Help!” I bark at Her, “something is happening!” I yelp in fear, then horror, as I see the trail of pollen my paws are leaving as they slip across the planks. “The pollen! Something is wrong!”

It is not until I meet her eyes that I understand – She is doing this. There are no clouds there, only darkness, her irises murky and black.

“I have kept you alive all this time, given you all of this,” She hisses, throwing her chin to the meadow behind us, “and this is how you repay me? By trying to escape?”

Her snarl makes my ears melt into my skull, my tail pinch between my hind legs. Instinctively, I crouch, slipping back further.

“I’m sorry!” I bark. I don’t understand. “I won’t try to leave. I promise. I will never go into the meadow. Please, I am afraid!”

“Oh, shut up!” She snaps. “You talk to me as if we are friends. Equals, even!” Her laughter is sharp and cold. “I am tired of all of this. Of you. It is time for this spell to end.”

I whine, my heart twisting and churning inside my chest. Surely She cannot mean this. I think of all the seasons we have spent together, the snow and the heat and the faint glimmers of her smiles that were just for me. Weren’t they? There is a wind now, a gale force that rips at me, pulling off petals and leaves. I yip in pain as blue and emerald fragments swirl in the storm.

“They told me to leash you,” She yells over the wind, her grin like flint, “but I knew there was never a need. You could never run from me, Anthos. And you will never run in that meadow. I control you, and I will end you.”

She was never my friend, I realize, all those memories and moments turning cold. Something inside my heart tears, finally, ripping open at the seams like a couch cushion, spilling out seeds. So many seeds.

They run through my blood in an instant, sprouting everywhere in my fur, new plants and grasses and fronds and – I gasp – weeds! I never knew I was capable of such a thing, but here there are, their spiny tendrils budding at my elbows, my flanks, behind my ears. They grow quickly into cockleburs and thistles, pushing their way to Her with spiky arms raised high.

I see a look of surprise flash across her face – She did not know this could happen, either. It is proof that She does not know everything about the world, about the way things must be. About me.

A new strength surges through me, brightening my vines, regrowing my leaves. I feel the wind start to lessen, then stop, as my weeds grow tall above Her, encircling her wrists, her shoulders, her throat. They pull her hands apart.

We stand there, staring and reeling, for a moment.

“I have always done as you asked me,” I bark, finally, surprised at the intensity of my own voice, “without question, without concern for myself. I just wanted…the meadow…” I start to falter, mind still spinning.

“The meadow?!” She cackles, as if the idea is absurd. “I only created it to make you sprout. If I had a choice, I would have kept you in the cauldron room, like any other ingredient.”

Her strange words slash across me. All this time, I’ve been waiting, so patiently – I thought we were partners. I thought I was part of something worthy and good. I look at the horizon, the line of rooftops of the village that I have never been to.

“The villagers…the pollen…” I bark softly, almost a whine now. I search her face, but there is only fear, and it is only for herself. “All these years, the charms…we were helping. Weren’t we?” In her dark eyes I see the answers, and they pierce into me.

She sets her jaw, smug and resolute.

“I was made for beauty and growth and life,” I cry, clinging to this one core belief, desperately needing to reclaim it. “I trusted you.”

I look at Her, trying to decide what to do. Her eyes shift this way and that, looking for ways to escape.

I realize, then, that if I let Her go, She will hunt me, or, perhaps worse, find another like me. She will trap them in the same lies, use their gifts. My heart, crushed in my chest, wishes for peace, but still feels the singe of her wickedness, of all the days I have lost already. A betrayal I would not wish on anyone.

I consider my new weedy vines, coarse and brackish green around her throat and wrists. I am made for beauty and growth and life. I command the vines to let go.

Immediately, her hands snap back together, making the triangle, the wind picking up as She smiles once again. I use the vines to anchor myself to the porch, letting the wind grow faster and faster, whipping at our faces and bodies. I do not mind; I don’t have any petals left to lose.

When it is so fast I can barely see, I do two things, at the same time: I let go of her shoulders, and I take a step to the side.

In a moment her body is flung through the open porch door. I know the cottage like the back of my paw – I imagine Her going down the hallway, straight back to the cauldron room. I hear a heavy crash, of metal against bone, and then screaming, and then nothing. The faint sizzle of skin becoming vapor curls into my nose as I turn to the door, making sure it is not another one of her tricks.

But it is done. My spiky vines recede slowly back into my veins, letting go of the porch, of my anger, of her darkness. My tail sags against the floor, wilted and battered. I did not want it to be this way.

I mourn the friend She could have been.

I grieve the peace and lightness I knew before this betrayal.

I wish She could have been good.

Yet I also know that I have prevented suffering this way, of many others. I cannot rejoice death, but I decide that I can look onward. I must, if I am to survive.

The meadow!

I turn around, a slight guilt sloshing in me, tail wagging again slowly, hopeful and almost excited and – wait.

There is no meadow.

In front of me, on the porch that I have sat on for two years, there is nothing but dust. Grey and chalky and devoid of color. No grasses, no flowers. Just dust, on and on, as far as I can see, until the village rooftops at the horizon. Those remain the same.

I am flooded with a new, heavier grief, my heart threatening to burst once again and this time the burs may just take over. I understand her words now and realize that the meadow was never real. It was just another part of her trap, perhaps the most important one: it had kept me growing, had brought me hope for one day. But in destroying Her, I destroyed that as well.

I walk down the steps, their boards foreign under my paws. How long I yearned to do this, to be free, to escape my post! Yet now I am here, and there is nothing but this endless sand.

Defeated, I lay down in the dirt, my elbows sinking in. It is hot and gritty but I don’t care anymore. There’s nothing left to care about. My only friend turned against me, forced me to extinguish Her. My purpose in life has been ripped from me. I look down at my paws, at the scraggly petals. I can feel that these will not regrow.

Turning one foot over, I am surprised to see that a good deal of the pollen has remained, glowing along the edges of my pawpads. All this time, I could have run after all.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see color – I can see color! It is a shocking orange, vibrant against this desert. The flash of pigment becomes wings, tiny and frail, beating in the sunlight, floating down to land on my paw. I flinch and the creature flutters, then settles again, its tiny footsteps unperceivable on the bottom of my pads. It does not seem to want to harm me, and it is so beautiful. I decide to let it stay. I watch in awe as it brings out a long tongue-like structure and licks up a pollen particle, the golden spore stark against its black body. Then it flies away, as gentle and quiet as it came.

Suddenly, I hear the soft purr of many, many wings, and looking up I see thousands of the tiny creatures, some orange and black but others having yellows and greens and blues. A sky of flying flowers.

They spiral down toward me, toward my overturned paw, landing with a softness and kindness that makes my leaves relax and my vines loosen, before taking off again, each with a bit of pollen. It is as if they are merely messengers, transporters. I have a feeling, somehow, that this is how it should be.

I overturn all of my paws, one at a time, until they are dry and grey again, no more pollen. I don’t feel empty, though, not like I used to when She made the charms. I feel good and light and free, weightless.

I close my eyes as the raindrops start, dewy and cool against my grassy fur. I don’t know if I am creating them, or someone else. I don’t care. I stand and feel the rain pour down the veins of my leaves, into my shoulder blades where more seeds start to rush to the surface, out of my heart – not because it is broken, this time – but instead because it is open. More open than I have ever felt before.

The rain comes faster and faster and I open my eyes, delighted to find green sprouts everywhere, covering the dust and pushing upwards, new foliage and grasses coming up all around me. The fluttering creatures return, landing here and there, brushing everything with color and pollen and the gentle breeze of their wings. Soon there are flowers springing up, too, their leafy hands reaching out to me, their freshly budded heads leaning into my own. Their stems press into me, hold me, tell me that I am not alone.

I am right where I am supposed to be, in the meadow I have grown.