Page 100 of Girls Night
“Before long, you’ll have roots and tendrils running through your veins.” The beautiful voice from earlier flits through the plants. “Leaves will sprout from your bones. Flowers will grow in your heart.”
Grinding my teeth to ignore the pain screaming through my body, I part the vegetation blocking my view. Where I find myself now is dark and damp. An underground forest. In the far corner, wooden stairs lead up to what seems to be a trap door. The old lady leans against a rose bush a few feet away. Her bony right hand gropes the wall for support.
“Where is she?” I clear my throat. It’s like I’ve swallowed sand. “Where’s Copper-Eye?”
The old woman’s lips pucker and form a crooked smile. “You waded through her in my bedroom upstairs. I always knew she would make the most luscious garden.” Her right hand dips to the rose bush beside her. She fingers the leaves. “Everyone does in the end.”
Tension gives way to irritation. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will, soon enough.”
“Who are you?” I lurch forward, doing my best to squeeze between the gap I’ve created in the plants but I only manage to wriggle my head and arm free. “And don’t give me that ‘I am you’ crap.”
“Very well.” She regards me with narrowed, ratty eyes. She’s not smiling anymore. “I am the Rose Mother. Born into this world by complete accident, many years ago.”
I relax my body and give in to the pain as it swallows me whole. The old woman’s story seems like it’s going to take a while to tell. I may as well conserve my energy where I can.
She continues, stopping only once to run her grey tongue over her teeth. “The woman you refer to as ‘Copper-Eye’ tracked me down with the intention of killing me. I begged her not to. I had only been walking this earth for eleven years at the time. I was lost, so frightened. She wouldn’t hear it.”
I shut my eyes, wishing the ache would subside. What has she done to me?
“I’m an old god, you see. A deity forgotten by most. A danger, those who still remember me might say. But then your adoptive mother and I struck a deal.”
When I open my eyes, I see she has a far-away look in her own.
The Rose Mother clasps her skeletal hands together under her chin. “If she were to protect me and raise me as her own, I would allow her into my eternal garden where she’d never die, never hurt, never want for anything ever again. And now, she’s finally at peace.” She tilts her head toward the ceiling and grins. Spittle runs down the side of her mouth. “But, a few years after she took me in, we both began to notice how my body would deteriorate — slowly at first, then rapidly. It has to do with the flowering, you see. My gift. The larger my garden, the weaker I become.”
I think of the town of Cotton Rock, devoured by nature. The man with magnolias in his face.
“After much investigation, Copper-Eye found the solution. It’s so simple, really.” She pinches the leather skin of her stomach. “What you see in front of you is nothing more than a bag of meat. The Rose Mother is the soul that brings this organ to life.” Her eyes darken. Two pits of night. “The Rose Mother can be passed on only through magic-born body after body and continue to live eternal and tend to her garden until the end of time itself.” She raises her bony arms above her head and croons. “So, Copper-Eye began to collect children in a separate home in the city. The ones she didn’t find worthy enough to study magic she raised until the time was right.” She drops her arms to her sides. Her veiny breasts wobble. “Was that simple enough for you?”
I go cold. My stomach clenches into a fist. Irritation gives way to an ill mix of dread and rage.
Simple enough? Being taken in by a bitch mage, told I’m different, that I’m to be something greater — for this? A vessel for a forgotten deity. Nothing more. Honor of all honors in deed. Copper-Eye’s eyeball winks at me from the Rose Mother’s chest. Every second that has passed since the night Copper-Eye found me in that abandoned building has been a joke, and I’ve been the butt-end of it all along.
“She took longer with you. Said you weren’t ready, then saidIwasn’t ready…” The Rose Mother grimaces and wraps her arms around her damaged body. “It was exhausting, until I decided to take matters into my own hands.” She rises now, feet hovering just above the ground. Her sickly gray hair tangles and blows in a non-existent wind as her dark eyes grow blacker still. “I’m the Rose Mother!” She howls, her voice taking on that of both male and female. “A deity! I should be out in the world, growing my garden – not trapped inside a rotting corpse while the world outside continues to forget who I am!”
She floats to where I’m caught between the plants and takes my face in her hands. “You agree, don’t you?” Her voice is back to normal. An orgasm to my ears. “Please, tell me you do.”
She lets go of my face and floats back to the rose bed. “I suppose it doesn’t matter, really. You’ll understand soon enough. Once the osmosis takes place.”
The burgeoning pain inside of me reaches boiling point and I hiss. I’m being slow-roasted from the inside-out.
In the dim of the forest room, the trap door opens, spilling light onto the steps leading up to it. A silhouette enters, climbing down the steps one by one.
The Rose Mother’s feet touch the ground and she spins around to face the figure, just as I am able to make out the light, summer dress. The mermaid hair.
“Delphi?” Electra calls out into the darkness.
“Run!” I scream, ignoring the pain as I worm my way out from the behind the plants and flowers. A root twists around my ankle, sending a hot poker up my leg. “Run, Electra! Run! And don’t come back, whatever you do!”
But it’s too late.
The Rose Mother lifts a hand and waves it in the unsuspecting girl’s direction, slamming her against the wall.
Electra yelps, but can call out no more. In the light from the open trap door, I watch as the only girl I’ll probably ever love becomes part of the wild foliage of the large room. And grows. And sprouts. And blooms.
Chapter Ten
