Chrysanthemum

First published in Chlorophobia by Ghost Orchid Press.

Jonquil did not care for conversing in words. She found them too small, too insufficient for the emotion she wished to convey with them. Her words never seemed to come out right, and the frustration was so great, she rarely bothered to try at all.

She wished she were her namesake, the flower. Free of the constraints of spoken word, plants express themselves through action: to wilt if they are thirsty, to burn if the sun is too hot. It was a language in which she was delighted to find herself able to reply: to water or to move out of the sun, to show understanding and compassion and love.

Beyond the simple communications of basic needs, she discovered that, when her plants trusted her, they began to tell her more. She was far from the first to uncover this — books full of the secret language of flowers had come into fashion years earlier — but she did not need lists written by human hands to learn the hidden truths of her plants. The pink larkspur, cheeky and inconstant, was fickleness. The hundred-leaved rose, regal and imposing with its head held high, was pride. Some of them were more complex, like the passionate European sweetbrier’s desperate declaration, “I wound to heal.” The earnest yellow jonquil, of course, she intuited immediately: “I desire a return of affection.”

Jonquil knew her garden inside out; she listened to the murmuring soil in harmony with the soaring, singing flowers, and watched the subtle movements of her plants, their leaves like yearning arms reaching out for her. She chose each seed carefully, creating meaning in the arrangement of their beds. Nightshade and pansy, for clarity of mind, or Christmas rose and olive trees, for peace and tranquillity. There was no more perfect joy in the world to her than the kind companionship of the friends she chose.

It was surprising, then, to one day see a flower she did not remember planting. In the back corner of the garden, tucked behind the red hand-flower trees, was a bush with bright pink flowers. It was a surprising shade, so vibrant and powerful she almost winced to look at it. Though she had not invited it, she saw the beauty and strength in it, and was curious enough to welcome the new arrival. Kneeling beside it, she reached for its petals. Suddenly, a sour note flushed through her, chilling her to the bone despite the bright morning light.

Rhododendron. “Beware.”

Frowning, she rose and went to the shed. When she returned with a shovel in hand, the bush was gone. She tried to put it out of her mind, sitting amongst her moonwort and scarlet geraniums, but the memory followed her. The next day, before she looked at anything else, she returned to the corner behind the hand-flowers, but there was nothing there. She checked again the next day and the next. She began to believe she had dreamed it, that it was a conjuration of her subconscious mind that had mistakenly crossed worlds in her memory. She planted a juniper — protection — in the back corner, and thought nothing else of it.

The day after she planted the juniper, she went to the back of the garden to check on it. The juniper was gone. In its place grew a delicate white American starwort. “A welcome stranger,” it said, but Jonquil sensed something she had never felt from a plant before: dishonesty. She had always believed the messages she perceived from her plants were the pure expression of their unique identity, a signal not chosen by the plant itself but an unconscious beacon of their inner being. Now, she began to doubt.

In terror she sat in her garden, looking at all the plants she had nurtured and grown, wondering if she truly knew any of them at all. The globe amaranth’s undying love gripped her throat with tendrils of obsession. Hydrangea, the boaster, laughed in fiery glee, daring Jonquil to best it. Indian jasmine twisted around her wrists, its amiable companionship turned in an instant to demanding imprisonment.

She spent days inside, avoiding the garden. From outside, she could hear them whispering, aching for her to return. Holding her breath, she chanced a glance out the window to the garden’s back corner. Laurestina. “I die if neglected.” A dark, bitter feeling rose in the back Jonquil’s throat. She hoped so.

The garden erupted with rage and sorrow. Stems drooped, petals browned, leaves withered, and yet, Jonquil stayed inside. The cacophony of snapping branches and howling flowers seemed to echo off the walls around her. She locked every door and hid herself in bed under the dark of her quilt, but still she could hear the garden screaming.

The day it fell silent did not feel like a relief. In the quiet, she could hear each beat of her heart, though it sounded as if it came from beneath the ground, through layers of soil. She walked to the door, her fingers hesitating on the doorknob, and stepped outside. Wind whistled through the dead and rotting trees, knocking the flowers’ stems together as it pushed them aside. The garden was a sea of sickly yellow, tansy and coltsfoot and birdsfoot trefoil: war, vengeance, justice. As she made her way to the back corner, she trod on the remains of the flowers she had so lovingly raised, their decaying stems and wrinkled, bleached petals like bones beneath her feet. The garden’s murmuration was a low buzz, an electric current that shocked her fingertips and coursed angrily through her nerves. In the back corner, a flash of red-violet wavered in the breeze.

Bleeding Heart. “Come with me.”

The red flowers disappeared in a sudden flood of yellow. Jonquil felt thin vines wrap around her limbs and pull her down to her knees. The ground no longer felt solid; it moved constantly beneath her, as choppy as a stormy sea. She tried to scream, but no sound came out as her lungs filled with dirt.

Seemingly overnight, a garden full of roses burst forth from the grounds that had one been Jonquil’s. Neighbours and passers-by were somewhat relieved by its typical beauty; much better, they all agreed, than whatever strange combinations the silent girl who once lived there put together. But for those who hear the flowers’ secrets, the garden is not quite so innocuous. Of all the many bushes in the garden, there is only one kind of rose.

Maiden’s Blush. “If you love me, you will find out.”