Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
IRINA
I ’d always had a thing for beginnings.
First days. First blooms. First cups of coffee in a new neighborhood where the pigeons don’t recognize you yet. There's a kind of hum in those moments, low and soft. It reminded me of a violin tuning under your skin.
I chased that feeling. Maybe too often according to some people.
I’d moved cities three times in the last four years. Changed my name once—not legally, just enough to feel different. I told my friends it was a branding decision. Artists can get away with things like that.
So now I was Irina Bloom.
It fit .
I worked at the Greenhouse Annex in Lower Manhattan, a museum–laboratory hybrid that smelled like soil and ozone.
I curated interactive botanical art. Living installations that reacted to movement, breath, skin temperature.
Nature met tech in a gentle combination.
The kind of work that made people slow down.
Today, a new exhibit opened: Future Flora .
Our first day… My latest piece, Regrowth , was a half-sculpture, half-plant that responded to a person’s presence.
If it liked you, the flowers bloomed. If it didn’t…
they stayed shut like secrets. It was the product of so many hours of research and work.
I couldn’t wait to see Regrowth’s reactions. It was all I could think about.
I wasn’t expecting him .
He came in around noon. Tall, sharply dressed, the kind of dark that absorbed light instead of reflecting it.
Everything about him looked… intentional.
From the black dress shirt to the matte watch on his wrist. He didn’t have the distracted posture of a tourist or the bored stance of a funder.
He stood still. Like he was waiting for something.
The moment he stepped near Regrowth , the petals tensed. I caught it from across the room—barely perceptible, but enough. The plant recoiled. That had never happened before.
I walked over, curious. “She’s not usually shy.”
He turned his head slowly. His eyes met mine. Pale gray. Cold, but not unkind. The rest of him was dark, from his raven hair to his sun-kissed skin that seemed edged in bronze. If someone wanted to transform him into a statue, he’d be—perfect.
“Maybe she’s not shy,” he said in the softest of elegant British accents that proved both tempting and hypnotic. “Maybe she’s just aware.”
“Of what?”
He studied me like he could read the answer in my eyes. “Things that don’t belong here.”
I laughed, unsure what was making me nervous, him or his words. “You don’t strike me as a nature guy.”
“I’m not,” he replied. “But I know how to respect what’s alive.” Something about the way he said it made the air around us shiver. Not awkward or electric. Just— brimming with possibility .
He left without giving his name. No card. No pretense. Then again, I hadn’t really asked him for his name, had I?
After he left, I stood there a while longer, watching Regrowth uncurl her petals again. Slowly, cautiously. Like she’d been holding her breath.
I reached out and brushed the stem with my fingers. “You okay?”
The plant didn’t answer, obviously. But there was a shift—just the faintest lean of green toward me. Familiar. Like a cat brushing past your ankle without looking at you.
I took that as a yes.
It wasn’t until I checked the visitor log later that I saw it scribbled in careful block letters.
Graven Skotos - Thanatek Industries .
Thanatek. The company was trying to buy up natural death like it was intellectual property. They dealt in digital memorials, grief engines, and predictive mortality models. And now, apparently, plant partnerships?
I should’ve rolled my eyes and moved on. But when I Googled him later in my office, not much came up.
No LinkedIn. No profile photos. No interviews. Just one blurry image from an old tech symposium, and his eyes. Watching from the edge of the crowd, not quite focused on anything that made sense.
My time to focus on him was fleeting as my afternoon filled up fast. A class of college students came through for a tour, led by Dr. Lane from NYU’s urban ecology department.
He was in his late fifties, soft-spoken and always smelled faintly of cedar.
I didn’t know whether it was his soap or something older, something earned.
He greeted me with a nod. “Ms. Bloom.”
“Doctor.”
“Your installation is stirring some very gentle arguments in the back row. Well done.”
He always spoke in that same dry, faintly amused tone. Oftentimes, I felt like he knew something that I didn’t.
“Tell them to come talk to her,” I said, gesturing at Regrowth . “She plays favorites.”
He gave a rare smile. “Don’t we all?”
The students scattered through the exhibit. A few waved their hands near the plants, whispering and laughing when they moved. One girl whispered something to Regrowth like a secret. The petals twitched, and the girl jumped back, delighted.
I loved that part of my job. The reactions.
The feeling that the world was more alive than most people gave it credit for.
It was so easy to dismiss the flora of the world if you didn’t understand how it felt, how it reacted, and how it—interacted.
Teaching others what the earth experienced was so vital.
Especially today.
Around four, the air changed again. I’d just returned from my break, but goosebumps rippled over my arms. It wasn’t cold. It was more like… pressure. I turned and saw Mara at the back of the greenhouse corridor, standing too still, the way people did when they’re trying not to be seen.
She worked in research and rarely came out of the analytics lab. When she did, she always wore black gloves—even inside. Her skin was nearly translucent, and likely to burn, so I could hardly blame her. Her voice was softer still, and you had to be close to catch it.
“Something wrong with the sensors?” I asked. That was the only reason I could imagine that would bring her up.
“No,” she said. “They’re just… picking up anomalies today.”
“Anomalies?”
“Biofield irregularities,” she added, like that explained anything.
I didn’t press. That was the same kind of language Thanatek had been using in their pitches—“biofields,” “liminal energy,” “predictive grief loops.” The sort of terminology that made art feel like something monetized with a spreadsheet.
Still, Mara lingered. Her eyes flicked toward Regrowth . Then to me.
“Has anyone touched the core stem today?”
“Just me,” I said.
A long pause. My stomach sank at the way she focused on me. I’d hardly done anything wrong .
“Be careful,” she said finally. “Some systems remember more than they should.” Then she turned and walked away, her shadow stretching longer than her body should allow. I blinked, but when I focused again, she was gone.
By five, the greenhouse was empty again. I stayed behind to recalibrate the scent diffusers in Future Flora . As I worked, the light shifted from honey-gold to the kind of deep green that only existed right before a thunderstorm.
Just as I stepped back to check my work— Regrowth opened her petals fully. All at once. No stimulus, no presence but mine. The petals trembled, then stilled, forming a perfect starburst. It was beautiful, but it was also wrong.
For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was being watched—not from across the room, but from underneath it. Like something deep in the soil had opened its eyes. Apprehension shivered over me, and I shook off the wild thoughts.
By six, the last of the lights dimmed and the greenhouse clicked into its automated sleep cycle. The misting systems whispered to life, and the plants began to breathe slower, as if they too had ended their shifts.
I packed my bag, pulled on my cardigan, and paused at the threshold of the Future Flora exhibit. Regrowth was still fully open. Still facing me.
“You’re being dramatic,” I muttered, but softer than I meant to. The room had the hush of a chapel after hours. I flicked off the final light and stepped outside into the warm press of early evening.
I usually biked home—it was faster, cleaner—but tonight I felt… off. Not in a bad way. More like a compass needle spinning when it shouldn’t. I left the bike locked in security and walked two blocks, then veered toward the subway entrance without thinking. My feet knew before I did.
The 2 train platform wasn’t that busy, which in and of itself was strange .
The crowded platforms and press of people were why I usually avoided the subway during rush hour.
Instead of standing room only, we’d probably be able to sit.
Someone hummed too loud through headphones, a man slept standing next to a column, and a woman was tapping out a text like it might save her life.
I sat on the edge of the bench, watching the rats dart along the tracks. Survivors, all of them. The scent of soil still clung to my sleeves. As the train approached, a gust of warm tunnel wind rushed up the platform, kicking up a scrap of paper and something smaller—curled and whimpering.
At first, I thought it was a piece of trash, but then it moved. A tiny puppy. More shadow than fur, black with a single white paw. Skinny and shaking.
“Where did you come from?” I crouched without thinking.
No collar. No tag. Just huge eyes and ribs like parentheses.
The puppy looked at me and didn’t bark. Didn’t run. Just tilted its head like it was trying to remember where it had seen me before. The poor thing flinched as the train screamed into the station. Doors opened. People shuffled in and out like ghosts passing through each other.
I glanced at the animal.
“This isn’t a good idea,” I whispered, but I couldn’t leave them there, so I scooped the puppy up.
Poor thing weighed nothing. A little heartbeat, fast and fragile. It licked my wrist once. We rode the train in silence. The puppy sat in my lap like it had always belonged there. No one even looked twice.
Sometimes, I truly loved this city.
By the time I reached my apartment in Williamsburg, the sky was bruised with the promise of a storm. I unlocked the door, turned on the hallway lamp, and set the puppy on the floor.
“You’re going to need a name,” I told him, as I hung up my sweater. “Temporary guest or not, you need one.” He padded after me as I went into the kitchen. There seemed to be more energy about him than had been in the subway. That helped.
I rifled through my small kitchen—a mismatched collection of takeout containers, half-empty jars, and a sad packet of oats. No fancy dog food, of course, but I managed to find a few scraps of cooked chicken from the previous night’s dinner and a small bowl I usually used for herbs.
I filled it with water, watching the puppy lap eagerly, his tiny tongue flicking like a flame.
In between drinks, I fed him small bites of the meat I’d cut up until he seemed full.
Then I cleared a corner of my living room, pulling a soft blanket from the couch and folding it into a makeshift bed.
The puppy curled up instantly, eyes already heavy, as if he’d found the first safe place in a long time.
I made tea. I watered my plants. I checked on the puppy. I should probably look up the number of a local vet. I tried to read. But my mind kept wandering back to Regrowth . To that name on the visitor log.
Graven Skotos.
I had no idea why it stuck. Maybe it was the way the syllables felt like they belonged in another language. Maybe it was the way he looked at me like I was a lock he already knew how to open.
Or maybe—it was just that I’d always had a thing for beginnings.
An obsession, or so one of my former boyfriends used to say. I was too busy looking for the beginning that came just before everything changed that I couldn’t appreciate the present. Maybe he was right.
That night, I dreamed of hands pushing up from the soil.
Not terrifying—just inevitable. Like roots trying to find their way back to something they'd forgotten.
When I woke up to the puppy’s mewling cries, I shoved the dream aside to take care of the little one.