Chapter 2 #2
My hedge has a dent. Two dents. Both from my hands.
I release the boxwood. Step back. Straighten my tee shirt.
She's still grinning.
The dents in my hedge require emergency corrective pruning.
I retrieve the hand shears from hook eleven, kneel at the eastern face, and begin reshaping the compressed boxwood with small, precise cuts.
Each snip restores a centimeter of dignity.
The shears are Japanese carbon steel, hand-forged by a bladesmith in Kyoto who understands that a clean cut is a moral act.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
"Hey! Flynn!"
Snip.
"Flynn, I know you're behind there. I can see your head. You're very tall and the hedge has dents."
I keep cutting. The boxwood will recover. I will recover. Order will be restored.
Footsteps in grass. Not my grass. Her grass, which is more weed than grass, more chaos than lawn. The footsteps approach the fence line, and then something heavy scrapes against wood.
"I'm putting something on the fence for you."
I do not respond. Subsection 4.2.3 of the neighborhood covenant clearly states that fence-line interactions should be conducted during designated community hours, which are Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon.
"It's an apology."
The word lands strange. Unexpected. I pause mid-snip.
"I was a jerk about the fertilizer thing. I mean, you were also a jerk about the laminated list thing, and the nail gun thing, and the seventy-five-dollar fine thing, but I started it with the fertilizer cloud, so."
A grunt escapes me. Involuntary. Acknowledging nothing.
"Anyway, I'm giving you a plant."
No.
"It's a really nice one."
Absolutely not.
"It's a Verdant Cascade vine. Super rare. I grew it from a cutting I got from a witch in Vermont who owed me a favor. It's gorgeous, Flynn. Deep green leaves, almost the same shade as your—" A pause. "As your lawn."
I stand. The shears hang at my side. Through the gap where the hedge meets the fence, a sliver of traffic cone orange.
"I don't want a plant."
"Too bad."
The pot appears over the fence. Not placed.
Shoved. Two hands push a terracotta vessel as big as a basketball up and over the six-foot cedar planks with a grunt of effort.
The vine inside is already moving. Green tendrils spiral outward from a thick central stalk, leaves unfurling in real time like small fists opening.
The pot teeters on the fence top, rocks once, twice—
It falls.
My body moves before my brain authorizes the action. Shears dropped. Three strides. Hands up. The pot lands in my palms with a solid thump that sends vibrations up through my forearms and into my shoulders. Soil crumbles over my fingers. A tendril wraps around my right wrist.
I hold it at arm's length. The vine pulses. Actually pulses, the stalk thickening and thinning in a rhythm that mirrors a heartbeat. Two leaves brush my thumb with a texture like damp velvet.
"See? She likes you!"
"It's touching me."
"That means she's bonding. Verdant Cascades are very affectionate."
The tendril tightens on my wrist. Another one reaches for my elbow.
"It's climbing my arm."
"She's just saying hello! Don't be rude."
I peel the tendrils off with my free hand. They resist. One makes a sound. A tiny, high-pitched whine, like a puppy being denied a treat.
The pot goes into the quarantine zone. Every yard needs a quarantine zone.
Mine is a three-by-three concrete pad behind the garage, bordered on all sides by a gravel buffer, equipped with drainage, and designated specifically for the containment and assessment of unknown biological materials.
I built it my first week here. People said it was paranoid.
Those people don't live next to a florist with enchanted inventory.
I set the pot dead center on the concrete. Step back. The vine reaches for me. I step back further. It strains, tendrils stretching six inches beyond the pot's rim, leaves fanning open like desperate hands.
"You stay."
The vine droops.
"That is not going to work on me."
It droops further. One leaf curls inward, protective.
I go inside. Lock the back door. Wash my hands twice, inspecting for sap residue, spores, magical contamination. Clean. I dry my hands on the designated hand towel, which hangs from the designated hook, and breathe.
The daisy in my walkway is nine inches.
The crash wakes me at 3:47 a.m.
Not just one crash. A staccato clatter, like dozens of wooden legs on concrete, spreading across a hard surface in every direction.
My feet hit the floor. Boots on. I don't bother with the lights.
Muscle memory carries me down the hallway, through the kitchen, to the back door. The motion sensor floods on.
The quarantine pad is empty. Overturned pot. Spilled dirt. No vine.
The front yard.
I round the corner of the house and stop.
Pink.
Bright, hideous, neon pink. Dozens of them. Plastic flamingos, the cheap gas-station kind with wire legs and painted eyes, standing in my lawn in no discernible pattern. They cover the grass like a pox. Forty. Maybe fifty.
One turns its head and looks at me.
Its painted eye blinks.
Then it lowers its beak and pecks my grass. A clean divot appears. A perfect circle of exposed soil in two and three-quarter inches of flawless green.
They're all pecking.
Across the fence, every light in her house is dark.