39. THE CREATURE
THE CREATURE
Olivia fell asleep on the crimson red couch in her old living room under the iridescent flickers of light reflecting off a dozen suncatchers.
After her cat nap, she shuffled through boxes which migrated from her room into the rest of the house.
She came across notebooks filled with poems and stories.
She found fruit flavored lip balms and colorful butterfly hair clips.
She lined up her collection of tiny ceramic unicorns along the windowsill behind the kitchen sink.
There was an ache in her chest.
Isabel and Lucia sorted through old mail and piles of Isela’s clothes, perfume, makeup, and a heap of slippers.
Rebecca and Yvette packed up dishes and silverware.
Olivia found herself gravitating toward the wall at the end of the hall.
She softly stroked at the wall with her fingers and then sniffed her hands for residue of green ash.
The door was no longer visible, but there was a constant knocking on the other side, in quick spurts of four.
TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP. Olivia asked her sisters if they could hear it and they shook their heads as they both heard nothing.
Olivia ventured through the back garden and found a new mossy door outlined on the back of the house.
It was next to the rose bush bursting with bundles of pink ruffled blooms. The arched doorway was no taller than her hips.
Moneywort reached out from under the door.
English ivy snaked above the arch like a crown.
Olivia got down on her hands and knees and crawled through.
The entryway was soft, almost velvet. Water trickled and echoed inside.
A white light beamed through the end of the tunnel.
Fireflies gleamed and flew around her head.
Ostrich ferns caressed her arms along the way.
Blue pinkgill mushrooms sprouted above and dusted Olivia with neon pink spores.
When she got through the tunnel, she was soaked in copper colored water and red mud.
She found herself inside of The Inflorescence again and it felt like she was visiting an old friend.
In the center of the room, the trunk of a massive redwood shot through the rounded ceiling.
The knocking started again. TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP.
Over and over. Fast and hollow knocks. Olivia stuck her ear to the trunk.
A heartbeat echoed. Bah-bum, Bah-bum. She peeled the bark with her hands until they stung from bleeding.
She moved to using her teeth, tasting the bark, and then spitting it on the ground until she got to something fleshy inside.
She poked at it and it left a slimy mucus-like substance on her fingers.
A small translucent hand reached out. The hand was light green, the nails were ocean blue flower petals, and bits of moss spotted the top of the hand.
Olivia tore at the tree again which began coming apart as though it were eggshell and she reached inside and pulled at the body inside until a squelch signaled that the tree was giving way.
A groan emerged from under the earth followed by a gurgling and then a deep rumbling which shook Olivia, causing her to stumble onto her knees.
She picked herself and backed away from the redwood as a fracture in the trunk opened bigger and wider.
A gangly creature slid out with a pile of afterbirth following behind.
Olivia's eyes widened as the creature felt familiar.
Olivia got down on her hands and knees and motioned for the creature to come closer to her.
The creature obliged. It squirmed over to her like an inchworm.
The creature now at her knees, smelled like sweet pea flowers mixed with a milky essence.
The creature didn't cry or grunt or whine. The birthmark on the back of the creature's neck was in the shape of a leaf and the scars on her right knee welted permanently into the shape of a spiral. It was another version of Olivia. She was maybe three or four. They had the same deep brown eyes and intense eyebrows, but the creature’s eyelashes were long and blue and pointed toward the sky. The creature’s mouth was the bloody red opening of a Venus flytrap.
Her head was bald, but hundreds of monarch butterflies landed on it to make it look like blinking hair.
Her feet were small paws with little black splotches.
She even had a curling tail which looked like a fiddlehead fern.
Olivia held the creature in her arms and sang to her.
Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, go to sleep. Go back through your portal, and don't you dare weep.
She gently stroked her head and let the butterflies flutter around and land on her.
A droning buzz took over the room. The redwood disappeared into green powder and dusted everything in sight.
The room shifted into a shoreline. Ocean water foamed at the edge of Olivia’s feet.
The cerulean sky above them burst with perfectly round bright white clouds.
A warmth settled into Olivia's chest. She cradled newly-born-creature-Olivia as the ocean waves murmured and then roared in tumult and flow.
She caressed her slimy face with the back of her hand.
She fed the creature wentletrap shells and helmet shells.
She watched the sun set and bleed pink and orange onto her and the creature.
In the glow of golden hour, Olivia wondered if The Inflorescence ever gifted Isela something as delicate and enchanting as this.
Welcome to this world, you beautiful darling thing. Here are the things you should know:
I know you didn't choose to be here and for that, I am sorry.
The oak trees will watch over you.
The house will embrace you.
Some of the ghosts will try to haunt you, but they get bored easily and will leave you be.
I will bring you offerings every year.
On our birthday.
You cannot leave this room and for that, I am sorry.
I will come back to visit you and see how you’ve grown.
I will love you as much as I can love myself.
I will love you with no expectations of you loving me back.
Thank you for being born.
Thank you for existing.
Thank you for being a part of me.
***
Olivia kisses the creature on the forehead and a memory floods her: She’s tiny.
She’s four-years-old and she’s barefoot.
A voice is calling her name from the forest behind the house.
A trail of fuzzy moss leads her to the river.
At the edge of the serene water, a black-billed magpie drops a wriggling earthworm with an iridescent epidermis into her palm.
The magpie tells Olivia a story about a girl with a wild imagination growing from the earth’s soil and blooming into a poppy.
When the poppy dies, the spirit of the poppy haunts wildflower fields around the world until she finally finds what she’s looking for.
A place of her own. A bright green field where the poppy thrives alone.
A splotch of color amongst blades of electric green grass.
Inside of Olivia’s palm, the earthworm transforms into poppy petals.
Olivia shoves them into her pocket where they turn to green ash.
We were meant to meet. The room was meant for you and me, little Olive.
A remnant of her mother’s voice.
Olivia watches as the creature in her arms falls completely still.
Olivia listens to her soft breathing. She listens to some kind of thunderous thumping inside of the creature’s chest and Olivia wonders what kind of plant is sitting where the creature’s heart should be. Olivia names the creature, Fern.
She asks The Inflorescence to show Fern neon auroras and star filled skies.
Fern watches the colors above. Olivia waits until she knows Fern won’t follow her out.
She finds the door that leads her back into the house where Lucia and Isabel watch, confused by this new door and Olivia smothered in a vivid green powder.
Olivia coughs out poppy petals which are warped by the warmth of her throat.
At the base of her spine, just under the skin, the furled fronds of a fern begin to sprout.
Olivia feels a tickle and scratches at it.
The Inflorescence will call Olivia back and Olivia will follow.
She feels the bubbling of maternal instinct toward the creature left behind.
It will be year after year of watching her grow into a girl who will only know warmth, watching as Fern embraces the wilderness of her birth, the impossibility of her existence, and the undeniable feeling of the all-consuming love a child can have for their mother.