hwango

Plants are better than people. I don't know why it would even be up for debate. Plants smell better than people, talk less than people, and never get drunk and gamble away all of your savings and then get stabbed to death in an alley before you get a chance to shout at them about this latest way in which they've ruined your life.

Given my feelings on this matter, it should come as no surprise that I live as far from town as is practical and prefer to be left alone to tend my garden in peace. There’s no one who would visit me on purpose, and I tried to discourage accidental visitors by sticking a knife in my scarecrow’s head in the hope that it would do double duty as a scareperson.

In fact, it had been so long since I’d had a visitor that when someone knocked on my door at first I didn’t recognize the sound.

“Go away!” I shouted, once I realized that the noise was someone knocking.

“I beg your pardon,” said a voice from the other side of the door, “but it is a matter of some urgency.”

“I said go away!” I shouted a bit louder.

I live pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but I do live alone and you can never be too careful, so I do have several locks on my door. All of them unlocked themselves simultaneously, and the door swung open. Standing in the doorway was a very tall pile of silver and lace. Oh, wait – there was a person under all of that after all.

Actually, maybe not a person, considering the yellow eyes and the suspiciously pointy ears. And that trick with the locks.

“Good evening, madam,” the maybe-not-a-person said. “I’m very sorry to barge in like this, but as I said, it’s a matter of some urgency.”

I was tempted to lunge for the fireplace poker, but I figured that probably wouldn’t go well for me.

“Let me say that the beauty of your roses pales in comparison to your own,” the probably-not-a-person said.

“Did you just insult my roses?” I said, indignant. “Wait, were you trespassing in my garden?!”

“No, and also no. I merely observed it from afar,” the definitely-not-a-person said. “But your garden is why I am here this evening. You are renowned throughout the land for your horticultural expertise.”

“I thought you people were supposed to be good liars,” I said.

“I assure you, the spirits themselves sing your name!” my interloper said.

“Well, I suspect that they had a tricky time coming up with a rhyme for it,” I said. He scowled at me.

“You are a thoroughly disagreeable person,” he said.

“That’s kind of you to say, but I assure you, I am immune to flattery.”

"I suspect that you are also immune to threats, so let me assure you that I am stating simple facts when I say that if you come with me and assist in a small matter that I will return you safely to your home, but if you decline your aid that I will burn your house the ground, lay waste to your garden, and imprison your soul in a bucket of tar for a thousand years."

Well then.

"Let me get my coat," I said.

He stood aside once I had my coat on and gestured for me to join him outside. It had not escaped my notice that he never actually set foot inside the house during our conversation.

Sitting in the road was an enormous coach made of black glass pulled by four huge blood-red deer with clawed feet. Both the coach and the animals were impressive and intimidating, but the really good trick was the road. Up until a few hours ago there had been nothing leading up to my house by a slightly overgrown dirt path.

I accepted his help climbing into the coach, and was dismayed but unsurprised when he followed me inside and sat across from me. The deer started us moving with no apparent prompting from my abductor.

"I have as part of my estates a truly exceptional garden, the likes of which you can scarcely imagine," he said. "It contains plants from Hell, Elysium, Terra Incognita, twelve different Faerie kingdoms, Leng, Speculous, Tenebras, and Arizona."

"You made some of those up," I accused him.

"Nearly all of my precious beauties flourish under my care, but there is one that fares poorly, and I would have you lend your expertise to see if I might rectify the situation."

"Right," I said, when it seemed he was expecting some kind of reply.

The coach stopped.

"We have arrived in my domain," he said. Well, that confirmed my suspicions about the nature of the road we were on, because there's no way this guy had an estate filled with otherworldly plants a couple of minutes from my house. I wondered if we could have gotten here instantaneously if he hadn't wanted to talk to me during the journey.

He climbed out of the coach and helped me down, and I found myself at the edge of a little pond looking at a small island. The island was covered in trees and vines and shrubs of all shapes and sizes and a surprising range of colors. Even from across the water I could hear one of the trees growling at me, and its needles quivered with malice.

"Why didn't we just go straight to the island?" I asked, ignoring this as best I could and instead eyeing the expanse of water between us and our apparent destination.

"The deer don't like to get their feet wet," my host explained.

"Okay," I said, "then why even have the garden on an island in the first place? That seems inconvenient."

"If you must know, several of the fae plants require pixies to pollinate properly, and it turns out that pixie dust is shockingly flammable. Also, a couple of the infernal plants spit lava when they bloom. It's very embarrassing to have your entire estate burn down more than once. Also, human civilization is not without its quaint charms, and it would be a shame for it to have to start over from scratch. Again."

"I see," I said. I looked around but didn't see a boat. "You're not expecting me to swim there, are you?"

"Don't be absurd," he said. He pointed, and I turned back to see a shell rising from the water. Oh, well, maybe riding on the back of a giant turtle wouldn't be so bad. No, wait, that's a monstrous giant crab. "Would you prefer to ride on the back or be carried in one of the pincers?" he asked in apparent seriousness.

"Which will you be doing?" I asked, and he laughed.

"I shall be walking."

Indeed, he just walked along besides the crab on the surface of the pond without appearing to get his shoes wet. The crab's shell was slippery and I had to hang on in a most undignified manner, but I still preferred it to the pincers.

Once we reached the island, my tormentor led me safely around the most aggressive plants until we reached my patient. It was almost as tall as I am, was composed of thick, fleshy lobes, and was covered by a fantastic array of spines as long as my thumbs. It did look rather listless, though.

"It's a cactus," I said. My host nodded in agreement.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" he said, but this was clearly a rhetorical question, as he continued speaking without pause. "I sing to it every night and read it poetry every morning, but still it withers. I don't know what else to do."

"Do you ever water it?" I asked. He looked at me like I was crazy.

"It's a cactus," he said.

"Yes, we established that just recently, but do you ever water it?"

"Of course not."

"Even cacti need water now and then. Not as often or as much as other plants, but still." I explained a few other things about soil type, sunlight, and such, but the gardener seemed to have all of that in order already. "Okay, problem solved. Now, that terrifying bramble thing over there," I said, changing the subject, "the one that sounds like it's whispering about how I will die. Does that live on poetry and songs or does it drink the blood of the innocent or something?"

"Well, it will happily drink all the blood it can get its thorns into, innocent or not, but it can get by on sunlight, dirt, water, and being read the occasional obituary. Why?"

"Do you suppose I might take a cutting? I think I have the perfect place for it."

My scareperson could use some backup. I really do hate having visitors.