Work Text:
There's something strange about our garden.
It started with the mulch, I swear. Mom said the oak mulch would be great. "No way is Brenda beating me out for the garden competition this year," she said, "And this ought to do just the trick. Mr. Groselby told me himself."
She put down the mulch, then, watched it get ground herself from the big old tree in the middle of the meadow. I used to climb that tree with Joshua, my big brother, when I was younger. It was a good tree. The miracle tree.
Maybe it wasn't the mulch. Maybe it was the tree.
The trees in our garden now blow in a different wind. The wispy red leaves of our former willow tree flutter when it's quiet and hang limp on gusty days. The feathers on what used to be a maple are falling in midsummer.
When I stand in the garden at night I could swear I hear whispering in a language I don't recognize.
I could swear there are new plants in our garden. One has buds that look like eyes; another seems to glow softly in the dusk. There is something dangerous at the heart that I don't want to know.
There are swelling fruits on the feather tree.
I wonder what will happen when they ripen.