What Lives in the Garden

Pearl had three children, but it was her garden she loved best. She missed the one she left behind and guarded the one in this cold country. She thought of the two in the singular. Her garden was full of blooming plants, though it took far more coaxing here to get the ground to bear fruit. This was true even for the hot peppers that she had a talent for growing. Like so many gardeners, she was patient. And she was proud, too, because she alone in this place of ever-changing seasons could grow the special plants from her old land that she’d had to leave because the tides kept rising and the soil kept washing away.

She focused on the plants in her new garden. She learned to become good with malleable things. Such gentleness when she twisted the soft stems around the stakes she fashioned from her own discarded furniture. She hated waste. And look, how well her plants grew! She was pleased with them—one, most of all. The one with leaves that opened and closed that she pets with her once pretty hands. Her touch wasn’t meant to disturb the darling little being that lived within. It was just small reminder so that the creature inside didn’t forget that it was she who ensured that this plant thrived, and that she chose gentleness when gentleness was uncommon.

My, but how lovely the lavish flowers were! As colorful as they were in daylight, it was nothing compared to how they shone at night. This was something her children didn’t know. Her children, such well-cared-for things, spent their nights dead asleep in their beds with iron frames and the softest mattresses. Their bedding was unlike what she had as a child. She’d made do with a mattress stuffed with dried coconut fronds. She hated it. And she hated the house she grew up in most of all. That house with its termite-eaten wood and the roof that leaked and let in the horrid rain flies that the ugly frogs outside ate. That house kept very little out. She supposed it was why she’d learned so much. She would never live in such a splinter-filled place again.

But softness, such a steady supply of softness, could be dangerous. It was why her children never woke up to see her garden at night and learn its secrets.

“Come! See the garden in the starlight. It’s at its prettiest at night. You won’t learn how to do this if you don’t come and see,” she’d say in a hushed voice.

But they were always like this. Always so cold. They were more accustomed to breathing in the crisp air of this new land than she was. They weren’t disturbed by the differences that frightened Pearl. They didn’t miss, not really, the bright reds and yellows of the lush plants from their left behind place. They didn’t understand what it meant to miss something and to be lonely.

Maybe that was how she learned to grow the little plant with leaves that acted like a cautious butterfly. Tending to it filled her time. Besides, it was a reminder of her promise to never feel the sting of a sharp mattress again (among other promises). Only the plant didn’t grow like the tender ones from home. It had thick stems with soft thorns that were sharp and glistened like steel.

But the flowers were lovely. Lovelier than any she’d ever seen on her home island, even if these only opened at night. These blossoms were as big as teacups. Here, then, she was able to taste its nectar. It was worth the nip of the tip of her tongue. The nectar was bitter like aged vinegar. It suited this plant with its petals that turned to glass at night and tinkled like bells in the breeze.

Besides, she’d grown fond of bitterness. She credited her acquired taste for why she, among so few, could learn the secrets of the creature that lived in her garden. She, unlike her children, didn’t crave sweetness. Instead, she’d learned how to bottle that craving and parcel it out so that others would understand her importance to their comfort.

She could tell her sleeping children how. If only they’d listen. If only they’d visit her garden when she asked, which she did, so nicely and so often. If they listened, they’d learned that these flowers weren’t meant for bats, moths, or shiny beetles. Even here, in this land of ever-changing seasons, those special beings that dwelled in blossoms (the right kinds) could be appeased. How lucky that those strange creatures that needed sumptuousness repaid any who provided it because they refused to be indebted to anyone. The creature explained that transactions were more dignified than supplications of gratitude. If only the children would follow her when she called to them. Then they’d know, even in frost, how to enter the lushness within the plants like she did because the plants knew her.

Sometimes, Pearl didn’t mind that her children didn’t understand that they owed their soft beds and soon-to-be stone house to her. Why else didn’t she mind going to the garden alone at night which her own mother told her never to do? This is how she came to meet the creature that lived there. She, so good at spotting useful beings, offered to help it. Every night, she plied it with morsels lightly seared and covered in sweet herbs until it trusted her enough to let her into its home. In the beginning, she never used any salt nor any hot pepper. Had it been one of her children she’d have seen this as a weakness. Then, slowly she introduced it to the spices she liked best. Searing herbs and blindingly hot peppers that she grew with infinite care. The creature came to like it. Pearl suspected that it had learned that taste from the old land. Now, despite permission to enter the creature’s home, Pearl still swaddled the roots of the plant to keep it warm and misted the cobwebs with scented water to keep it humid. Just like the creature wanted. Many of its wants were like her own.

Every night. Because the creature promised to help her. This was how she’d keep the house that sheltered her children—ungrateful things, yes, but hers. She’d ensure that there was lushness here that could wrap around their ankles and wrists and remind them of warmth. Golden and burning. Because her children would endure. They were hers, after all.

The emerald-green, and golden-veined creature would help her keep her children as children. Disobedient, yes, but always close and always hers. Something to look over and remind Pearl the value of her sacrifices. Because, truthfully, she hated sacrifice. How easily forgotten it was and how often it was demanded!

The bell-like flowers rang. That tinkling sound of precious stones clinking against each other. She was needed. She kissed her sleeping children and whispered her invitation knowing that they wouldn’t hear. She glided swiftly to the garden, to her darling plants. They loved her. They listened to her and were so very, very dutiful.

Her disobedient children didn’t see the gleaming blossoms unfurling in the needle-filled hedge, nor the dandelions turning into silver globes so bright they seemed to be made of fire.

Pearl sang, gently with her creaky voice to the plants. They never laughed at her off-key singing voice. She was sensitive to the laughter of others. “Come out. I heard you calling. Keep your promise and I’ll keep mine.”

~*~

Inside some of these flowers dwelled tiny golden creatures that sometimes listened to the humans who knew how to see them, and whom the beings wished to make their presence known. They’d emerge from the flowers at night, gleaming in their loveliness. The wrong angle made them appear like fearsome insects, though others couldn’t hide their loveliness, even at an angle, and looked like jewel-toned scarab beetles. The creatures used to take flight in flickering beauty once they emerged from their blossoming homes to congregate in the night.

That was when they didn’t need to fly very far. They didn’t need to. There were so many of them, in so many lands. The creatures were beautifully dressed and excessively cared for. There were so many balls, and parties, for them to attend—all with delightful, sparkling drinks and juicy food. Everything was so close, and nothing was so very, very scarce. They couldn’t help but be immaculately presented, in elaborate gowns and dainty jewelry.

Now, there were fewer and fewer creatures. The creatures had to search for the special plants they liked to live in because the plants were dying out. Now, some clever humans started to hoard them so that only their families were offered protection by the slowly dying out beings in exchange for living in well-cared for homes.

Pearl, who listened—especially for anything that could benefit her and her family—heard these tales. She saw families barricade themselves behind beautifully designed stone walls. How the brilliant artificial light wafted from their massive houses! Those families thrummed with life. A true, safe life. Those families weren’t any different from hers even if she hadn’t been born in a stone house herself.

Besides, the difference meant that she really did care for the flowers and the little beings who lived there. She understood their desires. She respected their means of attaining their desires, much more than those stone-bred ones could. Those others were only using the beings. She saw the gentleness of the creatures (even if she believed that she was better than the beings).

Her liking them was a matter of having a common ground. It was important to have that. She shared common ground with these creatures, unlike those single-minded others. Still, she tended to the growing bitterness inside her against those gleaming creatures who helped the gated families. They should’ve been vying to help her, not the other way round.

For she’d grown that plant by herself. She’d figured out how to lace cobwebs across the branches. Figured out how to rub the stalks with herbs to seal in moisture. Figured out how to chisel out the tiny passageways in the stems by blowing in the stems so the creature and its young could move with ease.

She didn’t have excess space for fancy greenhouses nor decorated ceramic plates for offering the creatures food. No. But she grew the peppers they liked herself! She didn’t order them to be imported by specialty stores. That would’ve been easier. But she couldn’t spare the money. Luckily, she could be adaptable.

Did the being that snubbed her care that the glittery stones those richer others offered came from places she’d only ever lived in? It was only that she wasn’t from the sort that could hold and hoard those kinds of pretty things. But she gave them what she could. All that she could. The bitterness in her heart helped her then, because more than jewels, more than seasoned strange food, she could give them her time. Those cold neighbors of hers, who had only ever known properly furnished homes, would never give such to the plant-dwellers. She knew that the glowing beings, at least hers, understood that those others thought of them as lowly beings. As less than.

Common ground. It was always crucial to share common ground. But sometimes she wondered if the creature and its like knew that she also thought of them as lesser than herself, though not by as wide a margin as her neighbors surely did.

Thankfully, her thoughts were interrupted. She heard the soft and steady clack clack of the creature’s legs. It never made any effort to be quiet when arriving.

She checked. Her children hadn’t come down. They never did. They were too rooted to their comfortable beds.

She cupped the flower closest to her face and kissed it. She felt the petals tinkling under her lips. She giggled softly, thinking that in her other life, when she lived amongst the smaller version of this plant curling around her shabby home, she might’ve confused the sound for a warning.

~*~

The plant resembled—well enough—the smaller type from home, except this one was sharper and taller, resembling a rosebush in size and character. The stems were thick and its thorns were jagged. The leaves, much larger, but still opened and closed, though quicker here. The plant lacked the softness of the one with the flowers like powder puffs in the backyard of her shabby house she so despised.

But Pearl knew how to make do. She saved spider silk from that old home and kept them in glass bottles. Now, she draped these on the branches like she’d seen in the pretty houses where she used to live. She’d twisted them together and covered them with sap to make them stretchy. This made them last until it was barely any real spider’s silk left. Her yarn was so thick that it looked like real silver in the moonlight. Better yet, because of her twists tthe sort-of spiders chose her plant as this provided strong homes. So now, in each of the webs she’d strung between the stems and flowers, sat a lovely green spider that would pluck the threads and create that strange music she listened for.

It was only once Pearl heard the music that she could see that the spiders had human faces and were dressed in elaborate gowns. They had eight eyes each. Only these eyes were arranged in rows that spun like a disk on their heads making the eyes seem like a mask. They were positioned near the perimeter of the plants, at the edges of the branches like little guards. When the sort-of spiders saw Pearl they linked their upper arms, dragging their webs along. Once squished together, they stood on top of each other in the very center of the plant. They draped the thick webs over their combined bodies looking like their cocooned prey. The strands thickened and then turned blindingly brilliant before dissolving into particles.

And there, where the spiders had congregated, stood what looked at first glance like a jewel green cross between a praying mantis and a locust. It was as long as Pearl’s forearm and had pale pink eyes and periwinkle jaws.

Pearl stroked the creature. Its beauty never ceased to amaze her. How the limbs felt like velvet! How smooth the exoskeleton felt! And how pleased she was to know the word “exoskeleton.”

It stood up, so gracefully, and extended one of its limbs to touch a leaf. This leaf, unlike the others on the plant, didn’t close. The stem attached to the leaf widened like the mouth of a straw. Out poured a stream of tiny half-human, half-moth creatures that the spiders refused to eat. They spread fuzzy cloaks over their damp looking wings and fixed fur collars around their necks before jumping down on her clover lawn. Pearl waited until they made their way over the lawn looking like frost on the tips of the grass and then up to the walls of her house leaving a thin trail of hard marble in their wake. Some splayed out their cloaked wings and flattened into the glass on her windows, melding with the material until they turned into metallic frost.

Good. Her children were protected. Pearl trusted no one else but the creature, and what the creature sent, to look over her children.

She held the leaf between her palms and felt the tugging sensation that signaled she was turning smaller. Gently. Gently. The creature embraced her when she started to tremble and feel afraid. So few comforted her. She leaned into its hard body, grateful for this touch even if the creature was strange. Gently. Gently. Its jaws stroked her hair. She folded herself tighter within its many limbs.

The soft jump. The bite into the stem. The smearing of delightful sap on her body until she was completely coated. Smaller. Smaller. It kept making her smaller. But what a world it offered! What a delightful world! This wondrousness was the thing she wanted most. It was difficult to share it. That reluctance to share it kept her voice soft when she whispered nightly invites to her children that she knew they couldn’t hear.

And, oh, this world! So much of it was made of clear glass. Hard, shiny, and unbreakable. Pearl loved it with a greed that surprised her. She continued to follow the creature. She always did, for she respected that it waited until it was twice her new size before letting her in.

“Your home is always so beautiful,” Pearl said.

The creature rearranged its lower limbs so that they now resembled the spokes of a crinoline dress. Its exoskeleton shifted down like the fabric of a ballgown. Now, it had a woman’s face that looked similar to Pearl’s. Its irises were pink, and its mouth looked like an incision because it didn’t have lips. But the face was symmetrical in a way that no human one could ever be. It was so strange and so balanced that it was the most beautiful thing Pearl had ever encountered and stunned Pearl each time she saw it.

“My home well-cared for, as you know,” the creature replied in its silted way. “Come. Down here. I switched the room for the feast.”

“To the yellow one? It is so golden. It’s my favorite, you know.” Pearl added this last bit shyly, even though the creature had proven that it took her tastes into consideration.

“No. That’s for tomorrow. Today’s one is red. What you call ruby, correct?”

“Yes,” said Pearl, pleased that the creature checked with her. The creature never assumed. This helped, a little, to appease her feelings about its choice of showy clothes. Yet, the fanciness of the creature’s clothes made Pearl feel like a superior mother because it meant that she—not the creature—cared nothing for herself and only for her children. The creature’s desires could never be as pure as Pearl’s.

It asked, “Did you bring herbs?”

“A blend, yes. I spent all morning making it. The peppers don’t grow here, but today they had them at the grocery. Not the big one. One of the smaller ones. It was very interesting. I took the whole set today!” she added hastily, “It’s only because my plants just started flowering. They’ll fruit in a month or so. They sell out so quickly.”

“Isn’t that because you bought all of them?” The creature was expressionless. Its face only moved when it spoke. It never showed any emotion. This made Pearl envious. She wished that her own expression-filled face wouldn’t show others how much their words hurt her.

“Yes, but only because they are in demand,” Pearl added quickly. The creature always let her speak. It never corrected her when she misused words or made fun of her if she showed that she didn’t understand more worldly things. But its kindness made her scared that it would leave, so she continued to speak, hoping to keep it present and to stop herself from worrying about it leaving. “I have to buy them quickly and I usually buy all that they have. But the one I grow is better, of course.”

“Well, I believe that my young have started to like that pepper you use, even if it’s still too much for them. You grow the bright red ones with the wrinkles, yes?”

“Yes. Those ones. Some are green, and some are orange. The orange ones are harder to find. Only I can grow them. You’ll never find those in stores, here! I’ve looked! You like those ones the most, too. More than the children, in any case. But they need to learn to handle it. It’ll make them strong and get all their tears out.”

It never mattered to Pearl if the creature’s young like the food. The young of anyone or anything else didn’t matter to her in general. The only exception was the young of the plants in her garden. But those were hers as well. They were a better show of her skill in training than her own flesh.

“You are very thoughtful,” the creature said. “Follow me.”

There, in a room with a honey-colored door—the plainest in the hallway—were the logs of brownish-green bark and bits of juicy plants that the creature liked for Pearl to cook. Pearl was exceedingly clean. She cleaned her base counter with the rough side of a stinging nettle leaf. She washed the brittle, stalk-like things in buckets of dew that the creature had the half-spiders collect in the webs. And then, after cleaning, it was Pearl’s turn to show off her magic.

None of these creatures could season, cook, or cure the foods that they, previously, had to eat raw. Yes, some would get morsels of human ideas of treats from the richer human landowners, but she, Pearl, offered to teach the creature how to improve the things it already liked (while keeping some secrets to herself, of course!). It stayed for a few lessons, but then offered to keep Pearl on as a cook in exchange for making Pearl’s home well-preserved with stone walls and metal windows. Pearl accepted. Now, the creature was elevated amongst its peers. Its parties, what parties it could host amongst the still-dying set, served the most glorious renditions of items that the creatures preferred. Strange but still familiar. No other creature who accepted the offerings of the richer ones could boast that at their flesh-filled gatherings!

But Pearl had to work all through the night under the creature’s watchful eyes. She cooked and pickled and brined. The twigs, bark, and berries turned all manner of beautiful colors, some of which Pearl couldn’t see but knew existed because of the creature’s more discerning eyes.

There was no stove, of course. Fire and gas weren’t allowed in these halls and passageways. The creature said that would dirty the walls with soot.

It asked, “Did you think I didn’t know about fire?”

Pearl was ashamed, for she had assumed that.

“It’s dirty, is all,” the creature added.

So, Pearl used all sorts of strange sap from plants and flavored bile from the creature’s own jaws. These had the same effect as heat on well-sliced bits of plants. Pearl, though, couldn’t bring herself to touch food prepared in this fashion. Still, she trusted the taste of her creations because of the glistening bottles of marinades and sauces she’d made at home and which the creature shrunk and stored in its many cupboards.

Then, before dawn, the feast was ready. She packed party favors, small flower buds in velvet petals, for the guests. Pickles and sweets wrapped in ribbon made from rare bark and long-ago leaves. All so pretty and tasty. She wiped the packages clean of any fingerprints or palm marks like the creature requested. No trace of Pearl. The creature preferred it this way, but it always thanked her in private and always, always kept her house and her children protected.

Pearl’s voice was hoarse by now. She had spoken all night to the creature. Of all that she missed from her own long-ago home. Of all that she despised about this new place. All that she couldn’t agree with. All that she wouldn’t change. She didn’t speak, though, of the prettiness of her new house. That was too precious to discuss. But she spoke of her children and all she gave them just as she was finishing.

“It’s ready!” She called out to the creature’s young. How they swarmed! How they feasted with their strong jaws! Clack, clack, clack! She loved this show of voracious gratitude. She found it wonderful that they could rub their legs together to thank her without ceasing chewing.

This last bit she loved most of all. Her own children couldn’t do such a thing. Perhaps they wouldn’t even if they could. They’d adapted too much to the airs of this new place and its lackadaisical approach to the duty children had to their parents. But Pearl saw her children’s lack of gratitude as proof of her sacrifice and that she gave more for much, much less.

In the middle of the children’s feast, the creature approached Pearl, “It is time for you to leave.”

“Already?”

“Already. You have your own to tend to, and the guests will be arriving.”

“Will my home be stone soon? Proper stone and clear metal. The way you promised. I saw that the moths working on the wood. The prefabricated stuff.” Pearl stood straighter when she said the word prefabricated. “I know the forgetful way they build things here.”

“I know you do. Don’t fret. I never break a promise.”

“And then my children will stay, right? That’s what you said about the other children here. They need stone homes.”

“My friends, tied to those places, said so. If you keep your promise to me and make my dishes and never leave a trace, I will keep your children for you.”

Pearl sighed, “They have lovely houses. The kind of homes you dream of, if you learn how to dream properly.”

She pressed her hands against the creature’s smooth, bloodless arms. She knew that the creature wanted to eat before the guests arrived. It didn’t want to show how hungry it was. It was polite. Pearl was pleased. It meant that her food was good—she was useful to something that had manners. She liked the nightly reassurance of her value to those outside of her home.

She never hugged the creature harder than when she changed to return to her real home. But the creature was strong. It didn’t break despite her clinging embrace. Still, it stroked her cheek with a smooth limb, nipping her with the tip under her chin. Pearl loved the display of gratitude.

Back now. Pearl swiftly made her way up the stairs to check on her children in their too-soft beds. The cold, unscented air was bracing in the bedroom. They had no clue how skilled their mother was. That there were those from outside who thought her special. The ones who knew, and showed that they knew, her worth.

She pressed her lips against their foreheads. Cold and smooth like the creature’s limbs. She could see the beginnings of hard stone crawling up the easy-to-break walls and the plush carpet. How quickly the moths worked for the creature!

Stone. Encased in stone like the well-kept ones. It was a bargain. And she would pay it! Even if it meant working through the night till she was exhausted. Even if it meant that her hands were now permanently gnarled and coated in pepper so hot that she could no longer clasp her children to her breast with her bare hands.

It was worth it. For the pictures sent to her other home. To one day show them—her and her children—thriving stone. For the knowledge that her comfortable children could have that. That they were just like the others here.

And deeper still. Her exhaustion was proof that she was right. That the trade for this cold land was correct. That she’d been right to leave behind everything. Did it matter that she got the stone because of that plant she kept from that faraway land? Would her specialness dim if she shared the creature even with her young?

She touched her heart with the fingers of her now thickly gloved hands. If she pressed hard enough, she might be able to stop this line of concern. But she could swallow it. After all, it was only a feeling. Nothing more.

The feeling left eventually. It often did if she stayed still in the cold room. She turned to watch her children, still sleeping, always sleeping, as children should.

She whispered. “I gave you this. My eyes have yet to taste restful sleep. My fingers are burning from the spices. But for you, I’d be in a too-soft bed with moonlight on my shut eyelids.”

She fluffed their pillows and adjusted the temperature in their rooms. It was always best to keep the beds warmer than their much cooler bedrooms.

~*~

So you see, Pearl was the reason that there was one more well-kept house on that tidy street in that land of even better-kept houses. There wasn’t any moss in the gutters of her house. The stones in the driveway were well-washed. The door was brightly polished. She was meticulous in her care. At the right moment, just when the creature made the leaves shut, some could spot Pearl sitting in the garden, tending to the plants as she promised.

Some said that if you looked closely, at the right angle, of course, you could see that the inside of her house was coated with that sticky sap so particular to that plant. Fantastical, but in a place so clean, such things shone through.

Besides, it had to be true. For her children kept sleeping in marvelous safety. They never wandered down to see the garden, nor learned how to keep their own houses. This was, after all, Pearl’s bargain.

And she liked to keep her secrets. So she sat quietly in the thickest spots with her back toward the front yard so that no one could see what she collected from her garden nor whom she spoke to in that blooming space behind a fence that always seemed to slowly have more and more stone leaves on the iron bars. The creature knew how to keep her part of the deal.

Safe. Always safe in a home of lasting stone. The kind of material everyone knew to aim for.

It didn’t matter, not really, that her children kept sleeping. That they were ignorant of this bargain and couldn’t make similar ones. They would be just like all the other children in those other very well-kept houses sleeping in their steady, cloying softness.

How lucky for these children that they were treated with such deliberate kindness.

***

Phedra Deonarine was born in Trinidad & Tobago. She and her family moved to Canada when she was eighteen. She currently lives in the United States. Deonarine was a 2022 Winter resident at Amant, a 2021 finalist for the Miami Book Fair Emerging Writer Fellowship, a semifinalist for the 2019 Kurt Vonnegut Prize in Speculative Literature, and was longlisted for the 2019 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic (short story fiction). Her work has appeared in Event, prism international, and other publications.