Green Thumb

His ankles ached. He tried shifting them to no avail. She had tied them together tightly. The fraying rope bit into his flesh like an angry guard dog. He watched as she walked up and down rows of saplings, watering can in hand and a dissonant whistle on her lips. She acted as if he didn't exist; as if he wasn't tied up in a hothouse in the middle of nowhere. She would occasionally describe the rooting system of this and the variegation of that. At first, he thought she was speaking to him but realised that she was simply thinking aloud.

The hothouse was dark, overshadowed by weeping trees that stood beyond its crying walls. The room was too small for all the overgrown vegetation it housed. It was sure to burst at any moment. Against one pane stood a water-logged trestle table on which various odds and ends, a pair of shears, a tower of empty orange and green buckets and paper seed bags were scattered. Underneath it sat a first aid kit.

“Time for lunch my dear,” she said, finally acknowledging him. “Our babies are hungry.”

She walked over to a vine and plucked a blushing tomato that hung from its branch like a bauble on a Christmas tree. She bit into the ripe fruit, revealing a mouth of crenellated teeth. He could see the tomato turn to pulp through gnashing gaps, red spittle running down her chin. She grinned at him.

“This one was young when we found him, maybe 12? Our memory been failing for years,” she said, pulp slopping in her mouth. “He was lookin' for his ball or some'ing. Walked right in he did.”

His stomach churned with realisation.

“Normally take 'em years to rot, but we has special friends that help,” she stepped over to the small cabinet that stood next to the table, opened a drawer and pulled out a jar brimming with worms of every colour. “Hello babies,” she said, tapping the glass.

“Trick is ta let 'em feed on the live ones.” She stuck her forefinger and middle finger in the mouth of the jar, felt around for a moment before pulling out a fat, red worm. The thing writhed between her digits as she set it down on Eddie’s thigh. He thrashed in his seat, desperate to shake it off. The chair tipped and fell, his head bouncing off the pressed dirt below. Little white specks floated in his vision as he stared through the ceiling at the night sky.

“T-t-t-t,” she tisked “that's no way for soil to behave”.

The day was warm and bright. The forest smelled of fresh rain and musty earth. Its dense canopy hung overhead. Eddie had been hoping for a day like this; hoping that he'd get the chance to fill a bag with something other than Chicken Of The Woods, a mushroom species he was frankly quite bored of. Perhaps he would find some Porcini or, if he was lucky, Boletus aestivalis.

This was his first time foraging in the Black Woods. He had heard folks tell tales of its dangers but considered them childish ghost stories. He had also heard from a local gathering group that it was the ideal place to find a variety of interesting fungi.

He looked at his wristwatch and was startled to read 18:32. The sun would be setting in the next forty-five minutes or so. He had lost all sense of time as the day passed with exciting ease.

He looked around from tree to path to orient himself but could not recognise up from down. He traced back his steps, disheartened to discover that they ended a mere 10 metres or so from where he'd begun tracking them. A faint patter of rain drummed on the leaves around him. He stretched his flannel shirt over his head to form a makeshift umbrella.

“Dammit,” he remarked, recalling how he had contemplated bringing a raincoat but had deemed it unnecessary.

He searched for a good place to set up shelter. He was no stranger to roughing it outdoors. He knew how to build a lean-to and besides, dinner was of no concern. He had plenty of mushrooms to fill his rumbling belly.

He was gathering barren branches when it caught his attention. A faint glow of light warmed the cool night air. He felt drawn to it, a sailor to a lighthouse. Perhaps someone else had gotten lost but had been prepared, or maybe they were camping. If they had a torch, then perhaps they'd have flint for fire, a prospect that brought welcome relief to his soggy self.

He trudged through mud and rotting leaves, arriving at a glass structure from which the light was emanating. It was nested in a thicket of dense brush that surrounded three of its walls. He noticed that the light would occasionally flicker and cast a long, human shape on the forest floor. He peered in, one hand between brow and pane, his breath fogging up the window.

That was the last thing he remembered.

She bent over, grasped the back of the chair and pulled him upright. She was easily exhausted by the act.

“You a heavy boy,” she noted, “all the more for our hungry babies.” She picked up the worm that wriggled at his feet, cupped it in her hands and whispered to it, the words an indiscernible prayer. She opened her maw and dropped it in, swallowing it whole. “Us don't like being disobeyed”.

She turned around, picked up the shears (that he'd been eyeing) and began pruning a bush nearby. His eyes darted back and forth, searching for another way to escape his bonds. Then it came to him, a plan fully formed.

“How does it work?” he asked, feigning interest. “I mean, surely the PH balance of your compost is too acidic for seedlings to survive in?”

“An enthusiast we see. A clever boy. Well first...hmmm...let us show you...that's better,” she propped him in front of the table, on which a row of saplings stood, sprouting from a plastic tray. He tapped around with his left foot until he felt the first aid kit. His heart thundered in his ears. He forced himself to remain calm lest he raise suspicion.

“First take some 'ere bone and crush it to dust, from hands and feet work best. We soak the little ones in vinegar. Sof'ens 'em right up,” she said, placing a metacarpal, presumably from a pinky, in a large grey mortar.

He noticed that she, distracted by her own explanation, had set the sheers down to his right, exchanging them for the pestle. Oh, the sheer luck! Eddie forgot all about the box at his feet.

“Wait, what's that out there?” he said, peering beyond the glass, squinting as if to see better.

This woke her from her musing. She looked at him, looked down at the sheers and back at Eddie.

“Don't t'ink we is not knowin' what you tryin' BOY!” she roared, leaning the chair on its back legs, drawing twin trails in the earth.

“LET ME GO YOU SICK FUCK!” he spat, rocking from side to side, struggling to free himself from the seat.

Her grip faltered, the chair tilted, balanced on two legs briefly, then crashed to the floor with an explosive crack. Wood splintered beneath him. The old lady screeched and surged towards him. Her crazed eyes fixated on him. His now-freed right hand found a fractured chair leg, knuckles turning corpse-white as he grasped it for dear life. His stomach swelled with panicked hope. He lifted the stake perpendicular to his chest as she bent over him. He felt her skin resist and then pop, letting blood like warm sap.

She rasped out a final, rotten exhalation and hung there, penetrated at the end of the skewer, staring at him with empty eyes. Eddie couldn't help but wonder how she had come to be this horrifying creature. A thought he considered out of place, given his current situation, although to be honest, none of it made any sense to him either way. You could have told him he was to dine with bigfoot that very evening and he would have thought the proposition perfectly acceptable.

His arms shook beneath her weight as he dropped her next to him. It was strange, he didn't run, he didn't wipe the blood from his hands. No, he simply stood up and stared at the lifeless body lying in a pool of its own waters. Something held him in place. It was as if he was trapped in his body. The room began to breathe around him, the smell of dirt and purple flowers sharpening to a nauseating sweetness. The trees around him whispered their sinister suggestions.

He stepped over to the drawer, took out the jar of wrigglers and poured them over her corpse. They seemed to move with a collective purpose as if obeying one mind. He watched as some squirmed into her mouth while others tunnelled through her translucent skin to the flesh beneath. Only one fat, red worm went in the opposite direction, breeching from a hole in her abdomen.

He stared at her corpse with empty eyes and muttered,

“It's time for lunch dear. My babies are hungry.”

***

Originating from Cape Town, South Africa, Tristan Snyckers is a writer with an eye for the eerie and an ear for the ironic. He keeps a personal blog wherein he explores existential and moral themes in bite-sized bits. When he isn't cycling through synonyms, he is likely sitting lotus-legged at the foot of his bed with his attention focused on his breath (hopefully). His fiction was recently published in Across the Margin. Find him on Instagram @tssnyckers.