Zera and the Green Man (22 page)

“Get up, Zera.”

  Her eyes closed again, tightly.
I can’t get up. I’m tired
.
Please, let me sleep. Let me rest. What a dream, what a nightmare!
Pikes Peak, or
Tava
, as Grandma Wren called it, came back to her with all the events of last night. It
was
all real. Today was the day, she would have to do something; she would have to face her destiny as Grandma Wren had said. Her feet felt cold under the covers, when they should have been warm. She touched her hair and it felt hot, as if she’d been in the sun. She shivered from the strangeness of it.

“Zera.
Get up. Come over here,” said the soft but persistent voice.

Zera’s eyes sprang open.
That’s not Nonny. I’m awake, now — aren’t I?
Her head a jumble of words and images, Zera sat up. No one was in the attic bedroom.

The voice again said, “Zera,” and her gaze followed it to the table near the chairs. There, glowing from the sun’s
rays, was her antique glass terrarium. The birthday present from Nonny that housed her most prized plant, Sunny the Venus flytrap. The voice came from behind the thick glass, from the
plant
.

Zera got out of bed and inched toward the terrarium. The lingering doubt that it couldn’t possibly be Sunny vanished. The plant waved her tiny traps about, opening and closing them, while the faint words, “Zera, yes, here,” echoed in the air.

She recoiled, but her eyes were glued to the terrarium. “Sunny?”
I must be dreaming still. I have to be.
Zera rubbed her eyes, looked around the room. On a chair next to the bed were the clothes she wore to Tava last night.

“Open the top,” Sunny said, her largest trap forming a primitive mouth that spoke to her.

Oh, man, this is real.
Zera got down on her knees and swung open the lid. Moisture escaped the terrarium and a boggy, peat moss smell drifted up.

“Ah, that’s better,” said the flytrap. “It gets hot in the mornings. And now you can hear me better.”

Zera, eyes wide, peered down into the terrarium. The beautiful plant, light green with watermelon-pink traps, stretched amid the moss, was talking.

“Hello to you, too,” Sunny said. “Isn’t it wonderful? We’re communicating in sound-words.
The first step. I’m so pleased.”

“I’m not asleep?”

The flytrap emitted a tinkling laugh. “No, you’re not!”

Everything that had occurred the night before, from Tava to the dream/nightmare returned. Theodore was in trouble. They were
all
in trouble. Confusion gripped Zera; everything she had ever known about the physical world was being turned upside down. There was so much she didn’t know, what was happening, what was expected of her, what they were up against. Yet, with all her heart, she knew what to do even as she resisted it. The words echoed in her mind:
Watch, and love. Accept your power.
 

Gazing at the Venus flytrap, Zera’s anxiety lessened.
It is wonderful, if you think about it, being able to communicate. It’s as if I could suddenly hold a conversation with Alice.
The graceful figure before her swayed slightly, exhibiting a joyful enthusiasm. Zera remembered how tiny Sunny had been at her birthday, only about five inches tall with fifteen traps. Since then, she had doubled in size. The traps themselves were actually modified leaves, two oval, flat, fringed lobes hinged together like clam shells atop slender stalks. Zera had taken good care of Sunny, carefully monitoring her water, sunlight, and food. The attention showed. She’d grown radiant and strong. 

As these thoughts of admiration went out to her plant friend, Sunny said, “Thank you.”

Zera’s mouth dropped open. “But I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to, I received it nonetheless. You’ll get the hang of it. We can hear you without sound-words, just as you can hear us.
As you did in your dream. But, you know, it really wasn’t a dream at all.”

Zera stared at the plant, thought of her cold feet (
icy cold, from the brook
) and her warm hair when she woke up. Her forehead wrinkled, and the laugh came again. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it. What I mean is sound-words get in the way, mostly. The important thing is awareness. Let me try this time. See what you can hear, without your ears.”

A few moments passed. Zera frowned. “I’m not getting anything,”

“Clear your mind. Relax. It’s easy. It’s the easiest thing imaginable.”

Zera closed her eyes and slowly, consciously, relaxed. First her face, then neck, then shoulders. She remembered how her mom practiced yoga with Hattie. Zera had taken a few mother-daughter classes. The yogi-instructor would tell them, at the end of the session, as they lay quietly on their backs, palms toward the ceiling, to “quiet your mind, listen to your breathing.” Zera relaxed her body now, her hands, her wrists, her arms. She breathed consciously. As soon as she had taken half a dozen deep, calming breaths, she stopped. Her eyes flew open. She blurted, “It’s something about California?”

“Quiet,” admonished Sunny, her traps tilted up toward Zera. “When you interrupt, it interferes.
Keep listening
.”

“Okay,” Zera said. She closed her eyes again, determined to relax fully, to get it right. It took a full minute before
she exclaimed, “I got it all! You sent that I must go to Theodore, to the laboratory, in ‘the place called California.’ ”

“Yes!” Sunny raised her leaves high, triumphant.

Zera smiled, even though the prospect of going to California, to a laboratory, frightened her. She thought she’d try communicating something now without sound to Sunny.
What will I do there?
she asked.

Do what you just did now. Listen. It will come to you, when it’s time.

I should get Nonny.
Zera started to rise from her kneeling position.

No, Zera, you are going alone.

At the mention of going alone, Zera tensed. She couldn’t receive or send any more messages.

“Calm yourself, Zera,” Sunny said aloud. “You can do this.”

“I’m trying to, but it’s all so confusing. How do you know all this? How do you know about Theodore?” 

“Our thoughts and feelings, like yours, travel through the atmosphere, like waves of heat, light, or sound. We also have something that’s very like your Internet; we can communicate through the mycelium, a fungal network of tiny, threadlike cells that extend throughout the Earth’s soil for billions of miles! Very quickly we find out about things that happen far away. But now, that travel is difficult. Many barriers stand in our way — not just physical, but chemical. So many poisons cause our transmissions to slow, many times to fail.” 

Through their connection, Zera could feel Sunny’s sadness. It was exactly the way she’d felt in the dream with the other plants.

“We’re also good at traveling, moving physically, and there is one way we love to travel the most,” Sunny said.
“Riding the sky.”

“Riding the sky?”

“Yes, Zera. Seeds are great travelers, you know, but there are some who are the best travelers of all. You even breathe them in, exhale them. They ride into and out of your body as well as on the winds. Pollen grains and spores. And that is how you shall travel to your uncle.” 

“What?” Zera’s eyes widened. “I don’t understand. How could I?”

“You must accept that anything is possible. You must do three things: watch, love, and most importantly,
accept your power
. You are a
Green
— your people have been connected to us for centuries. To embrace this is to follow your destiny.

“Listen to me carefully. You will travel on a spore to California. And you will also remain here. For this to happen, you must accept the green power. When you reach Theodore, he will see you in your size again. There is nothing to fear. No harm will come to you. See the sphagnum peat moss below me, see the spore case?”

Zera’s head swam. “You are going too fast. Stay here? Go? Accept the power?”

“There is so little time, Zera. You must
act
. Now! Yes. You can access the powers of Nature, indeed, of the Cosmos, available to you if you accept this cause. If you help us. If you help yourself!”

Zera thought of the dead roses on the trellis.
The wildfires all over Colorado. Other natural disasters. Her dead parents. Nature could
hurt. Nature could kill
. 

“I don’t want these
powers.
”

“Zera, you have to trust. Trust me!”

An uneasiness filled Zera. As she looked at Sunny, she thought of what the Green Man and Green Woman said, and she realized something.
I don’t trust them, but I trust Sunny.
She remembered the terror on her uncle’s adult face, the joy on his face as a boy. He believed then; she could see it. Watch and love. Accept your power.
I have to do this. I have to help Uncle Theodore.

“I’ll do it.”

“I am so thankful! It is an oath, Zera. You know that? You cannot go back.”

Her heart thudded again, but she said it, “Yes, I know.” She looked down. “I am not going in a nightgown, though.” She hurriedly got dressed.

“Come down here,” said Sunny. “Look inside.”

Zera got down on her knees, gripping the sides of the table. She peered through the side of the terrarium, at the moss Sunny grew in. “How can I see a spore? They’re microscopic.” She blinked and removed her hands from the table. Her palms had left wet marks.
Oh great, sweaty palms. I’m freaking out.
She thought about her uncle, about Nonny.
I can’t be afraid. I have to do this. Theodore is in trouble. We’re all in trouble. I have to try.
She breathed deeply, willed herself to relax. She thought of Nonny, Hattie, and Grandma Wren. She thought of her mother and father. Fear threatened to overwhelm her.
No!
she scolded herself.
Breathe. Let it go. Think how Hattie and mom would love this, how they’d think it was the coolest adventure ever!
She focused on the moss beneath the flytrap.
Breathe deeply. Relax.
Over and over, like a mantra, she began to repeat the words in her mind —
Watch and love, accept your power. Watch and love, accept. . .

Yes
! thought Sunny.
Look
.

The glass changed, became a magnifier. Everything became clear. She saw the spore case, urn-shaped and bright orange,
almost neon orange. It was nestled at the bottom of lime-green and brown moss strands that now towered above it like a gigantic, caterpillar-hairy jungle. The urn’s surface was slightly pitted, like an orange.

Yes, you’re doing it!
Sunny said. The words gave Zera courage.
I can do this. 

Of course you can, you are a Green.
Now relaxed, Zera could hear her friend perfectly.
That is the spore case, Zera, and inside are millions of spores. You are sitting atop one of them. You are unconscious of it at the moment, but you are there, with
them. Can you see it?

Zera moved her face closer to the terrarium. Her nose barely touched the glass, and she felt the coolness of it. Under her nose the glass became foggy, but at eye level it was clear. Zera marveled at the urn’s perfect shape.
It’s so tiny,
so vividly orange
. A seamless rim ran around the top, a lid. She could see how the urn bulged, how full it was. It was so thin and fine, yet she could tell it was hard, almost impenetrable.
So strong, so light. So pretty. I am inside that case,
she thought.

Zera surrendered and found herself inside the spore case. She saw everything clearly; the chamber was orange and vast, like the interior of an immense room. In the next instant she became conscious of sitting cross-legged atop a single spore. 

She looked down at her body, her hands.
I am seeing myself,
she thought,
but am I really here?
She wore her cut-off jeans, sneakers, a T-shirt.
I AM here. How is this happening?
Something strong within her told her not to ask, just to
be
. She was here
and
outside the terrarium. She didn’t know how, but she knew this to be true. Somehow she understood, at the deepest, most primal level of existence, how something could be, and could not be, at the very same moment. How form, size, mass, energy — all she had ever known of the physical world — both existed as she thought it did, and didn’t. And it was all right. She did not feel frightened anymore; on the contrary, she felt more at peace than she could ever remember.

She looked at the spore. It was triangular, smooth and round-edged. She saw that
, where she sat, a deep scar-like shape crossed the spore’s surface in the form of three skinny letter-Cs, each meeting with the others, touching on two ends, with the three curves forming another triangular pattern in the center. Surrounding her as far as she could see were other spores, like hers, yet different, each a perfect individual, like snowflakes. She remembered how her mother had told her there were no duplicates in the universe — how each blade of grass, each seed, each tree, each human, was a one-of-a-kind miracle. Zera saw that now.