Chapter 5: Roots and Whispers
Chapter 5: Roots and Whispers
---
The garden woke first.
Elara sat cross-legged in the dew-soaked grass, her palms pressed to the earth. Around her, the Melodiflora's song trembled—a minor-key lament that smelled of rain and forgotten birthdays. *Mama's song,* the plant whispered through mycelium networks. *She sang it while you slept in her womb.*
"Liar," Elara murmured, but leaned closer. At five years old, she knew the rules: *Don't ask about Mama. Don't mention the floating. Don't cry when the other children scream.*
The sun rose, gilding the greenhouse glass. Inside, Aunt Asia scrubbed porridge from a bowl, her thoughts a carefully curated hum: *Market list. Rice. Bandages. Check Elara's shoes for holes.*
Elara plucked a dandelion. *Watch this.*
She blew, sending seeds swirling toward the kitchen window—and with them, a single thought she'd learned from the library's forbidden section:
***Arcanian.***
The bowl shattered.
---
**Secrets Under Stairs**
Aunt Asia's hands shook as she bandaged her cut palm. "Where did you hear that word?"
"The flowers told me," Elara lied.
*Liar,* sang the Melodiflora outside.
That night, Elara pressed her ear to the floorboards as Aunt Asia dragged boxes beneath the stairs. Dust motes danced in the slatted moonlight, settling on leather-bound journals and holograms of women with wildfire hair.
***Subject: Illyria Voss (deceased),*** read a file stamped **APGA - CLASSIFIED**. ***Telekinetic proficiency: 9.7. Termination reason: Resistance to—***
A floorboard creaked. Elara scrambled to bed, clutching Mr. Bun (stuffed carrot nose, missing eye). Aunt Asia stood in the doorway, her shadow stretching like accusation.
"Tomorrow," she said softly, "we'll discuss your lessons."
Elara dreamed of wildfire.
---
**The Triplets' Gambit**
Amanda's botany lessons turned urgent.
"Feel this," she ordered, crushing sage leaves into Elara's palm. "The veins remember earthquakes."
Elara giggled as the plant's memory unfolded—tectonic plates grinding, mountains birthing themselves. But when she touched Amanda's wrist, darker images seeped through:
*A woman (Mama?) screaming as agents dragged her away. A potted Melodiflora smashed under boots.*
"Stop!" Amanda yanked back, soil scattering. "Just… focus on the roots, okay?"
Amansah's art therapy proved worse.
"Draw your happy place," she said, slapping down charcoal.
Elara sketched the facility from her nightmares—glass cells, IV drips, a girl floating in Tank 12.
"That's… creative." Amansah palmed the sketch into her overalls. Later, Elara found it burned in the grate.
Only Amaga played fair.
"Let's hunt shadows," she whispered, leading Elara to the attic. Dusty light bled through cobwebbed windows as she produced a joke book bound in what looked like human skin. "Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"APGA."
Elara froze.
Amaga's smile sharpened. "APGA *who?*" She leaned close, breath mint-cool. "Exactly. Now *run.*"
---
**Discipline and Disquiet**
Aunt Asia's "lessons" began at dawn:
1. **Telekinesis 101**: Lift pebbles, *not* sentiment. ("And never in front of neighbors.")
2. **Shielding**: Imagine walls of ivy, thick and thorned. ("Your mind is a garden. No trespassers.")
3. **The Greatest Lie**: "You're special, but not *different.* Just… gifted."
Elara practiced diligently. By six, she could levitate Amanda's tomato seedlings (though they tasted of sadness afterward). By seven, she'd built a mental vault for Amansah's burned drawings and Amaga's APGA jokes.
But the Melodiflora's song sharpened nightly—**Find her, find her, find her**—until Elara sneaked downstairs, bare feet silent on cold tiles.
The hidden library smelled of betrayal and cedar. She touched the hologram labeled **Illyria Voss.**
***PLAY.***
---
**The Truth in Flickers**
Her mother stood in a battlefield of crumbling skyscrapers, arms outstretched. Cars orbited her like metallic planets.
"Maya!" she screamed. "Where's my *daughter?*"
APGA agents in black swarmed, firing neural disruptors. Illyria's grief erupted—a shockwave flattening three city blocks.
The hologram ended abruptly.
Elara vomited in the wastebasket.
---
**Routine's Unraveling**
"Again," Aunt Asia ordered.
Elara focused on the sunflower seedling. It trembled, leaves curling toward her.
"Lift, don't *crush.*"
"I'm trying!"
***Channel 1 (Amanda):*** *She's getting stronger. They'll come.*
***Channel 2 (Amansah):*** *Burn the new sketches. Burn them now.*
***Channel 3 (Amaga):*** *Knock knock…*
The plant exploded in a shower of soil.
Aunt Asia sighed. "Perhaps… a story will calm you."
They settled by the fire. The holographic book's title glowed: **The Twin Stars of Arcanis.**
"Long ago," Aunt Asia began, "two sisters controlled the tides of time." Her finger hovered over the **SKIP** button as the heroine's eyes flickered black. "But that's just a fairy tale."
Elara pretended not to notice.
---
**Bedtime Ritual**
At 8:57 p.m., they performed the sacred dance of evasion:
- **Step 1**: Brush teeth (check for tracking nanos in toothpaste).
- **Step 2**: Scan room (remove new "gifts" from well-meaning neighbors).
- **Step 3**: The Question:
"Will Mama ever visit?"
Aunt Asia tucked the sheets tighter. "She's… busy healing people far away."
*Liar,* hummed the Melodiflora on the sill.
Elara waited for the click of the door before reaching under her pillow. The stolen hologram disk warmed her palm.
***PLAY.***
Her mother's face filled the dark. "If you're seeing this, I'm dead. Find Maya. Trust no one. And Elara—"
Footsteps. The screen went black.
---
**Harvest Moon**
On Elara's eighth birthday, the garden rebelled.
Amanda's tomatoes ripened to blood-red screams. Amansah's sketchpad bled through pages, revealing blueprints of a facility labeled **APGA - GEMINI DIVISION.** Amaga left a gift wrapped in joke paper:
*Knock knock.*
Inside lay a keycard stolen from an agent's coat.
That night, Elara stood at her window as the Melodiflora's song swelled to a crescendo. Somewhere beyond the hills, a twin voice answered.
*Soon.*
---