CHAPTER 74: A Cactus' Empty Words
As soon as I had stumbled into Nathan Phillips Square, Eric and a riot of other plants were all over me.
"Elyssia! Elyssia!" Lord Jesus, we almost sent a search party for you!" Eric exclaimed as he shook my leaf quickly.
"Come on in! We'll find a bedroom for you, and then you'll take a shower, 'kay? Today will be a pretty big day! I mean . . . it already has been, considering that you just kicked Zomboss' ass out of Ontario . . ."
The Cactus just continued his prattling until Savannah gave him a gentle tap on the shoulder.
"I think she gets it, Eric." she said flatly.
"Now . . . let's get you settled and showered, shall we?"
And without further ado, Savannah took me by the shoulder and led me into City Hall.
After going down a hallway, up an elevator, down yet another hallway and around a few corners, Eric produced a key from his bag and unlocked the door in front of us. I gasped at the fanciness of the room – it had wallpaper, which was a rarity here in Toronto, and a nice, fluffy bed. The gigantic window gave me a stunning view of the massive Peace Gardens.
"Whoa . . ." I breathed as I plopped down on the bed.
Savannah giggled and Eric put an arm around my shoulders. Deep down inside, I knew that something about this bed of roses wasn't right, and it wasn't just the faint, sickly smell of the roses that put my guard up. Regardless, I stood up and let my bag drop to the floor. Savannah patted my head and smiled.
"Come on, sweetie. Let's get yourself all washed up!"
One word to describe City Hall: ENORMOUS! It certainly has changed since Zomboss decided to get outta here. Cells have been turned into bedrooms. Undead relics had been replaced with photographs and daguerreotypes of various areas of Toronto, as well as whatever paintings could be salvaged from the Art Gallery of Ontario. The sleeping quarters of the zombies had been transformed into more bedrooms, offices, meeting rooms, and heck . . . more things than you could shake a Doom Shroom at!
After half an hour of wandering the halls, dawdling up and down the stairs, and trying to figure out the exceptionally complex elevator, I finally found a place for me to wash up. As I scrubbed the dirt and grime off my stem, face, and leaves, I thought intently about this bed of roses. There was something about Eric that unsettled me slightly from the beginning. It seemed like I couldn't trust him with five cents, let alone my life. Eric didn't seem like the kind of Cactus who could keep their word. In fact, on more than one occasion, I was actually afraid to be in a room alone with him, because he seemed like the type of plant who was totally unpredictable. I can't believe I trusted him to send me and two other plants to The Scally, where we almost got killed! I thought angrily as I dried myself off. I was steaming mad as I stormed out of the shower and back to my bedroom, where I proceeded to punch my pillow at least two hundred times, mentally berating myself with each punch, making me feel stupider and angrier by the second. Finally, I threw my pillow at the wall out of immense frustration. Then, I decided to get up and take a walk.
I had only gone down a few flights of stairs when I saw a familiar face staring at me. I blinked once, twice, three times as I tried to remember who this plant was. Finally, the pieces clicked together to form a seething, irate picture.
"YOU!" I screamed as I leapt up in the air, my crystals a bright purple.
"Whoa! Calm down, girl! Who'd you think I was?" he sputtered as he pinned my leaves together behind my stem.
My breathing began to slow down as I cooled off, my crystals returned to their customary color as I finally gave up on trying to squirm out of his grasp. I looked into this plant's eyes and breathed a tremendous sigh of relief as I realized that it was only Peater.
"Oh my God . . . I thought you were . . ." I panted as he put his arm around me.
"By the way . . . how did you find me, Peater?"
He laughed and shrugged. "Guess the heart's the greatest tracker!" he said simply.
"News?" I asked.
Peater sighed and nodded.
"First of all, Eric's been elected Premier of Ontario, which I guess is good, considering that he can govern the province much better than Zomboss could on any given day," he began.
The sickly smell of the roses began to fill my lungs, which caused me to begin choking. Black spots arose in my vision as I started to feel like I was drowning in a sea of dread . . .
"Elyssia! Sheesh, what happened?!" Peater squawked as he put his leaf on my forehead.
"I . . . I dunno . . ." I whispered as my dizziness finally receded.
To be honest, I think I had that panic attack because of Eric. That damn Cactus becoming the premier was bad news. Very bad news.
And perhaps this province would be in a deeper pit of trouble. A pit that no God-sent crane could dredge it out of.
"Earth to Elyssia! Land on the moon again?"
Peater was waving his leaf back and forth in front of my face, which made me realize that I had spaced out for, like, the one millionth time.
"Uh . . . yeah . . . what were you saying?" I mumbled.
Peater rolled his eyes and continued his report.
"Ash Lethus has been caught. High damn time that that's happened. Who knew that I could have such an evil cousin? Well . . . he's been caught, and sentenced to death. The execution is tomorrow – May 13. And you, Elyssia, will be the executioner.
"Now, this piece of news might not be your favorite, but, uh . . . you have military training."
At the words "military training," I groaned. I wanted to hear more about the execution.
"Peater, you are the worst messenger ever!" I screeched as I angrily stomped my root.
"Suck it up, girl. Now vamos. I promise I'll tell you more about the execution later, okay?" he replied calmly.
I tried to stop him, but he grabbed my leaf and kissed my cheek, before dragging me out of City Hall.
"Now actually go there, or you're gonna be in big trouble!" Peater threatened. I scowled and stuck out my tongue, because I knew that he would never do that. Regardless, I stomped off towards the line of burly plants that was waiting impatiently for me by the dancing fountain.
"Greetings, soldiers. I'm Colonel Barkely, and before you trot after me like puppies, I gotta give you a warning." The Chomper snapped.
He had sour breath, and he emanated an aura of a control freak who wanted nothing more than to push us around. Colonel Barkely continued barking at us after a few seconds of sizing us up.
"In my military training program, we work like dogs. It ain't for wussies, so if you joined this thing for a laugh, you are making a mistake that may cost you your ass. Have I made myself clear?"
We all nodded stiffly in response.
"Well then . . . onwards!"
After half an hour of marching single file along the streets, we were at the Silent Park. The buzzing, humming melody of the city's noised was muffled as soon as we had passed the first row of glass panels.
"All right . . . when I point at you, I want you to give me your full name and age." Barkely demanded. After around fifteen plants gave their name and age, ad Barkely snorted and made a few snide remarks, it was my turn to take center stage.
"All right, Little Miss Goth. What's your name?" Barkely snarled.
"My name is Elyssia Antonia Maccabaeus and I am thirteen years old." I said strongly.
Barkely wrinkled his nose as soon as he heard this.
"So this is Elyssia Antonia Maccabaeus, savior of the province, hm?" he hissed.
"Well, boy am I surprised! I don't think that we could kill an unarmed browncoat with a wispy Raggedy-Ann such as yourself!"
I gritted my teeth as my crystals turned a swirling, dark blue that was edged with hints of purple as my eyes bored into the commanders' head.
"Oh well . . . let's get crackin'!"
We started off with Barkely tossing cotton sheets at us. Looking at them, I realized that these were targets.
"Well, what are you waiting for?! Are you waiting for them to sprout wings?!" Barkely yelled.
"Tack 'em up to the panels, you boors!"
Muttering under our breaths, we meekly stuck the targets to the glass panels. After evaluating our work, Barkely nodded in satisfaction.
"I decided that shooting peas at targets would be a good warm up." he said with a sneer.
"Wait . . . I ain't no Peashooter! I'm a Cactus! How the hell —" A Cactus tried to protest, before Barkely cut her off with an ear-splitting toot of his whistle.
"Does it look like I care? What do you think asking such stupid questions is gonna get ya, huh?" he shouted.
The Cactus opened her mouth to speak, but Barkely stopped her.
"Just shut up, okay!? And to all of you non-Peashooters, just shoot whatever the hell you can, okay!?"
We all just stood there and gave him livid stares. After a good minute of quietly mocking him and wishing he would die, the Chomper tooted his whistle yet again.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! Y'ALL FIND A TARGET AND START SHOOTING!" he screamed.
We all scrambled to find a target, before we started shooting. Barkely walked around, screaming at any plants who did anything wrong and whacking them with his whistle, which, by the way, left some pretty nasty bruises.
After ten minutes of shooting peas, Barkely blew his whistle as a signal to stop.
TOOT-TOOOT-TOOT!
We all ceased our shooting and snapped our attention to Barkely.
"All right, you ninnies. I'm gonna give you a nice exercise to see exactly how much you can listen!" he growled.
"Follow me in single file!"
We followed him to an abandoned coffee shop on Bay street, where we heard a few groans. Jeez, so much for thinking that I had exterminated the city of Toronto of all its zombies.
"Behind these doors is a roost of zombies that we gotta kill. But also, you gotta listen to me!" Barkely snapped as he flung the doors open.
We trudged in and looked around. The groans were even louder in here than they were when we were outside. When Barkely noticed us just standing there, he let out a roar of frustration.
"WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS WAITING FOR?! THE GRASS TO GROW?!" he shouted.
"Well, I don't know! Maybe we are, since you're just standing there like a streetlight instead of giving us commands!" I retorted cockily.
Barkely's face turned an ugly shade of puce, and I could have sworn I saw a vein throbbing on his head. Not long after, he blew his whistle and started giving us commands to go up the stairs, or crouch behind a table, or sit on the railing of the balcony that overlooked the first floor, which, by the way, was foolish and dangerous.
Anyways, after a few minutes of scurrying around in confusion while Barkely spat out unintelligible commands left, right and center, we had settled down in our spots. My post was on the balcony, much to my chagrin. Although I wasn't scared of heights and I wasn't exactly that worried about falling to my death, I still thought that it was stupid to put members of your own army on the railing of a balcony. The sight of the other plants on the railing fainting and throwing up only further proved my point.
But at any rate, we slowly killed off the zombies as they sniffed us out and tried to eat us. It seemed like child's play . . . when a whole swarm of Imps came swooping down on us with jetpacks! Yes, jetpacks!
"Holy crap!" I breathed as we frantically shot our peas. Barkely was nodding in approval in the lounge of the restaurant while we picked off the jetpack zombies one by one.
"Faster! Faster!" he barked.
After a few minutes, there were so many zombies that our peas did practically nothing.
"Shoot at them, you idiots! You ain't trying hard enough!" Barkely yelled.
What a lackwit! I thought as I waved my right leaf and sent a torrent of ice shards rocketing at the beeline of jetpack zombies, which had become so thick that they were just a blur of blue and greyish green. After five minutes, there were no more living zombies left in the building. Leaping off the railing, I descended through the air and to the ground, making the surrounding plants gasp as I landed gracefully with a thump. After staring at me for a few seconds, Barkely leapt over a table and slapped me. Hard.
"You complete idiot!" he spat.
There was a bruise on my cheek where he had slapped me, and it felt like it was on fire. My crystals began to turn a poisonous shade of purple as Barkely lectured me.
"You should have used your peas, you moron! That magic of yours would be useless in a region that's as hot as the flames of hell!" he shouted.
I finally lost it as soon as he said that.
"You are the idiot here, you spit-brain! If we had continued using our peas, we would have been steamrollered!" I screamed.
"Oh, really? Maybe if you hadn't been sitting lazily on that freakin' railing doing nothing like it was some dang vacation, maybe you wouldn't have had to use that black magic!" Barkely retorted.
"Oh, yeah? Well, look who's talking!" I snapped.
"Here you are, going on about me being a lazy ass who doesn't do no work, when you yourself were sitting on the sidelines, watching us work hard like you're seeing a baseball game! What were you doing when we had to shoot at targets? Insulting us and making us feel stupider than we are! And what did you do when we had to fight that horde of zombies? Hm . . . if I remember correctly, you were sitting in the lounge, sipping margaritas while we worked our butts off!"
"Are you calling me a sloth?!"
"What else do you think I'm calling you, a spring chicken?"
"Oh girl, don't you dare start with me!"
""Don't you dare", my rear end! Does it look like I'm in the mood to let you push me around?"
"Shut up before I make you wish you had never been born, girl!"
"No, you shut up, Barkely! If you wanna push others around, why don't you get some cheap toy soldiers from Dollarama and push them around all you want, and save yourself all that walking to City Hall!"
"If you say another word . . . oh, I swear to God –"
"What do you think that threatening me and sitting around doing nothing is going to get you, huh? Well, if you think that your laziness and your threats will get ya anything, then so be it! Close your eyes and open them again! What do you see?! NOTHING! SO SHUT UP AND GET A FREAKING LIFE ALREADY! MAYBE IF YOU WEREN'T SO BUSY INSULTING US AND BLOWING THROUGH THAT GOD FORSAKEN WHISTLE OF YOURS, YOU'D BE A MUCH BETTER MILITARY TRAINER, YOU CHODE!"
With that, I sent a couple of ice crystals flying at the crazed colonel, which pinned him to the wall by the neck.
Then, I got the hell outta there.
Half an hour later, I got back to City Hall, fuming and seething with rage. I stormed into the Peace Gardens and splashed some water onto my face. I looked at my reflection and sighed.
"Stupid life . . ." I muttered as I examined every scar, every cut. Finally, I got up and followed the sound of faint music.
Minutes later, I was in the middle of a party. Plants were everywhere, drinking, dancing, laughing . . .
If only I could share in their happiness.
Lanterns were strung from pole to pole, and a small band was cranking out a soft soul ballad. I felt as out of place at this party as a stormcloud in the middle of a sunny sky.
"Elyssia! There you are!" Peater happily strolled towards me, followed by Eric, who was wearing a fancy beaver hat.
"How does it feel to be the executioner for your long time enemy, that Lethus boy?" Eric asked as he sat down beside me.
"Eh . . . it's okay, I guess." I muttered sullenly, my crystals somewhere in between a greyish blue and a swirling, dark shade of navy. Peater sat down to my right and gave me a rough noogie.
"Ah . . . ah . . . ouch! Cut it out!" I shrieked, trying to swat him away.
"Learn to lighten up, girl!" he laughed as he pulled me into a hug. Eric put an arm on my shoulder and sighed.
"You know . . . I sincerely hope that I'm not the first one to say that you are truly amazing, Elyssia. You really are a gift of God . . ."
I didn't hear any more of the Cactus' empty words of praise. I could sense an emptiness to his supposedly sincere words. I felt like one of those puppets with strings, with Eric as the puppeteer. Y'know, so he could take advantage of me and use me. I felt very grateful when Eric ended his meaningless tangent to go dance with a giggling, glowing Savannah. I leaned on Peater's shoulder and sighed.
"I feel like something bad's gonna happen. And I . . . I'm scared, Peater. Scared that this fairy-tale ending won't last." I whispered.
Peater just hugged me tightly and rubbed my stem.
"I can feel it too. I'm afraid that tomorrow will bring bad fortune. But don't worry – God is watching out for you, and so am I." he murmured.
I hugged him back and let his words sink in. After a moment of silence, Peater broke the ice.
"Oh, and by the way, how was training?" he asked.
"Crappy." I mumbled.
"I swear to God, I completely lost it! That Barkely dude . . . Lord-y! He's a control freak, I tell you! Honestly, I got so mad at him that I pinned him to the wall with my ice crystals! He was that intolerable! I wouldn't be surprised if someone beats the living crap out of him one of these days!"
Peater chuckled hollowly at my irate tangent.
"At least I got you thinking about something other than tomorrow!" he laughed.
I shrugged and bit my lip.
"Let's head inside." I murmured.
"It's getting late."
That night, I lay in Peater's arms, my eyes wide open. He had given up on trying to get me to go to sleep a long, long time ago and ended up going to sleep himself. As I snuggled up closer to him, I felt weird. Why was I so worried about tomorrow? Why was I so scared that something bad's gonna happen?
I listened to Peater's steady breathing, which was in rhythm with his heartbeat. Somehow, I found the sound relaxing, but not relaxing enough to get me to sleep. I was only able to convince the sleep to come my was when I prayed and asked for God to keep an eye out for my wellbeing, and the wellbeing of the province. The dreams I had, though, were acutely unsettling.