Chapter 2: Bushes, Vines, and Memories Or Give a Child a Weapon (What Could Go Wrong?)
The tiny seed feels cold in Olive's hand and, no matter how long they stare at it, nothing seems to change in it. That is, until the light seems to shine a little brighter than usual, and that light seeps into the seed and then…
Nothing.
The seed is a little warmer now, but nothing else really changes. Closing their fist around the seed and taking another bite of their apple, Olive looks up at the front yard. It's mostly empty, save for a small tricycle (They haven't ridden it in forever) and a hose that slinks out from the side of the house.
Five rows of grassy lanes are laid down in front. Oddly, there's no proper path that leads to the house, or, from another angle, all five rows of grass are the paths that lead to the house. Olive isn't quite sure one way or the other, the front of the house was more or less like this when they moved in.
Suddenly, they found themselves missing the talking sunflower, and how Sunny would explain everything she saw upon entering a new place. It helps in making sure that you aren't missing anything.
With little else to stare at, the kid shoves the seed into the small pocket that's been hemmed into the side of their pajamas, right next to the small packet that's been folded up and already placed in their, and heads around the building.
Slipping between some thick shrubbery and a large wooden fence, Olive eventually makes it over to an odd spot by the side of the house. What makes it stick out is the gardening tools, large gap in the shrubbery, and a metal box in that area…
…well, all that and the excessive amounts of vines that seem to be climbing up the side of the house. They were thick, tall, and dark green, with small patches of red showing the brick wall that rested underneath. In fact, thinking back a few moments, Olive recalls some of these vines even curling out and poking around the side of the house, somehow. Another odd fact is that they seem to curl around the windows on the side of the house, the ones from the hallway, instead of covering them, but they cover everything else, including the metal box.
Though, fortunately, the ones on the box are much thinner and smaller compared to the ones running alongside the house.
Olive focuses on the gardening tools, though, and not the vines. There were two sets of three tools on the ground. A trowel, a hand rake, and a watering can, coming both in metal, and a smaller version in plastic. Olive's thoughts are brought back to yesterday, the image vivid in their eyes.
–flash to past-
"Olive, dear, can you help me pull this out? It seems this bush has wilted at the roots, and, sadly, no amount of care can save this one."
"Ok mom!"
Sitting beside the small patch of dirt, a mother and their child dug around in the dirt with a rotting pile of shrubbery turned over nearby.
"I'm not sure what these are, but it doesn't look like the bush likes them, so let's make sure to remove them all before planting a new one, ok?"
With their trowels and rakes, they dug and shifted through the dirt, pulling out odd looking roots. They were dark brown and rotted, forming a small pile next to the turned over bush.
The mother flinches slightly as one of the roots grazes her finger, then she sighs.
"I should be wearing my gloves for this, oh, if only I knew where I put them."
As the mother laments, she doesn't notice the kid slip onto the dirt patch. The branches graze the kid's arms, but the young gardener pulls themselves up before the woman can notice. Though, it doesn't hide the fact that their entire front was now covered in a thin layer of dirt. Something which certainly doesn't go unnoticed.
"Olive, you got dirt all over yourself. You're going to need to take another bath."
"Ok mom, but can we finish up here first?"
The mother thinks for a moment.
"Sure, but not too long, I don't want you getting sick again."
The kid smiles brightly before going back to digging. The woman, with a small smile on her face, joins them. They continue digging away, together. The wind blows softly above them.
–flash to present-
And just like that, the memory ends, and Olive is back to the present, eyes wet and body trembling. After a couple of stabilizing breaths, a sleeve meets a pair of eyes and rubs away the tears. With great effort, they move their focus to the metal box, one they were once told controlled the energy to the house.
The same box that was currently covered in vines, to the point that it couldn't even be opened.
Vines that, as far as Olive could remember, were definitely not there yesterday. Or anywhere on the house really.
The small gardener picks up their trowel and begins hacking away at the vines. Despite their small stature, they had developed some muscle from all the gardening they've done and it gives the trowel enough power to dig into the vines, revealing an inky black substance that seems to leak out with each stab. It smelt the same as the rotting bush from yesterday.
Unfortunately, the effort strains the trowel enough for the plastic snapped in two.
The kid falls backwards in surprise, before sitting up and helplessly staring at the broken trowel in their hand. They stay like this for a few minutes, before finally placing the broken tool on the ground.
Eyes wander back up to the metal box, then over to the metal trowel.
…
The soft grip of the metal trowel somehow feels hot, but the tool is sharp enough to cut through the vines. Although, it does take a few minutes to get through enough to open the box.
Finally done, the metal door swings open. The latch to the door seemingly broken from the vine infestation. Inside are a countless number of switches, and vines that have seemed to have slid into the box from above. All the switches were flipped downwards and broken off thanks to the vines, except for a few on the far right side that have only been flicked off and not broken from a smaller vine.
The trowel digs into the vines, starting from the right, as Olive gets back to work. However, after a few moments, a jolt of electricity from the box suddenly knocks Olive back. The vines inside the box seem to spark blue with electricity.
Fortunately, the vines above the switches that are still functional have been cleared away, though Olive wasn't quite keen on sticking the trowel back in there to finish the work.
With a careful use of the small plastic rake, the switches that can be flipped are flipped. With bated breath, Olive awaits for something to change…
…
Nothing really seems to change from Olive's position, so the young gardener prepares to head back in and see if it worked. That is until a sudden glow catches their eye.
A seed lays on the ground and, after a quick search through a pocket, it just so happened to be the one Olive had been holding up in the air before. It continues to glow, before suddenly burying itself underground.
For a moment, nothing.
Then, suddenly, a massive plant sprouts out from the ground. What it was, Olive couldn't really tell, which was something in of itself considering the kid reads gardener catalogs during free time. Logic dictates it's a 'Peashooter', as said on the packet, though, with it's oddly pot-shaped face, 4-petaled base, and small leaf on the back of it's head that almost looked like a tuffet of hair, it doesn't quite look like anything 'pea plant' related.
Olive manages to summarize their thoughts into a single word.
"What"