Mirrored in Evergreen by B. Pigeon

Author:B. Pigeon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: B. Pigeon LLC

Eleven

Siobhan squatted near the edge of the garden while Rosemary sat in the narrow space between rows of plants, his right hand gloved and buried in the dirt.

She had walked the perimeter of the garden with him, checking on it and showing him everything that was ready to harvest. There wasn’t much, only the valerian and the barberry, like she’d thought, and she ultimately instructed him to dig up the largest of the valerian.

The plant was much larger and more difficult to pull up than he thought; he had expected to be able to finish the task one-handed but had to claw further into the earth with his ungloved left hand, too, feeling the dirt embed itself into his nail beds. The flowers had been trimmed down significantly, and he’d underestimated the spread of the root system, which was much wider and deeper than he had imagined.

“Do you want another glove or a spade or something? I have gardening supplies,” she told him.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said. He pulled his hands up and rubbed them together to remove a layer of the dirt from his left hand, and picked under his fingernails to try to loosen more of it.

A moment later Siobhan dropped a pair of oversized and very dirty green gloves on the ground in front of him, and on top of that a rusted spade, mumbling something about his lack of practical experience. He ignored her, pulled on the left glove and pressed his hands back into the soil.

Rowan walked outside a minute later, cup of coffee in one hand and cigarette in the other, and sat next to Siobhan in the sand. It appeared that they had fallen asleep at some point, if only momentarily; they had that disheveled, gloomy look they always had right after waking up, their hair hanging down and sticking up a bit on one side. They put the cigarette between their lips, lit it with a slight motion of their fingers, and inhaled deeply.

“Move away from the plants if you’re smoking,” Siobhan said. They huffed in annoyance but moved a foot backwards anyway.

“Tomorrow’s my birthday,” they announced.

Rosemary hadn’t realized this; the days were beginning to blur together, now that he wasn’t deliberately tracking them like he had during his apprenticeship, and it seemed impossible that the following day would be the seventh of November already. He almost responded, but there was no evidence they were talking to him; as he looked up he saw that their gaze was focused on Siobhan, who was still watching Rosemary intently.

“You would be a Scorpio,” Siobhan said without turning toward them, and when she received no response she asked, “How old are you going to be?” Before they could answer she shook her head at Rosemary, who was still trying unsuccessfully to uproot the plant with his hands, and said “Just use the spade. You’re never going to do it that way.”

Rosemary slipped the spade into the dirt and turned it slowly in an attempt to loosen the roots without damaging them.

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