Vigilantes of Love (10 page)

“Wow,” she said.

What else was there to say? The plants nearly touched the ceiling, and their skyblue fronds waved like alien palms across the back quarter of the cellar. Bellinda smiled as she stroked one of the leaves and saw that rows of teardrop-shaped kernels were forming at the edges of each long leaf. She stayed in the cellar until late watching the plants shake and grow, dancing slowly to an internal music.

When her stomach growled, Bellinda went upstairs to see about dinner and found the house was dark. The clock on the stove said 8:34. In the frontroom, lit only by the glow of a rising moon, her mom was still combing her hair in the mirror. But now she was wearing her New Year’s Eve gown – a black dress lined with gold sequins. It was cut into a deep V in the back and a not much smaller V in front. She kept putting one hand on her hip and pushing her waist from side to side.

Bellinda opened a cabinet and found some Pop-Tarts and went unseen to her room. Mom didn’t look like she was going to make any dinner tonight.

The next day when Bellinda got home from school, Mom was asleep on the couch and Dad, face black with stubble, cuffed her head absently as he grabbed a beer from the fridge and returned to his work upstairs. It seemed like he always had a beer in hand since they’d moved to the old farmhouse. At least he didn’t yell and spank her much since they’d come here. She almost never saw him; he was always holed up in his office. Bellinda dropped her books on the kitchen table and ran downstairs.

The seeds were ready!

Bellinda knew they were done because they were so blue it almost hurt to look at them, and the pale blue of a couple of the palm fronds were already streaked with an unhealthy yellow. One by one, leaf by leaf, she plucked the blue teardrops from the two plants and stuffed her pockets with them. When the leaves were stripped bare, Bellinda had counted 27 seeds. She stepped back and looked at the monstrous plants and nodded. There were no seeds left to take.

The bottom leaf on one of the trees was now completely yellow, and as she turned to go upstairs, it fell to the ground. When it touched the earth, it evaporated, like a morning mist caught by sunlight.

As Bellinda watched, the center stems of both plants began to yellow and another leaf disappeared into the ground.

Her heart was full of wonder, and she ran out the back door and down to the creek, hoping that the old woman would be there to talk to. She had seeds for her!

When she got to the creekbed, she looked around at the silent cornfields and called Penelope’s name. She barely had time to close her lips when the old woman stepped out from behind an old elm.

“You’ve done very well, Bellinda,” the old woman said, as the girl poured seeds into her hand. “Did you get them all?”

Bellinda nodded, and flushed with her own flash of pride. Penelope had been waiting for her, just as she’d hoped.

“They grew so fast,” she said.

It was the old woman’s turn to nod. “Can you keep a secret?” she asked.

Bellinda’s face lit up. “Oh yes!” she said.

“They’re magic plants,” Penelope whispered. “That’s why you must be very careful when you plant them. And you must gather all of the seeds they produce.”

“Can I have more?” Bellinda asked. “I’ll be careful.”

“Of course, dear,” Penelope said. Her eyes glinted with pleasure and she once again offered a handful of colorful seeds. Bellinda pointed to the pitted yellow seeds and the old woman dropped two of them into her hand.

“Watch these carefully,” she warned. “They grow even faster.”

Bellinda thanked her.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” Penelope called after the girl, her thin smile lending another deep wrinkle to her weathered face.

Bellinda ran up the hill and back to her house with her new prize and thought of the strange things that had happened over the past couple of days. First she met the neat seed woman and then her parents started acting even stranger than usual. She wondered if the seeds had had some kind of effect on her parents. After all, they were magic. Then she shrugged. At least they were leaving her alone for once. It seemed like she was always getting her butt spanked and being screamed at. She would run away, if there was anyplace to run to, but out here in the country, she was trapped. There was nothing around for miles. She wished she could hurt them back; if only she weren’t so small.

But now, they seemed to be doing their own thing, and she was doing hers. With a smile, she redoubled her pace so that she could plant her new seeds.

When Bellinda got back to the basement, all traces of the blue plants were gone. She dug a hole in nearly the same place to drop the “sun” seeds in the earth. Then she washed up for dinner.

That night Mom made dinner, but something still wasn’t right, Bellinda found. Now Dad was acting strange.

“I’ll take the beans,” he said. “And pass the porkchops please.”

Mom handed the plates to Dad, but she glowered at him. There were deep circles under her eyes and her hair was askew.

“Can I have the salt, please,” he said. “And the salad.”

Soon all of the plates were in front of Dad. As he forked and spooned the food into his mouth, he gave a wide smile. “This is the life,” he said, apparently unconcerned that Bellinda and her mom had nothing on their plates.

“You know,” he announced, “I got the Matthews account this morning. I told you I would. But I think I’m going to double my quote. He gave in too easy. He’s got the money and I know it.”

“Could we possibly have some pork?” mom asked.

Dad looked at her blankly. “You know, I think I’m going to go adjust that quote right now, before I forget.” With that, he pushed away from the table and disappeared back to his office.

Bellinda and her mom rescued the food from his side of the table and ate in silence.

The next day Bellinda came home from school filled with anxiety. Her plants had sprouted last night, but again she’d been unable to check their progress after breakfast. She dropped her bookbag just inside the back door and ran downstairs immediately.

These plants were cool! They had elephant ear leaves that were dark green with sharp yellow spikes sticking out of them at the edges. And they were already three feet high.

As Bellinda looked them over, she heard a screech from upstairs. The plants seemed to shake violently, as if there were a strong wind blowing through the cellar, or a bird flapping in their fledgling branches.

Bellinda ran up the stairs to see who had screamed and stopped when she got to the kitchen. Mrs. Gailthen from next door was wrestling with her mom in the frontroom! She stood rooted to the tile as she saw her mom knee the older woman in the crotch and then push her to the floor.

“I’ve got to have them,” her mom said, straddling Mrs. Gailthen. Her hands pulled at the earrings on the neighbor’s ears.

Mrs. Gailthen screamed. “Are you crazy? You ripped my ears. You biiiittch!”

Bellinda’s mom stood up and walked away, holding up a string of pearls to the light, and comparing the creamy stones of the stolen earrings to them. She didn’t seem to see Bellinda as she took her new jewelry upstairs, leaving Mrs. Gailthen shaking her head in amazement behind her.

The old woman took a hand from her ear and screamed again as she saw the blood.“I’m bleeding, damn you! I’m bleeding!”

And then, realizing that only a child was listening, she hurried from the house.

That night after Bellinda had tucked herself into bed, a shadow leaned across her bed. Peeking unobtrusively from the security of her blanket, she watched as the shadow moved across her room to her dresser. Something rattled and something else fell to the floor, but she didn’t let out a sound. What if it was looking for her?

But the shadow didn’t come for her, and soon it disappeared, closing the door behind it.

When Bellinda got up in the morning, her piggybank was missing. 

She cried alone in her room, knowing that to complain about it to her mom would only end up with her getting spanked somehow. But she’d had five dollars and thirty-four cents in there! She’d been saving for weeks.

After school, Bellinda once again ran to the cellar and screamed with delight at the size of her new plants. Their leaves were as wide as her kitchen table and the plants’ tops strained against the ceiling. Each of the leaves held dozens of spikes, and at the tip of each spike grew a thick lemondrop of a seed.

“Bellinda?” Her dad called from the top of the stairs. She ran up and met him in the kitchen. “I’m glad you’re home, baby,” he said.

“Where’s Mom?” Bellinda asked. Even though he worked at home, it was odd to see dad in the middle of the day.

“Well, that’s why I’m glad you’re home. You know how I always tell you not to take the candy at the store without paying for it?”

She nodded.

“Well… Mommy forgot about that rule and now she’s in trouble with the police. So I’m gonna go down and help her out.”

“Mommy took candy without paying?” Belinda asked.

“No, honey. She took diamonds. Can you stay here and work on your homework while I’m gone?”

She nodded again and he patted her head.

“Good girl. Don’t get into any trouble, now.”

Bellinda was happy to have the house to herself. Lately, when her parents bothered to notice her, it was only to yell, so the quiet was refreshing.

After her dad left, she went back downstairs and saw that her new plants seemed to be wilting. She took the mason jar and went outside to get water for them, but when she came back downstairs, she noticed that one of the two treelike plants had a dark brown streak down its leaves. As she poured the contents of the mason jar on the ground at their bases, something plopped to the ground behind her.

Then again.

The seeds!

The floor was already littered with a handful of the sunseeds. Bellinda remembered how Penelope said it was important to get all of them. She picked up the fallen ones and dropped them in the jar. Then she began to pluck the remaining seeds from the leaves.

When the mason jar was full, she stuffed the rest in her pockets. As she plucked the last one, the entire plant seemed to shudder and fold in upon itself. She squeaked and jumped backwards as the elephant trees simply sunk into the ground, disappearing with a whisper of sunny dust fogging the air.

Bellinda ran all the way to the creekbed and called Penelope’s name before she even neared the large elm where she’d last seen the old woman.

Sure enough, Penelope stepped out from behind the tree.

“Are they ready so soon?” Penelope asked.

“Yes,” Bellinda said breathlessly. “And they made so many seeds.”

“You’ve been a very good gardner.” Penelope patted the girl’s head. Bellinda felt warm all over at her touch.

She decided that Penelope was no stranger, and it was definitely okay to talk to her.

“You said the seeds are magic?”

Penelope nodded slowly. Her black cloak fluttered ominously in the slow wind.

“Is that why my parents have been acting so weird?”

Again, Penelope nodded. “The seeds grow on the sins and desires of your parents. And just as the dark souls of your parents feed the plants, so do the plants feed the dark in your parents’ souls. And the result is that you and I get more seeds.”

Bellinda grinned. “You’re a witch, aren’t you?”

Penelope said nothing, only arched an eyebrow.

“I want to be a witch like you,” the girl ventured. “Then my parents could never hurt me.”

She looked at the seeds remaining in Penelope’s outstretched hand and said, “Which ones are the strongest ones?”

The corner of Penelope’s mouth turned up and she pointed at the red seeds. Bellinda nodded once and said, “Then I want those.”

“The old woman showed all of her teeth as she handed them over.

“These are very powerful,” she said. “You come get me if you have any trouble.”

The heart-shaped seeds grew fast, and Bellinda skipped dinner again to watch them. But this time it wasn’t because she was more fascinated in the plants than dinner, it was because Mom and Dad were playing naked on the kitchen table. She’d made the mistake of coming upstairs when she heard the noise, but quickly slipped back downstairs when she saw what they were doing.

Her new plants were covered in small thick, crimson leaves. Each leaf was like a fat circle of deep green flesh covered with fuzzy red velvet. Bellinda enjoyed running her fingers across them. They tickled, but that felt good, too.

After things in the kitchen had quieted down, she carefully crept up the stairs to make sure Mom and Dad had left. They had, but when she went to her room, Bellinda could still hear them giggling and crying out in their room down the hall.

She closed her door and went to bed without supper, again.

The next day, when Bellinda came home, the seeds were ready. She ran downstairs without stopping to see them.

But her excitement about them was tainted when she walked into the front room and found her mom lying on the floor.

Mom wasn’t wearing any clothes, and her arms and legs were twisted around the naked body of the mailman. He had dark black hair and a pimply butt. Bellinda knew it was the mailman because his U.S. Postal bag was lying on the floor near the door, along with his clothes.