We are Wormwood (28 page)

How did I know this?

Because a Parisian does not find herself in a forest in the
southern United States, dizzy, barefoot, and slipping on the soft eyeballs
underneath her. Jezebel never stopped cutting off heads to run through the
dirt, calling for a sick cat. And she never will.

The trees hissed and the branches lay themselves about my
shoulders like a mantle. They were warm and alive. From behind me, someone
spoke.

“I can give you.”

A familiar voice.

“I can give you something special.”

Let me tell you all the things I’ve devoured today.

A dirty girl sat, cross-legged, among a mound of cat’s
eyeballs. Her dark hair covered her eyes.

“Lily?”

She’d changed. She picked up an eyeball and popped it with
black, sharp fingernails. Her mouth was a piranha’s mouth, with sharp rows of
fanged teeth. She swallowed the eye.

When she brushed her hair out of her face and looked at me
with dark green eyes, a wave of nausea hit me. The air swam thick.

“Lily. What the hell is wrong with you?” I said, my mouth
and voice far away, “Are you on drugs?”

“They’re under my tongue,” she said. “Come have a taste.”

“Stop fucking around.”

But I know she isn’t. The Madagascar Tree stood behind me; I
felt her like a guardian angel. Snakes, with leaves buried into their skin,
encircled my legs and arms. They flicked their tongues at me, tasting me.

“You never had a chance, Phaedra.”

She ate another eye.

“I can give it to you now.”

Miss Margot went limp in my arms.

“The ultimate drug. No symptoms, and no comedown. Ever.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. It was a tongue made of
spiders, and the spiders held, in their limbs, a little red capsule.

“Kiss me.”

Kiss me.

You will see what you want forever. Reality as it belongs to
you.

Kiss me.

The snakes lured me forward with their black, tree-limbed
heads. They lured me down into the wet mud. Miss Margot ran from my arms and
jumped into the girl’s lap. My chest constricted. I gasped a single word.

“Please.”

I inhaled a sharp breath. As I did so, my shadow curled up
around me and welded itself back to my skin.

“Please don’t let me be my mother.”

The girl laughed. The spiders on her tongue clicked.

“That sad little ghost? You could be so much more.”

If only I crawled.

And I crawled. Through the eyeballs, I crawled. I could be
more. The tree could be mine. Yes. My limbs would grow into a plant’s limbs. So
difficult to be human, each generation raised by a tragedy, instead of a
parent. I wanted to be more. Let the mask slip. Little Venus teeth were growing
underneath.

She took me in her arms. I kissed her soft, cold mouth. I
swallowed the pill.

***

I lost consciousness, but when I came to, I was running.
Lights flashed behind me, people shouting. The cops. I found myself running in
heels and a shredded dress, through a muddy creek. They told me to stop. I knew
they couldn’t catch me. I was faster than they could ever hope to be. There
were muscles in my legs and my head I never knew existed. I flexed them and
passed into a parallel world. The trees there glowed. The flowers called my
name. I was laughing. I ran without touching the ground. I slipped in and out
of realities. I wished for Miss Margot and she appeared in my arms.

I was in all places at once, and at all times.

By the time I got home I’d lost the cops. The doors of the
house had blown open and I knew Mama was gone, but I didn’t care.

The seeds I planted that morning had grown into my baby. My
Madagascar Tree. I lifted my arms. She lifted her arms and took me gently by
the wrists. Her snakes clamped down onto my fingers. I didn’t need legs
anymore.

The backyard had transformed into a midnight garden. The
once derelict, broken-down fence became an obsidian wall. The weeds grew into
enormous flowers, man-eating bellflowers with red translucent skin.

The mirror that once trapped me, detached itself from my
body. The town fell away with its police, high school, and quack therapy in its
reflection, leaving me in the garden.

I blew seeds from my mouth and they bloomed into blue roses.
I shook my hair and the hair that fell on the ground, grew into cherry trees.
The snakes brought me to the tree’s center. She could’ve swallowed me, but I
knew she wouldn’t dare. I whispered to her, lovingly, teasing, I would be like
fire in her stomach. I’d burn a hole straight through her, in the shape of me.
I wouldn’t allow her to place the golden bracelets on my wrists. Instead, I
would collar her snakes with crystal leashes. I’d take them for walks around
the garden.

The night would be a long one. Maybe it’d go on forever. I
could feel my veins blooming into celluloid walls. Soon vines would overtake my
heart and I’d no longer need to breathe with lungs. I’d breathe through my
skin.

I touched her trunk and I whispered.

I devoured the pill.

I devoured the mask.

I devoured my neuroses.

I devoured my history.

I devoured the fear, and the shame.

You’re in my garden now, and I am your gardener.

Autumn
Christian is a game designer by day and speculative fiction writer by night.
She is the author of
The
Crooked God Machine
and
A
Gentle Hell
. All love letters, blackmail, and inquiries should be sent to
her email address at
[email protected]
.

She's
been a freelance writer, a game developer, a cheese producer, a haunted house
actor, and a video game tester. She considers Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury,
Katie Jane Garside, the southern gothic, and dubstep, as main sources of
inspiration. She is waiting for the day when she hits her head on the cabinet
searching for the popcorn bowl and all consensus reality dissolves.

www.autumnchristian.net