Your Story #122

Prompt: Write a short story of 650 words or fewer based on the photo prompt above. You can be poignant, funny, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story.

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My mother's call is faint as I trail my fingers along the frigid greenhouse glass. I pretend not to hear her. I like it here when it snows, and it's rarely cold enough anymore. Under this giant cloche, warm feathers of humidity brush my skin as I twirl, my face to the night sky. I'm enveloped in greenery and light and the scent of damp earth, while all around me, the white eye of a blizzard swirls from the dark like a ghost trying to find a way in.

Outside, our system of greenhouses lights the snowy night sky to the edge of the blue darkness, where the villagers live. They think we must be rich to heat this extravagance, but we're rich because of it. My father is relieved they believe this, because what might they do to us if they learn what we've taken from them?

Whenever my mother takes a breath to voice the apprehension in her eyes, my father silences her. I will never let this go, he says.

"Luna, what's taking so long?" my mother yells.

I wrap my hand around the spear of aloe she sent me for and twist it from the plant. We used to grow a rainbow panoply of rare orchids and butterflies, but over the years, they've been replaced by aloe and vegetables. The vegetables, because the grocery store shelves are often empty, and the aloe, because of our burns.

I cup my hand under the juice dribbling between my fingers and carry it to my mother in the kitchen. She lays the spear on the counter and takes a knife, the burns inside her forearms not just red this time, but shiny, pus-filled blisters. I regret my dawdling.

"Now go and get me some honey."

I do not like the cellar.

"I'll get burned," I say.

She points her knife blade at a scattering of empty wrappers. They're from the silver first-aid blankets she bought because I'd complained. "I hung them," she says.

#

I slide the thick bolt off the cellar door. The heat thickens as I descend the stone steps. I fix my stare on the shelves and cover my ears with my hands.

Do not speak to him, do not engage him. We do not know what trickery he's capable of. He'll annihilate us if he escapes. These are my father's warnings.

To put my hands on the jug of honey, I must uncover my ears.

"Let. Me. Go."

The voice sears. I imagine it incinerating me into a pile of ash, if not for the shimmering sphere imprisoning this sun god in our cellar.

"You see what's happening beyond your walls."

I clamp the jug under my arm to free my hands, but I can't cover my ears well enough.

"I warn you as I have warned every generation before you."

"My father says you're just trying to scare us."

Light is escaping the edges of the silver blankets, along the floor, and around the thick tubes that snake from it, delivering heat and light to our house, to the greenhouses.

"You will pay the price for your father. He knows you will."

His words hold my legs. I hug the jar. "He wouldn't let anything bad happen to me."

"Come here. I'll show you the truth."

I fix my eyes on the floor and whisper, "We don't even know how to let you out."

"That is your father's lie. This can all stop. All you must do is say, I release you."

I run up the steps. I slam the cellar door. I lock the bolt.

My mother mixes her salve, and the snow turns to rain slapping the window. I am only a child. Can I hold this much power?

"Mom," I say.

"Luna, I don't want to hear it. Go cut the lettuce. Your father wants it ready for auction tomorrow."

She stood there, holding her purse under her arm, and carefully positioned herself to stand erect, businesslike, with her other hand holding her briefcase. Waiting for the woman to say something, she began to think she might be in the wrong room, scanning the walls for some identifying sign, or name, or title on a nameplate, but she saw nothing.

The woman didn’t look at her but paged through the folder that she had been given by the assistant, who had escorted Alison into the cavernous office that overlooked the park. Nor did she offer her a seat. Her severe hairdo and large black-framed glasses nearly obscured her face, and it was obvious that her eyes had read just one too many resumes and letters of recommendation.

Alison waited for an introduction, a comment, an invitation, but she continued her agonizing wait, to be acknowledged by this so-called head of personnel, the one who conducted interviews and made decisions based on a few sheets of paper and a copy of a transcript. Finally, she stood up, her bracelet dangling at her wrist, and extended her hand to Alison.

“So, you’re Alison Chandler,” the woman said. “Jane Hendricks. Have a seat.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

Alison carefully sidestepped to one of the blue patterned chairs and sat down, but sat forward on her chair, careful not to lean back, and placed her briefcase on the floor, leaning it against the chair leg.

“So, Miss Chandler, you want to work here. Tell me about yourself.”

Even though there had been a wealth of information posted, typed, written, and discussed in phone interviews, Alison ran a litany of skills, traits, and interests that she might embellish during this once-in-a-lifetime meeting.

“Well, one thing that you might not know about me is that I love to tap dance.”

“Hm. I’ve not heard that one before. Tell me more.”

“I was about six. My mother was constantly telling me to stop making noise with my feet, so she enrolled me in a six-week dance class just to see if I would be interested or if I had two left feet. I loved it so kept it up. I studied dance until I graduated from high school and became an instructor’s assistant.”

The harsh-faced woman softened her approach, leaned in, and looked directly at Alison.

“Well, if you can dance around a dance floor with 20 other students, you could probably dance your way around here. I see you were on a dance team at school. What role did you play?”

“I competed as a solo dancer but also assisted the dance coach. I did it all four years.
And I helped choreograph the musicals that were performed by the theater department.”

“That’s terrific. So, what do you see yourself doing in five years?”

“Well, I’d like to be working with a team, developing robotics for use in building solar-powered homes.”

“That’s ambitious.”

“It’s already a growing field, I’m sure you know that, but it’s something I’d eventually like to do. It could be more efficient than it is today.”

Alison watched as the woman paged through the folder one more time, using her highlighter, eyeing and scanning details that Alison hoped were not anything like the previous applicant’s folder contents.

“Anything else that you’d like me to know?” The woman seemed to relax and leaned back in her leather chair, looking directly at Alison, after having removed her large black-rimmed glasses. Alison could see her steely blue eyes more clearly.

Her brain raced through the topics she thought might come up but she was at a loss. Oh, why not? she thought.

“I collect succulents. Plants that require little care, a consistent good watering, good light, and an occasional rotation.”

“Sounds like you’d fit right in.”

Hetra bit her lip and returned to her work. She had been at it for days and still, the magic would not come. She closed her eyes, intent upon success, and felt the words spark from her, shooting out in all directions. She could hear glass breaking. Opening her eyes, she saw the shards of broken glass all around her; but most of all, she was spellbound by the beauty of a transformed aloe plant that towered above her, shimmering in blue and tinged with green serrated teeth. Its roots formed hundreds of human-like feet, allowing it to stand. Hetra was even more surprised when it spoke. 

"Feed me," it demanded. Its blue lanceolate leaves bent towards her, the pungent smell powerful.

Hetra racked her brain, wondering what would be suitable for a 20-foot-tall aloe plant. “Ummm … I’m a little low on plant food,” she replied.

“Plant food be damned,” it roared. “I need burning flesh. Yours looks suitable.”

“Like on-fire burning flesh, or just something that maybe could look like burning flesh? I mean, I could do a spell and make something appear to be on fire, like maybe some hot dogs? Well, the hot dogs I could actually burn enough to make them on fire,” Hetra replied, trying to be helpful, but not wanting to have to work magic upon herself.

The plant’s leaves shook with fury and wrapped her in their oniony odor. “I want your burning flesh” the plant shouted to Hetra. 

Seeing no way out of it, Hetra braced herself and began the spell. She could feel her flesh tingling with heat. The plant felt it too and relaxed its hold upon her.

Smoke rose from Hetra’s body and a flicker of flame shot from her mouth. The plant began to drool, its gel seeping. The gel spread over her, consuming the flames. A smoldering Hetra seized the moment and quickly worked to reverse her spell, undoing her earlier magic. The plant screamed as it returned to its natural state.

Once order was restored, Hetra turned to Algelise Sykes, her Professor of Dark Magic. 

“Well, did I do it? Did I pass?” Hetra queried.

Professor Sykes sat on a high stool smoking her cigar. A large ash-filled bowl floated in the air nearby. She blew a waft of smoke that circled about her head forming a wispy carousel of snarling dragons. “Well, certainly much improved from last week when you were sent to the infirmary to heal your burns,” she replied. “Come closer, let me examine you.”

Hetra stepped closer, and the professor, seeing that Hetra’s eyebrows were singed away, wiggled one of her magenta-painted nails at Hetra’s head. Hetra could feel the itching as her eyebrows grew back in place. Professor Sykes nodded with satisfaction and took another puff on her cigar.

“Girls are so much more sensible about their magic than boys,” she mused. “You turned your spell upon the aloe. Boys always go for the lizard, and when the spell works, they are faced with the reality of a 30-foot fire-breathing dragon. They are quite unprepared to deal with the consequences of their actions. Take that Whitby boy, for instance. The dragon he created bit him in half and swallowed before I could flick the ash from my cigar. Made quite the mess in here—blood everywhere. Of course, it could be that the lizard was just hungry. I may have forgotten to feed him the night before. Be that as it may, Dark Magic spells are used to create the formidable, yet it must be something that in the end you can control. Well, it’s too bad for the Whitby boy.” Professor Sykes puffed her cigar and exhaled, waving a hand in the air to dispel the smoky dragons. She turned a dismissive eye to Hetra and said, “Come back tomorrow. We’ll begin anew.”

The D-list actress wasn’t getting any younger, said Brett the agent, and reports of older women getting hot roles were grossly overstated. Plus, she was no Dame Judi Dench. Then they rode in silence from the Guadalajara airport.

They stepped out of the Escalade, the heat hitting them like a slap. Brett mopped his forehead with a salmon-tinted pocket square. He’d been down here several times, but this was the D-list actress’s first trip.

Pleasantries were exchanged in the terra cotta tiled foyer while a waiter in a stiff uniform served sweating glasses of lemonade—iced water for the D-list actress. Then Faustina ushered them into the library. They sat at a blocky table, Brett and the D-list actress on one side, Faustina and the lawyer in glasses on the other.

Brett shuffled cardboard mock-ups of the D-list actress in a fedora sipping a glass of clear liquid while kneeling between spiky rows of blue agave.

“Tequilana weber?” the lawyer asked, raising an eyebrow.

“What’d I say?” said Brett. “Better yet, we surround her with some of the more attractive women farmers. We could do a whole feminism thing.”

“Faustina too?” The lawyer asked. “Uh-huh,” said Brett. “Maybe.”

The lawyer pushed some papers forward. “The terms are nearly agreeable. But there is the matter of the family name.”

“Won’t work for the brand.” Brett jabbed his thumb at the D-list actress. “Her name only, or it doesn’t work.”

Faustina’s hair had streaks of white running from her forehead to the tight bun at the base of her skull. “This distillery has operated under my family name for two centuries.”

“Non-starter,” said Brett. “I can’t negotiate the name.”

“The idea of the two of us—me and Faustina—by the agave is a good one,” the D-list actress offered.

Brett glanced at her sideways while keeping his head faced forward. “What she means is there’s wiggle room when it comes to social media campaigns.”

Faustina examined the scrap of woman in front of her, honed and metallic like a luxury car, albeit not the latest model. “You know tequila?” she asked. “You are an aficionada?”

The D-list actress bit her lip. “I’ve tasted your product,” she said. “It’s wonderful.”

“Somewhere unobtrusive on the bottle,” said the lawyer. “Small letters on the cap. On the back label with the ingredients and warnings.”

“You’re not understanding,” Brett smoothed his palms over the lacquered walnut tabletop. “We’ll get a hundred times sales with just her name.” His eyes brightened, and he snapped his fingers. “Like a fine tequila—why dilute it?” He sat back in his chair, proud of himself.

Faustina placed a hand on the lawyer’s forearm. “The agave is ten years old before we harvest it. Then we distill and age it in whisky barrels from Scotland. That is the quality we offer.”

“Might not be necessary,” said Brett. “It’s added cost. Plus, we need to produce enough to meet initial demand.” He gestured at the D-list actress. “Because of her, that’s going to be humongous.”

“How long before I can put my family name back on the bottle?”

“It’s a five-year exclusive,” Brett said.

“But,” interjected the lawyer, turning to Faustina, “They have first right of refusal at current terms plus inflation.”

Brett put a finger to his forehead, then slapped Faustina’s grandmother’s table. “What I can do is keep the family name for the Mexican market. How would that be? Makes sense anyway.” Pointing to the lawyer, he said, “He drives a hard bargain.”

The D-list actress smiled, thinking how crazy the world was that she would soon own her own tequila brand. Faustina thought about all the people she was responsible for. The lawyer thought about how he would make more money if they came to terms than if they didn’t.

“Well,” said Brett, “Do we have a deal?”

It arrived on our front porch a week before Christmas in a gift bag decorated with holly. No note. I was home from school with my yearly case of bronchitis, so I’m the one who found it and brought it inside. I remember the day well because that’s the last day I coughed. Ever. The thing was small and cactus-like, a potted plant, blue instead of green, unusual only because of its color. When I reached into the bag, I got stuck by one of its spines. It hurt like the devil and caused a drop of blood to pop up on my thumb.

Nobody in the family knew who’d sent it or what to do with it, so I put it on the window sill in my room. I hardly ever thought to water it, but it didn’t seem to mind the neglect. It didn’t grow or shrink, either. It just sat there.

I caught on to its unusual powers when I saw how it affected my brother and my mom. Hank was much younger than me, spoiled like you wouldn’t believe. He threw a tantrum in my room one day. Totally out of control, he picked up the cactus and fired it across the room, pricking himself on one of the barbs. Like a slap across the face can sometimes bring a hysterical person back to reality, the result was instantaneous. He looked down at the blood on his finger, then up at me, and apologized. That should have been enough to clue me in, but my mom provided the final demonstration of the qualities of the thing.

She’d been plagued by migraines all her life.

“Tom,” she said to me one day when I got home from school. “I’m sorry. I was gathering up the laundry in your room and bumped into your little plant. It toppled off the window sill and a leaf broke off. Here.” She held out her hand with a little blue leaf and I saw a smear of blood on it. “Be careful with that thing, I stabbed myself and it really hurt.”

A week later, she announced at the dinner table that, “Knock on wood, I seem to have turned the corner on these headaches. I’m pain-free.”

I took the blue cactus with me when I went away to school. It wasn’t a good luck charm or anything, but I knew it was special. My friends succumbed to colds and upset stomachs and hangovers, but I seemed immune. When my girlfriend got mono, I surreptitiously poked her finger with a thorn from the plant and she made what everyone cautiously called a miraculously swift recovery. Yet, I could never convince any classmates that the plant held a substance with special healing qualities.

I married, had kids, and watched them grow up and marry and have kids, the usual cycle of things. The cactus lived with us wherever we were and kept us healthy. My wife humored me. My kids scoffed and joked with their friends that their oddball dad believed in a miracle plant. Nothing I said, no demonstration I devised, changed their minds. I even had a leaf analyzed by an independent lab, but they found nothing unusual about its properties.

My wife succumbed to Alzheimer’s many years ago. The cactus did not protect her. My kids, grandkids, and great grandkids moved out of town, away from the nutty old man. Most of them have passed on, too. So here I am, living alone at one hundred twenty years of age in perfect physical health. I’ve outlived everyone I care about. I’m lonely and ready to go. I’ll let nature take its course. Goodbye, little blue cactus. I’ll wrap you up and put you on some stranger’s doorstep, hoping that they’ll get as much from you as I did.