Damn it, she’s done it again.

Holding her breath, she walks slowly down the hallway. Maybe, she thinks, they’re still OK. Perhaps they’re merely droopy or a little brown around the edges.

Nothing that a little pruning and clipping can’t cure, right?

Wrong.

Phil, Lily, Poe, and the gang are dead in their pots. They’re forlorn, withered things, bundles of naked stems. Brown leaves dot the floor, as if they had reached for succor and, finding nothing, cast themselves into the air.

Monica’s lip quivers, and she blinks back a tear as she pads into the kitchen to get a funerary garbage bag. Her plants had withstood her erratic brand of love, a furious oscillation between affection and neglect, for years.

They’d been there for her, always. Even when her friends stopped returning her texts. Even when her parents cut her off.

She sobs as she drops them into the trash bag one by one. Goodbye, Spathiphyllum. Goodbye, Monstera Deliciosa. Goodbye, Phil, she blubbers as she wads up his desiccated vine and pulls him out of his glossy ceramic pot.

She’s about to throw out the smallest plant, Oddny, the one she took the day she quit her job at the lab, when she feels a strange sensation. Like an electrical zap inside her brain. Or a buzzing insect. She shakes her head and looks down.

Oddny isn’t dead, after all. Her leaves are a mix of brown and green. Monica wipes her tears, and her lips curl into a tremulous smile.

“Ooh, little one,” she coos, “you’re the only one who didn’t leave me. The only one.”

Oddny spends the next few days recovering; she is regularly moved between a bright windowsill and an overstuffed nightstand. Monica sings fragments of made-up songs, a pastiche of Lorde and Taylor Swift, bathing Oddny in clouds of warm, moist carbon dioxide. She hurries to and from the local greenhouse, buying special lamps and nutrients, sighing over Oddny, and journaling her gratitude.

Until she hears from her ex again.

Monica, reads the text, I’m outside. Come to me.

A queasy thrill of adrenaline courses through her, even as her brain seems to fill with bees. She absently swats the air in front of her as she runs downstairs. The feeling quickly fades.

She sees him parked across the street, revving his bike and scratching his beard. His name is Diesel. He likes to drink a sixer and then take Monica for fast rides up and down Route 1 on his ancient Harley.

It’s terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time, and, without her friends or family, it’s the kind of broken-glass moment she lives for.

She runs across the road, ignoring the curses and the horns, and jumps on the back of Diesel’s bike. She wraps her arms around his broad chest.

He smells like sweat and oblivion.

Monica’s mouth is full of cotton, and her head fills with bees, but louder this time, as she climbs the stairs.

She and Diesel fought like they always do. Her arms are mottled with bruises, each one a small, purple regret. She’s wondering if it’s time to grow up, to shape the spiky chaos of her life into something softer.

She’ll worry about that later. She’s parched. She needs water…right now.

Breathing heavily, licking dry, chapped lips, she hurries into her apartment. She turns on the faucet in the kitchen and laps straight from the tap, letting the water sluice down her chin.

She drinks until her belly is taut. Until it hurts.

Then, for a moment, it all stops. She takes a breath and remembers her one surviving, dearest little darling plant. She fills up the fancy silver watering can she bought last week and gives Oddny a drink.

And suddenly she’s thirsty again.

Time passes quickly, and not at all.

Monica’s lips latch onto the tap. She relaxes her throat, lets the water flow down into her belly, feeling it strain and swell.

With a single, gurgling belch, it all comes back up as frothy, diluted bile. But she thirsts, and she drinks.

Now her bladder is filling; she can tell by the dull ache. But she thirsts, and she drinks.

Warm liquid trickles down her leg, but she swallows, and she swallows. And she thirsts, and she drinks.

She drinks until her heart begins to flutter in a way that feels wrong. It triggers a cough and a gasp and a lungful of water. She flails and staggers and slips on a pool of something warm and wet.

She falls. Her head hits the floor with a crack.

Her head hurts. Her breath is a watery wheeze. Her heart is playing an odd, syncopated rhythm in her chest.

She is still parched, but now the bees are back, swarming in her head, pouring in from her ears and her nostrils. They buzz and sting and turn her body into a bow.

She screams, screams, screams.

And then, all at once, it is quiet. Except for a single voice. A subsonic rasp she knows somehow is Oddny.

You steal me…trap me…

kill the others…

I seed your thoughts…

root inside your mind…

Now I kill and you die.

…the giving tree…

who loved a little boy.

And the tree had a friend

…the other tree…

who loved her.

The other tree watched

and fumed while the boy

hurt her friend.

He tore off her leaves

and wove them into crowns

of fire and dominion.

He climbed clumsily

onto her branches

and broke their ends.

The other tree scented

her friend’s pain

on the breeze.

And she was not happy.

But time passed.

The boy grew older.

He came by less and less.

The giving tree grew taller

and more melancholy.

And the other tree was relieved,

until the day the boy

returned with a basket.

He seized their fruit

and sold it

in the city market.

The giving tree pined

for the boy’s rough hands.

The other tree mourned

her lost seedlings.

She nurtured

her rage instead.

When the boy came back

with a pretty new wife and

a shiny new ax,

she was ready.

She wrapped her

branches around the

soft young couple,

and squeezed

until their faces

were the color

of rotten apples.

###

The giving tree never forgave her.

The dime-sized suckers on her palms make it easy to pluck fish from the water. She pulls one, squirming, into her mouth and takes a bite. She rolls it around on her tongue. No. She makes a face and spits it out. It’s stealthily sweet, like all the fish spawned around the groaning, shuddering fortress.

Her mother used to eat them by the armful. The more she ate, the more she craved. Now, her hands shake, and her tail quivers. She takes up less and less space every day.

At first, the mermaids cheered when Men built the fortress. It exhaled warm, effervescent water they could gambol in, and its giant, echoing legs offered a place for plants to grow and fish to breed.

Then the shakes started. The ocean rolled and bent, causing ghostly vibrations that rendered the mermaids unable to tell up from down, and here from there. After an especially bad one, mother and daughter lost each other for weeks, plunging both into premature mourning.

Soon after they reunited, the fish turned sweet, the small ones followed by the bigger ones. Mother ate more, so she sickened faster. But the little mermaid knows that she, too, is tainted. Her tail jangles with random shocks, like stings from an overeager jellyfish.

The little mermaid is starving. Everything she puts into her mouth tastes like oblivion. Even the seaweed has an odd, metallic flavor that warns of creeping death. She doesn’t like her choices. Eat and get sicker, or don’t eat and starve.

She is eyeing a wary eel when she spots two Men in their rubbery shells. Mother says they’re like hermit crabs. Underneath their tough outer membrane, they’re soft and vulnerable. They look plump and well-fed. They move slowly. She wonders how they might taste.

The little mermaid drifts towards them, hair streaming around her face like an invitation. One of the men kicks towards her, an eager frog. Siren, he mouths, although it means nothing to her. She lets him wriggle into her arms. He relaxes for a moment and thrashes wildly once her intentions become clear.

The little mermaid takes a bite of pink, soft flesh. Warm blood stains the water. She chews and cocks her head. She wants to scream. This new meat is poisoned, too.

Eve glances nervously at her colleague Adam. He is tall and upright with a square jaw and pale, mobile eyes always looking for something better.

“Nope,” she says with a self-deprecating smile that voids the ambition from her face. “I wouldn’t know them from, well, you.”

Adam guffaws. “Oh they’re nothing like me. If you haven’t seen them before, it’s a little unsettling.”

Eve chuckles politely, although what Adam said wasn’t funny. “I suppose I’ll have to see for myself.”

“No time like the present,” he says, swiping a plastic pass card and opening the frosted door. He nods curtly, as if to say you first. She takes a shallow breath and steps forward. It’s just an office, she reminds herself. It’s just an office.

She blinks and tries to grasp the enormity of it all. The space is vast and empty, a quivering, tensile gray. A plume of dark smoke hovers at the far horizon, twisting itself into complicated shapes and roiling dreams. Eve is transfixed until something lands on her shoulder like a warm, heavy bug.

“What?” she snaps.

“That’s them,” whispers Adam, suddenly behind her. “You should say hello.”

Dutifully, Eve approaches the smoke, which is now a swirling, tornadic vortex. She’s from the wastes of western Oklahoma. Her parents died in an F5 twister when she was twelve.

“Um, hello. I’m Eve, I’m here for the Virtual Reality meeting.”

Eve, get to the storm cellar. Your dad and I will be right behind you.

Her mother’s last words echo in her ears. The smoke briefly morphs into a careworn face before curling into a complex fractal.

Eve. Adam. Thank you for joining me today.

“Always a pleasure,” says Adam, his voice light and jocular.

“Me too,” mutters Eve.

I have a project for you. Build a new world. Populate it with male and female. Yin and yang. Light and dark.

Make it irresistible. Inescapable.

Eve blinks, and Adam is rapt. The boss becomes a slowly rotating cyclone with an empty eye. “Um, when do you want to see a prototype?” asks Eve.

You have seven days.

“We’re on it!” says Adam eagerly. Eve nods.

Just one more thing. Others have built worlds and failed. I want a fresh perspective, a new take.

Don’t look at the old data. It is forbidden.

Eve is in her cubicle, designing a gently rolling topography, when Drake puts his cold, dry hand on her neck. An inveterate backstabber known as the snake, Drake is a narrow man with a loose, springy grace. He is playful, charming, and entirely untrustworthy.

“Hello Eve,” he says, thin lips curving into an oddly sensual smile. “Working hard or hardly working?”

Eve sighs. “You know I’m working on the new world. We’re going to demo the prototype on Friday. I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

“Oh, sweet Eve, naïve Eve,” murmurs Drake. “The boss has destroyed every world anyone has ever made for them. And their developers, too. Wouldn’t you like to know why?”

The old data, the data she isn’t supposed to look at. For a moment, Eve is curious. The data could give her an edge. Or it could give Adam an edge, something sharp to hold over her if the demo goes bad.

“No thanks, Drake,” she says tartly. “I’m not going to bite this time.”

As Adam and Eve craft their world, soft screams echo from the production server. For every gentle, vegetable-planting culture Eve designs, Adam releases a ruthless, hungry army. There is blood and pain and bile and even more blood.

“What about adding a religion that values peaceful conflict resolution?” asks Eve, her voice dull with exhaustion. “The way we’re going now, the entire population will be dead before Friday’s demo.”

“Don’t worry about it,” replies Adam, his voice calm and breezy. “I’ve got it all under control.”

Eve frowns. The prototype is unrelentingly violent and grim. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m positive.” He winks in a way that makes her certain he studied the forbidden data. She sighs, putting the final touches on a desert sunrise. Perhaps Adam is right, after all. The boss is kind of a sick fuck.

The demo of the new world isn’t going well at all. The boss is manifesting as a ball of wriggling adders. Eve steps back while Adam, oblivious to the boss’ body language, lovingly describes every last plague and battle.

“So, what do you think?”

The snakes dissolve, and the smoke arranges itself into a thundercloud flashing with eerie light.

I think you looked at the old data. The forbidden data.

Adam blusters while Eve continues to move slowly and carefully towards the exit. “It was her! Eve did it. She manipulated me. I had no idea what was happening. She seduced me and then…”

CRACK! A bolt of lightning explodes out of the cloud. For a moment, Adam glows like a million stars. And then he is gone, except for the dull, metallic smell of ash.

Eve, I know he was lying. I know everything.

Eve nods, her hands shaking. Direct contact with management is often fatal. The thundercloud contracts and changes, birthing a slender tornado. The vortex reaches across the room, its whirling funnel of death arcing towards Eve.

I have a new project for you.

Eve swallows. Hard. “Yes boss?”

Build a replacement for Adam.

She cut off her hair

and gave it to the birds.

They made a cozy nest.

She was happy,

until her head got cold.

She cast a meaningful

glance at the birds,

who warbled their gratitude,

but it was not enough.

So she made herself

a feathered hat.

She was a taker.

Ever since she met him, she has lived in vivid color. Her existence before was vague and unformed: daughter, student, receptionist at the office where Jonathan’s agent works. Now she’s growing more clearly defined. Soon she will be the self-determined woman that Jonathan deserves.

She squeezes his arm and smiles. He is older, but he keeps himself fit. She admires his discipline and drive. Her smile stiffens; her nails dig into his arm. Apolline, one of his co-stars is gliding towards them from across the room. She is famous for her dark, luxuriant curls. Audrey’s hair is the faded yellow of old bone.

“Jonathan, darling,” murmurs Apolline, kissing his cheeks. Audrey wrinkles her nose. Like Jonathan, she hates perfume.

The actress looks Audrey up and down. Audrey blushes and wonders if she’s one of Jonathan’s many exes. “Babe,” she coos, pointing a red-tipped finger at Audrey, “your new girl is exactly your type.”

Audrey waits patiently in Jonathan’s apartment. She is wearing the bra and panty set he likes best with heels and a transparent robe. She is odorless and perfectly clean. A four-course vegan dinner sits in the oven like an unsaid prayer.

Jonathan is working late. He’s an important man. Millions of people are counting on him to say his lines and deliver them from boredom, which the old ones feel so acutely. Technically speaking, Jonathan is one of the old ones. He is three hundred years old but not even remotely jaded. He is centered and wise.

Audrey frowns. It occurs to her that he has been dating for roughly two hundred and eighty years. She worries that what they have together is a tiny, forgettable drop in an ocean of big, passionate affairs with women like Apolline. She finds herself drifting to the terminal and fiddling with it until she connects. She drinks down Jonathan’s relationship history, one ex after the next. She reads posts, follows leads.

Then she finds it. The dark thread she never knew she was looking for. The gray film that dulls her past.

She is no longer waiting patiently. She is full of sorrow.

And confusion.

And rage.

Jonathan spots the empty dining table and mutters a curse. He can’t believe it’s falling apart so soon. “Audrey? Audrey, are you there?” he calls.

Silence.

He drops his briefcase full of printed scripts beside the coat rack and sighs. His fondness for paper is his sole concession to nostalgia. Otherwise, he likes everything new and modern and fresh. Like Audrey is. Or was.

He makes his way through the house and finds her sitting on the balcony, watching the ocean roar against the barrier. Her face is stained with tears and streaked with eyeliner. Her pale hair is tangled. Knotted.

“Good evening, Audrey,” he says softly. “What happened to dinner?”

“It’s in the oven,” she sniffles.

Jonathan stifles a groan. He hates pouting. He wishes she would just tell him what’s wrong. “Audrey, something is clearly bothering you. Would you kindly explain?”

Her nostrils flare in an unbecoming way. Jonathan notices how wide they are, how horsey.

“Jonathan, I got onto the network. I looked up all your old girlfriends. And they all look like me — ”

“Darling, you know that’s a breach of our agreement — ”

“They look exactly like me. They’re clones! Actual, grown-in-a-vat clones! Two of them have even started a support group. And now I have questions.”

Jonathan says nothing. He reaches into his pocket. Audrey’s cheeks shine with anger.

“How old am I?

“Are my memories even real?

“Why did you make me?

“I need to know who I am. I can’t exist only for you—”

Jonathan presses a small button on his nano-pad, and Audrey slumps forward. He shakes his head. This has happened too many times before. He kisses her forehead and covers her tenderly with a green, waterproof tarp.

He’ll recycle her in the morning.

She was a magnet
for amorous monsters,
well-intentioned sadists,
velveteen wolves.
They followed her
with milky eyes
brimming with sour lust,
dreamed of licking
her iron-flavored blood
from their fingers,
watching her flinch
before a blow.

They shuffled blindly
into her lair,
inhaling her rosy scent
mingled with
the odor of decay

…and never felt
her sharp knife,
heard her soft giggle,the wet smack
of her bloody lips.

The boy spent his milk years in the garden with his mother. He toddled behind her as she cut herbs, healed bug-battered bushes, and collected precious seeds. He pulled on tender tomato plants and stuffed himself with strawberries. He grew tall, strong, and even somewhat useful.

When his baby teeth fell out, the sorceress planted them in a row in front of their cabin.

“Why are you planting my teeth?” he asked through a gummy, bloody grin.

The sorceress replied, but the boy didn’t hear her answer. He was running to greet his father, who had a doe over one shoulder and a bow over the other.

The boy began spending his days in the woods with his father, learning to stalk and kill. The sorceress passed her days alone, tending the garden and storing vegetables for winter. She dreamed of a time when her life had been rougher and more vital. When kingdoms rose and fell at her command. When monsters roared and picked men from their teeth.

She began working a little magic here and there to amuse herself. Nothing fancy, just simple, homey spells to make their cabin cleaner and more comfortable. Her husband praised her industry and advised their son to marry a hard-working woman like his mother. Her son inhaled his venison stew, wiped his mouth, and asked for more.

One day, out of pure boredom, she turned their cabin into an old Castilian castle. When her husband emerged from the woods with a wild boar, he took one look at the dragon-filled moat and serpentine turrets, and fled into the forest with their son. The sorceress sighed. She turned the castle back into a cabin and skinned the boar her husband had dropped. Her husband and son returned for a sullen dinner. No one said anything about what had happened.

After the boy had gone to bed, her husband grabbed her arm. “Don’t turn his head with your foolishness. I’m teaching him to hunt and fight like a real, human man.”

The sorceress vaguely recalled killing insolent wretches. Her husband released her arm, yelping in pain.

War came to the Valley. The sorceress remembered war. It smelled like pine pitch and vomit and burning shit. She wanted to flee, but her husband vowed to defend his land. “We are not leaving. These woods have been in my family for fifty generations. Our blood has nourished the soil. I can protect us from any stray marauders.”

Her son, now sixteen, glowed with anticipation. “And I can help you! I’m old enough to wield a staff.”

Her husband smiled with fatherly pride. “Yes, you are.”

That very night, a band of deserters found their cabin and began tearing up the garden like a litter of piglets. The sorceress cursed softly. Her husband and son leaped from their beds and gathered their weapons. While they strapped on big sticks and small knives, she slipped outside and whispered a single word to her son’s milk teeth still nestled in the earth.

Grow.

Huge, ivory monsters with red eyes, wet, gaping mouths, and pink, prehensile tails exploded from the earth. After rubbing dirt from their faces with giant, crablike claws, they plucked the deserters like dandelions. They popped off their heads, drank their blood, and crushed their bones into the ground. Once sated, the monsters shrank back into teeth and slowly melted away.

The sorceress turned to see her husband and son standing behind her, one frowning and the other wild-eyed and alert. She put her arm around her husband and hissed in his ear.

“He’s my son, too.”