“What was what?”
He pointed at my nose. I clapped my hands over my face, cheeks reddening. “Oh god. That was really loud, wasn’t it?” Giggling awkwardly, I smiled so wide he could probably see last night’s dinner in my molars.
“Was that a laugh?” he smiled.
“If only. A laugh would be much less embarrassing.”
“You are laughing at me?”
“Well…yeah. You made a joke. That’s generally what happens when someone says something funny.”
“No one has ever thought I’m funny.”
I found that hard to believe. The robotic tone he used while he spoke always cracked me up. “Maybe they just haven’t told you.”
“Why?”
“You’re pretty intimidating.”
He quieted. For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the echoing of footsteps that rebounded off the walls. “What would you use?”
“Hmm?”
“You said you don’t like the daisies. In your daisy chain, what would you use?”
I mulled it over. “Depends on who it’s for.”
“Me.”
If not for Phil’s influence, I imagined I would’ve been afraid of such a loaded question. Instead, I looked him up and down and wondered if there was a reason he didn’t look at me. “Azalea. Yellow roses.”
“Why?”
“Because they talk. Azalea means gratitude. Yellow roses: friendship. In short: I am grateful for our friendship.”
He jerked around, mouth agape. “And you have them all memorized?”
Yes. “No, no, there are a lot of flowers. I’m sure there have to be some I haven’t heard of.”
“I do not believe you.” Phil seemed to remember himself and turned his back on me. “Could you tell me a few more?”
I flinched. No one had ever asked. No one had ever cared. Well, not since Grandma. “Sure? Which ones?”
“The white ones? Innocence?” he asked.
“In some ways. In others, they can mean silence. Or secrets.”
His face fell. “How do you tell which?”
“Like with any language, they need context.”
“Sounds complicated.”
I shrugged. “Some more than others.”
“And the purple one?” he pressed on, brow knit in concentration. “Something to do with friendship I would venture.”
“Nope. Love at first sight.”
“And the orange?”
“Passion.”
“It would seem the language of the flowers is a romantic one,” he said, wary eyes flickering in my direction.
“Of course.” The fatigue left my voice equally as devoid of playful enthusiasm. “And we haven’t even gotten to the best ones.”
“You have a favorite?”
“In meanings, I might,” I conceded. “I can’t live without you.”
He blinked. Blinked again. His lips parted. “What did you just say?”
My face flamed with heat. Almost unable to speak through the lump in my throat, I lurched to my feet and stumbled toward the furthest corner of the room, where a cluster of flowers so unlike the rest sat. An array of colors reflected off their petals. “The primroses,” I said. “They mean, ‘I can’t live without you.’ That’s my favorite.”
“Oh,” he cleared his throat. The smirk he arranged on his face came out as unconvincingly as his breathless retort. “I think my teeth are rotting.”
“Does that mean our lesson is over?”
“Not at all. Just a few more. Please.”
“Well, I’m sorry to say this room is all about the romance. The ferns might be more your speed.”
“What do they mean?” His monotone brought another laugh up my throat. He clearly held no hope that ferns meant anything but love and other unsavory things.
“Magic.”
“A fern.”
“Yeah, or shelter,” I explained. “They do seem like a sturdier plant. Maybe they have powers.” My arm fell back to my side three or four times before it fit into the crook of his elbow and led him across the store to the other greenhouse. All the while, I kept my finger to my lips, hoping the creaks up above came as a result of old wooden floors and not my waking parents. When the door had shut behind us, I released him, pulling myself fully onto a shelf of daffodils.
As he looked around, he gravitated closer to my side. Almost unconsciously, his hand extended towards me, fingers brushing over mine so positive vibes pulsed afresh into my skin. “What are those?”
“Hydrangeas. You’d generally give those to someone you didn’t care for. They mean that the person on the receiving end is cold and heartless.”
Phil smirked. “I thought they looked rather pretty.”
“They’re all pretty.” I pointed across the room to a patch of orange lilies. “What do you think of those?”
“I guess they are nice.”
“They mean ‘hatred.’”
He scoffed. “What would be the point, then? Do you know any mortals who would give flowers to someone they hate?”
I winced. Even with the unmistakable taste of his happiness floating around my head, and the angelic face smiling down at me, his heavenly origins seemed so far-fetched when I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes. “I don’t know,” I coughed. “But if the fancy ever strikes you, now you know what to give them.” I looked around for another one he might enjoy. “The marigold. That one means cruelty.” A patch of little purple flowers. “And the oleander. Caution.”
He didn’t follow my gesture. Instead, he looked at a few funny-looking yellow flowers, whose petals came forward like a nose. “And these?”
“Jonquil. You’re not going to like that one,” I teased. “It’s romantic.”
“I have braced myself.”
“You’d give them to someone you’re in love with. They ask, ‘will you love me back?’”
His stare lowered, stilling on the wire frame of the shelf. An undistinguishable grunt caught in his chest. “You’re right. Romantic.” As I snickered, he dragged his attention up to my face, façade cracking with a smile. “You are laughing again.”
“You’re funny.”
“I suppose I must be.” Pushing a potted calla lily aside, he pulled himself onto the wrack at my feet. “Did you learn all this on your own?”
“I might look into a few. We’ve definitely broadened our supply in the last few years so I like to keep up on flowers I don’t know, but my grandma was the one that knew all of them. She taught me.”
“She must have been as enthused with them as you are.”
“Her name was Amaryllis.” I pointed to her blossoming red namesake. “Do with that information what you will.”
He chuckled. “And what do those mean?”
“Sacrifice.” Her face surfaced in my mind, weathered by age but clearly resembling her daughter, and then her daughter after her. Her hair might’ve greyed, laugh lines deepened, joints all but turned to stone, but she looked every inch the dignified figure she was in the photo I kept on my nightstand, supporting Mom at Lamaze class when she was pregnant with me.
She’d struggled down the stairs to water the flowers every morning until she succumbed.
“Word fit her to a T.” As if sensing my impending melancholy—what the hell was I even thinking? Of course, he did—Phil leaned closer, hovering over me to run his palm along the back of my hand.
Despite the harsh scales I felt under human flesh, he was the best feeling in the world. Not because he could take my pain away with a single touch but because, unlike anyone I’d ever relied on before, he didn’t need to say a word. He didn’t need to listen. Just his warming presence at my side was enough.
“I have a confession,” he admitted, breaking the peaceful quiet. “I think I knew that one.”
“Really? That one? That’s kind of weird. I’d think the roses would be the more common one.”
He perked up. “So you haven’t heard the story of Amaryllis?”
I didn’t
know whether to be excited or embarrassed. The flowers were the only thing I was good at…. Nevertheless, my curiosity won out over my shame at being beat for knowledge of horticulture. “No, tell me.”
“It comes from a Greek myth. The story goes that there was a beautiful maiden with hair like the autumn leaves. Eyes as blue as the Mediterranean Sea. Flesh as pale white as the milk of the cows she tended. Her name was Amaryllis.”
My palms grew sweaty, itching to pull at my hair like autumn leaves. Or my eyes…not so blue as the Mediterranean Sea but pretty blue, I thought. The spatter of freckles across my forearms stood out against pale skin.
I’d read plenty of Greek myths in my time. I’d enjoyed a year-long class of them in my freshman year. I’d never heard of anyone being so specific about a person’s hair in myths.
“Amaryllis saw a shepherd called Alteo, a man with all the strength of Hercules and the beauty of Apollo, and she fell instantly in love,” he smiled, arms extending in a grand, theatrical gesture. “But Alteo was not to be swayed by the affections of any woman. He swore he would take for a wife only the maiden who could give him a flower that he had never seen before. This didn’t suit Amaryllis because, since he lived and worked on a lush mountainside, he knew them all.
“But she would not be outdone. Amaryllis traveled to the Oracle of Delphi and beseeched an answer: how could she earn Alteo’s love? That which she wanted more than anything in this world?”
He paused. I guessed for dramatic effect. “And? What did the oracle say?”
“The oracle gave her a golden arrow and instructions. She would stand before Alteo’s home every day for thirty days and spill her blood upon the grass. Amaryllis didn’t hesitate, piercing her heart upon the golden arrow every night until, on that thirtieth day, from her blood sprouted a new, red flower that Alteo had never seen before, thus earning his love in return. This flower would be known as the Amaryllis.”
It took a moment of silence to clue me into the drop of my jaw. I shook it off, scoffed, and rolled my eyes. “Fat load of good that did her.”
“Too romantic for you?”
“No! I love romance. I breathe romance. I’ve read Romeo and Juliet about a thousand times, and I had the same issue with that. When does sacrifice become stupidity?”
His smile widened, teeth peeking through his lips like the quintessential predator. “I have heard it said that love is sacrifice.”
“I’ve never been in love before. I couldn’t tell you. But I refuse to believe that, if that guy loved her, he would ask her to stab herself in the heart.”
“Why not, if love is sacrifice? Is that not the ultimate sacrifice? I would think that should make the love greater.”
I scrutinized that predatory grin, never once feeling like prey. “Are you mocking me?”
“No…”
“Sarcasm? Didn’t know you had it in you.”
He chuckled, head shaking. “No mocking was intended, Eden. Just…skepticism.”
“About what? Love? You don’t believe Amaryllis’ sacrifice was stupid?”
“You misunderstand. If not for the horribly mortal implication that love would heal her fatal wounds, stabbing yourself dead on a man’s porch is incredibly stupid. I see no need for love and the pain it brings.”
I guffawed. “I thought angels were all about the love.”
He kept quiet. Very quiet.
I stared into him for some hint at the timbre of his thoughts, but he kept them wrapped up in a neat little bow. Nevertheless, the dark tide inching in around us felt as palpable as a confession. “Did you love someone?”
Violet eyes snapped in my direction. His lip curled up in a snarl. “No.”
Some long-buried instinct wished for me to run but my body wouldn’t move. And even if I could, what would I do? Where would I go? If the stranger before me wanted blood, as his face surely implied, I was as good as dead.
My hands rose in surrender. “S…Sorry.”
That animal snarl melted and my Phil appeared once more, arms extending to take my hands. This time, I flinched and his face dropped. “No. I am the one who should be apologizing. I do not wish for you to fear me.” Slower now, he let his fingers trail across the back of my hand. “Please?” With my continued silence, he sighed. “You have to know I couldn’t hurt you, Eden.”
I knew that now. But only seconds ago, whatever rage had contorted his face had been something completely unfamiliar. Something not ethereal in the least.
Whatever that thing was, I felt no inclination to trust it.
“Are you…okay now?” I asked.
He nodded. “Of course. I am fine.”
Liar. He might’ve squared himself away behind that stone façade but that didn’t stop the twitching of his fingers. Or the flame flickering behind those eyes.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No! Not at all. I’m terribly sorry, Eden. I don’t know what came over me, but I would appreciate it if we could forget all about it.”
For the sake of the pleading look on his face, I nodded. “I’ll let you change the subject.”
“Attachment to others for anything but protection escapes me.”
Or…not. “I think that’s probably got something to do with it. I mean, from an evolutionary standpoint, that’s why couples exist isn’t it?”
“Of course. I grasp that much, but if that were love, mortals would look for the strongest mates. Not just the most attractive ones.”
“Well…maybe we needed protection before, when we could’ve been struck down by a bear in the middle of dinner. We don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“What do you need now?”
“Me?” I squeaked. “I don’t need anything.” As an afterthought, I added, “I need the University of Illinois to get back to me. That is what I need.”
“That doesn’t sound like something another mortal can help you with.”
“Of course not. Whatever I need, I can get for myself.”
“Then you would be in no want of love,” he said. “By your own explanation.”
I chewed on my tongue. “No…I…I want love. It wouldn’t be convenient right now, but the idea of love is still appealing.”
“What about it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been in love.”
“Then how do you know it is appealing?”
Upstairs, the floor creaked, forcing my thoughts onto Mom and Dad, who had to be stirring from bed by now. I might’ve been young when a teenage Callum Reyes walked into the newly renamed Garden of Eden, but I could remember the look on Mom’s face when she saw him with disgusting clarity. The widening of the eyes. The light like the sun, glowing through her skin. The shift of her shoulders, inclining in his direction.
The smile.
We’d seen a lot of him in the following years, although at that point he’d only been ‘that guy who buys all the roses’ or ‘that guy grandma rolls her eyes at.’ In later years, ‘Uncle Cal.’ I hadn’t been informed of their dating status until they’d been together four years, beaming like Christmas, fingers tightly intertwined. He’d moved in that day.
Very little had changed since then. Not a smile. Not a look. Not a ring.
“I’ve seen it.”
Upstairs, the floor creaked in earnest, most certainly Dad’s feet falling over the side of the bed. I gasped, rolling off the shelf with a speed that broke our shared peace like a popped balloon. “I think now is as good a time as any to call it a night…morning. Please.”
His handsome face contorted in distaste. Then his eyes softened. “Okay. I will see you in school tomorrow?”
I nodded, though, at present, I couldn’t be positive. If Mom so chose it, I might’ve been sentenced to four months of home-schooling by then. “Of course.”
“Goodbye then. Until tomorrow.”
As he stood from the shelf, I looked around in search of a particular plant and plucked one of the limbs free. “For you.”
His finger
s played over the petals like they were of the softest silk. The flowers looked especially small in his hands, and even smaller still as he lifted them to his nose for a sniff. When he didn’t withdraw, I had to assume he found it pleasant enough. “What is it?”
“Sweet pea. It means ‘goodbye.’”
“It smells good.” He surveyed the room. Smiling at the pot of calla lilies he’d earlier shoved aside, he pulled a bloom off the stem and offered it to me. “I would like to test my intuition.”
I considered lying to him, but I could already hear his voice in my head: I can tell when you lie to me. “Uh…beauty. You’d give them to someone you think is beautiful.”
The hand that didn’t cradle the lily took my wrist. The other placed the flower in my palm and closed my fingers around it. “Good morning, Eden.”
8. Different
Rising with the sun on Monday morning, I had to remind myself that there would be no blue car pulling onto my curb. I rushed through my ministrations of potting and watering so I’d have enough time to walk and hoped against hope that Mom wouldn’t wake in time to stop me.
I lingered in the bathroom, though, staring at my face as I worked at my teeth. Something seemed off with my reflection. Abandoning my toothbrush to the counter, I looked closer, sweeping my curls behind my ears. Despite all the sleeping I’d done this weekend. I looked tired. Bags ringed the undersides of my eyes. My lips, which usually bordered on too big for my face, had shrunken into a thin line.
Neither of which constituted the change I saw. Squinting into the mirror, I looked deep into my blue irises. My left eye had sprouted a little splotch of red.
That was new.
“What the hell?” I whispered, opening my eye wider with my fingers, as though that would make the difference. It didn’t. It just gave me a better view of crystal-clear crimson creeping in where it didn’t belong.
Easing off the tips of my toes, I shook it off. I’d almost died in that wreck. Maybe this was just a tiny, livable side effect, like being so scared your hair turned white. It didn’t hurt, so why did I care?
Mom waited at the front door, donning her coat with hand already curled around her car keys. She smiled uneasily as I neared. “Already? It’s early.”
The Amaryllis Page 8