Elizabeth and Zenobia

by Jessica Miller

  ‘Tourmaline Murmur,’ said Tourmaline and she held her hand out to the gardener.

  The gardener stepped out from behind the table to take it.

  As he did, I heard a churning sound. I looked down. In the place where the gardener should have had feet, he had roots.

  My heart pounded.

  Tourmaline saw none of this.

  She looked up at the gardener and smiled.

  And that was when I should have leapt forward and pulled Tourmaline out of reach, or launched myself at the gardener and knocked him to the ground, or at least yelled out some kind of warning.

  That was what I had come into the nursery to do.

  But I did none of those things. I stood stuck to the spot. I couldn’t make myself move or speak. My legs didn’t work. My mouth didn’t work.

  I was frozen through with fear.

  The gardener removed his glove to show a knobbled hand which sprouted five green ribbony fingers.

  Tourmaline’s smile wavered.

  I needed to do something. But, still, I didn’t move.

  The gardener wrapped his ribbony fingers around Tourmaline’s arm. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Princess,’ he said. Then he hefted her up and flung her onto the table.

  Plants pushed out of their pots. They crawled away from their trellises, and broke through their soil beds. They reached out their tendrils towards Tourmaline.

  And now, for the first time since we had pulled her from the Plant Kingdom, Tourmaline understood the danger she was in.

  The gardener meant to graft her.

  Tourmaline’s shriek rattled the nursery walls. But not for long. Green tendrils wrapped around her arms and legs and bound her to the worktable. Flowers covered her eyes and filled her mouth, muffling her cries. Vines covered her like a cocoon.

  Soon all that could be seen of Tourmaline were her two feet in their red shoes.

  The gardener opened the shears and brought them towards Tourmaline’s ankles.

  Until now, Zenobia had watched in horror, just like me. But now she flew at the gardener, ragged and black and shrieking like a raven. She clawed at his eyes and stomped over his roots. The gardener stumbled back. The shears fell from his hands.

  I stood watching, admiring and ashamed.

  Admiring the swift, fearless way Zenobia sprang to Tourmaline’s rescue.

  And ashamed of myself for shrinking into a corner.

  The gardener set himself upright again. He wrapped his green fingers around Zenobia’s throat. ‘You’re making a nuisance of yourself,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t let you do it!’ sputtered Zenobia. ‘I won’t let you graft her! It’s too cruel!’

  ‘Perhaps it is cruel,’ said the gardener. ‘Certainly, it will be painful. But the Plant King has given his orders.’

  ‘Why should you follow them?’ choked Zenobia. ‘You’re not in the Plant Kingdom.’

  ‘Ah, but there you’re wrong. Wherever the Plant King is, so is his Kingdom. And he’s growing. Can’t you feel it? He’s nearly here.’ And he pushed Zenobia up against a trellis.

  Green tendrils pushed their way over the ground.

  They twined around Zenobia’s ankles.

  It was too awful. I couldn’t watch. I looked at the ground instead.

  The shears lay in the dirt. Without the shears, surely there could be no grafting. And if I could take the shears, unnoticed…

  The tendrils crept up to Zenobia’s waist. They tied her arms tight against the trellis. She wriggled and cursed, but she couldn’t free herself.

  Slowly, I stretched out a hand and eased the shears towards me.

  Zenobia was now almost as covered in green as Tourmaline was. All I could see of her was the black glint of her eyes.

  I flashed her a look. It was a look meant to say that she shouldn’t worry. That I had a plan.

  And it was true, I did have a plan.

  But it was a brave plan. And it needed someone braver than me to make it work.

  Zenobia looked back at me through the vines covering her face. If she was surprised to see me, she didn’t show it. And she didn’t seem surprised when I picked up the shears, either. Instead, her eyes sparkled. She looked as if she were proud of me.

  I edged out of the nursery and, though I hated leaving Zenobia and Tourmaline there, I shut the door behind me.

  I knew what I had to do.

  The tree that grew from the centre of the maze was very tall now. Its crown was thick and green. Its branched arms reached out wide.

  I ran towards the maze as fast as I could, pushing through thorny bushes and tangled grass.

  The gardener sped after me. His roots churned through the soil, bringing up sprays of dirt. The branches that had hindered me bent to let him pass. I put my head down and gritted my teeth. And I ran faster. The slope turned steep under my feet and I ran faster still. Then I skidded, stumbled, and fell face-first into scratchy hedge.

  I was at the entrance to the maze.

  Wherever the Plant King is, the gardener had said, so is his Kingdom. If I could destroy the Plant King, maybe I could set Tourmaline free.

  I peered inside. The maze was even darker and even more choking than I had remembered it. The tree at its centre looked, to me, at least twice as tall as the house.

  I hesitated a moment. Could I do it?

  It was a moment too long.

  I felt ribbony fingers on my shoulder.

  I forced the shears open and whipped around to face the gardener.

  ‘Don’t move,’ I told him, ‘or I’ll cut your fingers clean off!’ My words were brave, but my voice shook.

  ‘Go on then,’ he waggled his fingers at me. ‘Cut away.’

  I swallowed. I lifted the shears. But then I let them fall down again.

  The gardener laughed. ‘I knew you wouldn’t do it. You’re not a brave girl, Elizabeth. Now, return the shears to me and you won’t be harmed.

  ‘And Tourmaline? Will she be harmed? I know what you mean to do to her,’ I said.

  ‘Tourmaline will live as a princess,’ he said, ‘in a green and happy kingdom.’

  ‘Tourmaline belongs here,’ I said.

  ‘And why would you have her stay here?’ he sneered. ‘Is it really such a happy place? Are you happy here?’

  My throat grew tight. My eyes brimmed with tears. But I held fast to the shears.

  ‘Well then,’ he said, ‘I shall graft you, too. The Plant Kingdom would be glad to have you.’

  He eased his ribbony fingers towards the shears.

  ‘And besides…’ He came closer. ‘It’s not like anyone would miss you. No one would even notice you were gone.’

  And there it was. My deepest and most secret fear. Greater than all my other fears together, the small ones (gargoyles, gloves without hands in them) and the large ones (ghosts, the twisty, turning hedge maze). The fear that I was invisible and unloved.

  But there is one good thing about hearing your deepest fear spoken out loud—nothing else that made you afraid before will ever seem so large or so terrible again. Not even a deep, scary maze. Not even the dark, twisty tree waiting, like a monster, at its centre.

  ‘No,’ I said and my voice came out loud and strong and clear. ‘I’ll never go with you. And I won’t let you take Tourmaline, either!’

  And I turned and ran into the maze.

  I ran through the maze in twists and turns. But the gardener seemed to know where my feet would take me even before I did. I felt him close behind me, churning up the path with his roots.

  I ran faster.

  The hedge rustled. Quiet at first, but the noise grew louder with every step I took. The spiky leaves that covered the hedge were growing bigger and bigger. Some were big as saucers. Some as big as dinner plates. I heard a crack. The tree’s two branched arms split and twisted at their ends into two dark hands, that grabbed angrily at the air.

  Over the rustling, I heard the gardener’s voice close behind me. ‘One small, trembling girl is
no match for the Plant King.’

  I didn’t care. I kept running.

  The leaves around me grew thicker. They pressed in on either side of me. They blocked out the sun. I groped through the strangling, scratching dark, choking back tears.

  And then I stumbled into the clearing at the centre of the maze.

  The tree had sprouted a lichen beard, which crawled with worms and beetles. A gash, crusted with sap, split its bark in the shape of a mouth. It had two knotted whorls of wood above the gash-mouth, in the place where eyes would be. Its roots had swelled and grown strong, and they reached down into the soil.

  I knew I had to cut its roots.

  I felt very small and very scared. But I opened the shears with shaking hands, and I ran towards the tree. I brought the blades together around one of the roots and tried to snap it through. But it was thick and wiry, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t force the shears through it.

  Above me, I felt the tree twist and bend.

  One of the knotted eyes cracked open. The mouth let out a deep earthy roar and the branched hands swiped at me.

  I squeezed the shears even tighter.

  And I cut the root in two.

  And as the root split, the tree withered and shrivelled—only a little, but enough to give me hope. I cut through another root and another.

  Soon, the ground around me was littered with snapped roots, and the tree was growing smaller and more shrivelled and less like the Plant King.

  And then I heard a churning sound behind me.

  The gardener.

  ‘I admire your persistence, Elizabeth,’ came his snaky voice, ‘but you can’t possibly defeat the Plant King. I won’t allow it.’

  I felt his ribbony fingers tight around my leg. And he brought me to the ground with a thud. I kept my grip on the shears tight and wriggled out of the gardener’s grasp.

  The Plant King was weakening. The gardener was wrong—I could defeat him, if I could only cut a few more roots.

  But, one by one, the root stumps around me were finding their way back into the ground. I felt the Plant King growing stronger in the tree, turning it taller and more powerful.

  I wrenched the shears open once more, but before I could cut another root, I felt something coil around my ribcage. Roots were wrapping themselves around me. They squeezed tight. I felt my bones start to buckle. They squeezed tighter. They pushed the air out of my chest.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  My eyes blurred. The shears fell from my hands.

  And then, just as everything turned to black, I felt a chill and something cold brush past me.

  There was a loud snap. The roots released their grip on me, and I tumbled to the ground. I stayed there a while, on my hands and knees, taking in deep gulps of air, until an icy hand took my arm and lifted me to my feet.

  In front of me stood Zenobia.

  ‘Zenobia?’ I asked. ‘How did you get free?’

  She smiled and held out the sharp sliver of mirror. ‘Fortunately, I had my bad luck charm about me.’ She lifted the shard above her head and brought it down on another of the Plant King’s roots. It severed easily. The Plant King groaned as one of his branched arms drooped, then withered away to nothing.

  The gardener’s face twisted with rage. He stretched his fingers wide and lunged at the shears, which lay in the dirt where I had dropped them. I fell to my knees, scrambling to get to them first. The gardener’s ribbony fingers brushed over mine, but I was too quick.

  Only one root connected the Plant King tree with the soil, now. I opened the shears and brought the blades together hard around it.

  The root snapped clean in two.

  A green-white flash of light filled my eyes and a loud splintering filled my ears. When I looked again, the tree was just a tree. It was split and charred as if it had been struck by lightning, though the sky was as blue and clear as it had been before.

  I pulled myself up. The hedge was still. Its dark green leaves were neat and ordered.

  The gardener was nowhere to be seen.

  The Plant King was gone.

  I looked down at the shears in my hand. The Plant King was gone, because of me.

  Zenobia cleared her throat. ‘Not all because of you, Elizabeth. Though,’—she sounded almost admiring—‘I suppose you were a little magnificent.’

  We made our way out of the maze, and climbed up to the top of the hill. From there, we could see all the way down to the house. I cupped my hands over my eyes and squinted through the sunshine. ‘It looks—it looks normal!’ I cried. ‘And the garden—’

  Zenobia patted my arm. ‘Don’t fret over the garden, Elizabeth. The Plant Kingdom, it seems, has gone. The house is as it was before, from the outside at least. It is a shame that the garden has lost its witheredness, but sometimes these things can’t be helped.’

  ‘But I like the garden,’ I said. It was covered in a soft wash of green. Trees and bushes that had been grey and dead before, were lush with leaves. The dry, moth-eaten rose garden had bloomed. The air smelled of flowers and honey.

  Zenobia sniffed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s no accounting for taste.’ She turned on her heel and made for the nursery shed.

  I followed after her, feeling my heart lift up with happiness. But it sank like a stone when we pushed open the door.

  The worktable was strewn with dry and withered tendrils, but Tourmaline was nowhere to be seen. We sifted through the stalks and leaves. We searched the nursery up and down. We ran through the garden calling her name.

  But Tourmaline was gone.

  12

  THE PLANT KINGDOM BY DR HENRY MURMUR

  After we had combed every inch of the garden, we went back to the house to search for Tourmaline. Inside, there was no trace of the Plant Kingdom. It was as if it had never been in the house at all. The rooms were still. Our footsteps were the only sounds to break the silence.

  We went from room to room. The schoolroom was empty. The library and the nursery were, too. Tourmaline wasn’t in the East Wing, and she wasn’t in the West Wing, either. I started to think we might not find her at all.

  I sat on the carpet in the front room and looked at its fabric flowers. We had gone through every room in Witheringe House. And each of them had been empty.

  I felt hollow. We had defeated the Plant Kingdom, but we had somehow lost Tourmaline.

  Zenobia sat beside me. She looked as dejected as I felt.

  I edged my fingers across the carpet until they brushed with hers. Zenobia gave a pained sigh. But she didn’t take her hand away.

  A door creaked and shuddered.

  I leapt to my feet, half-hoping…

  But it was Father, not Tourmaline. Miss Clemency followed him. Her hands were filled with bright wildflowers.

  The hope drained out of me.

  I must have looked very sad, because Father put a gentle hand on my head and stroked my hair. I wrapped my arms around him in a hug and, after a pause, he hugged me back.

  ‘Is everything all right, Elizabeth?’ he asked, when I pulled free. His face was concerned. ‘Has something happened?’

  So much had happened. But I didn’t know where I would begin telling it all to Father.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Nothing’s happened.’

  ‘Then why are you in such a state?’

  I looked down at myself. My dress was splotched with dirt and grass stains. It was nearly black around the hem. My arms were covered in scratches and my hair, I could feel it, was stuck through with twigs and leaves and strands of spiderweb.

  ‘Mrs Purswell,’ called Father.

  She appeared. ‘Yes, Dr Murmur?’

  Zenobia gaped at her. ‘Unbelievable,’ she said to herself. ‘Quite simply unbelievable.’

  ‘Please have a bath drawn for Elizabeth,’ Father told her. ‘And quickly. Our guest arrives at three.’

  In the bathroom, Zenobia sat on the rim of the tub, while I worked myself clean with a sponge. Filth and soap-scum filmed o
n the bath’s surface. The water grew lukewarm, then cold, around me, as I sat wondering what had happened to Tourmaline. I felt I had failed her. And I had failed Father, too. I had wanted to make him happy, and now he never could be. Not completely.

  Faint music floated up from downstairs.

  I tipped my head and listened. I was sure I had hidden that record under the library carpet.

  ‘Is that—?’ I asked.

  ‘It is,’ Zenobia nodded. ‘The aria from The Magic Flute.’

  I splashed my way out of the bath, wriggled my way into the clean clothes Mrs Purswell had laid out for me, and started down the stairs.

  I burst into the parlour and ripped the record from the gramophone. The conversation stopped.

  ‘You mustn’t hear that!’ I told Father. My voice was ragged and my breathing was short. I saw Miss Clemency seated across from him. Her eyes went large looking at me.

  I started to explain. ‘He mustn’t hear anything from—’

  ‘Elizabeth,’ said Father, and he straightened the record on the gramophone and started the music again. ‘I appreciate your concern. It’s true I may not love Mozart but it happens that Miss Clemency—’

  ‘Please,’ Miss Clemency addressed her shoes, ‘call me Adelaide.’

  Father’s cheeks tinged pink beneath his whiskers. ‘Adelaide is quite partial to him,’ he continued. ‘And so is—’

  ‘But surely this must be Elizabeth!’ A voice came from the other side of the room. A tall woman with wild curling hair that fell to her shoulders, sat in an armchair in the corner. She wore a silk dress as brightly patterned as butterfly wings. From under its hem, peeked a pair of red shoes.

  ‘So is your Aunt Tourmaline,’ finished Father.

  My breath caught in my throat.

  ‘Elizabeth?’ asked Miss Clemency, ‘are you feeling well? You look as if you’d seen a ghost!’

  I felt, in a way, as if I had.

  Tourmaline was grown, now, and her face was older. But her eyes were the very same eyes I had seen peering out of the wallpaper in the nursery. She came over to me and bent forward so her face was level with mine. She took both my hands in hers. ‘I feel I know you already,’ she said.