Chapter 3: Last Redoubt, Part 2

Vera was having the time of their life. At first, they’d been nervous about going to Batavia: their Dad had always made it seem like everyone on the island was a fun hating stick in the mud caught up in the old ways, but now that they were there…

It all started when their dad had started making googly eyes at the smelly lady in robes. They wanted to explore the garden on the komodo’s back, but they knew he would have a hissy fit if they tried. So seeing him distracted, they tried to sneak off, only to catch a glance from robe lady! But not only did she not say anything, she also gave them a very brief thumbs up!

Maybe these Batavians weren’t so bad after all!

Especially not if they made gardens pretty as this one. Vera found themself awash in a forest of violets, reds, and blacks glowing softly in the dark. The screeching of bats mingled with the chittering and buzzing of insects in the night air, which was so thick they could practically feel themselves wading through it. At their feet, rotund, flightless flies the size of small rodents scurried about, while above, only the faintest breaks in the canopy exposed the starry night sky. Of course, no garden would be complete without flowers, and what the ones in this garden lacked in aesthetic beauty, they more than made up for in size and smell. Several orchids sprouted at the foot of trees, their centers resembling queer, colorful beetles and bees so closely Vera was sure they would fly away if they stepped too close. In the canopy, pitcher plants hung low on branches, swaying in the nighttime breeze. A curious bat approached one, only to think better of it, and flew away. The plant, growing impatient, took a more proactive approach and began pursuing their quarry across the branches! Branches occupied by round, pale flowers Vera was sure they could fit their whole arm into, a parade of full moons glowing in the darkness.

And everywhere, there was rotting meat. Cadavers great and small lay strewn about the forest floor, as though some terrible monster had just rampaged through. Something Vera thought entirely possible, given the creatures they and their Father had encountered in the forests near Batavia’s shores. Not that they were afraid of course! From their knapsack they pulled out a pair of particularly large whelk shells, which they slipped their hands into the way a boxer might slip on gloves. If any monster wanted a bite, they’d have to taste their own blood first!

On closer inspection, though, something was off. Although the body resembled flesh, although it gave off warmth and stank horribly as sun-baked meat should, the general shape was loose; blobbish. Like clay roughly shaped into the form of a body. Furthermore, the corpse, though mammalian in form, lacked bones of any kind, instead having several small white spots strewn about the flesh. But most dam*ing of all was the great hole in the beasts middle, to which flies flitted in and out, disappointed by the lack of actual flesh in which to lay their eggs but leaveing coated in crimson pollen.

It was no corpse- but a flower! The largest, stinkiest flower Vera had ever seen! But despite this, they could not make heads or tails of any leaves or roots. Where they invisible at certain times of day, like the parallel plants of Lemuria? They would have to find out later.

For now, they’d follow the stench deeper into the enchanted grove, soaking up as many sights (and smells) as they could before their father inevitably dragged them back for the scolding. After pulling their dress collar up over her nose, of course. They were starting to understand the yellow-eyed lady’s use of a face mask.

.   .   .

Elsewhere, a pair of adults took advantage of the footholds molded into the sides of the monastery to climb onto the rooftop (or would the better term be dragonback?) garden.

“I can’t believe you.” Whispered Malagasy. Even with all the chittering and squeaking, it was best not to take any chances lest a stray nun catch them in the wrong place. “Letting a kid wander about THIS place! At night! Unattended!” He gestured to the centipede crawling across his foot for emphasis.

“Perhaps you might find me imprudent for this, but speaking as someone who has dwelt in the garden of Earthly Delight for years now, and has tended it specifically with the purpose of keeping devoid of especially hostile fauna, I assure you the worst Vera might encounter is the occasional mosquito.”

It took all of Malagasy’s willpower not to scream. “Oh yes, the mosquitos with lances the LENGTH OF YOUR ARM!”

“Culex pipetta only makes attempts on large prey when no other option is available.”

“YOU. ARE. NOT. HELPING!” Malagasy hissed.

.   .   .

For the sixteenth time in under ten minutes, Vera was transfixed by a plant unlike any they had ever seen. A grove of them, in fact, which in their rare moments of mental clarity thought would best be observed from behind a tree, where the plants couldn’t see them. If they had eyes. Hypothetically.

Like the fantastic corpse flowers, these plants were wholly lacking in green foliage. Instead, they consisted of a bulbous, burred pistil surrounded by gossamer petals followed by long, thin, barbed leaves. Narrow stalks planted them in the ground, uncannily straight in a way that made the odd flowers appear artificial. But what stood out to Vera most, though, was their scent. In a garden that reeked of decay and death, these flower had the relaxing smell of sea foam, with faint hints of cinnamon, alluring in a way the corpse flowers were not. And it seemed a small moth, no bigger than Vera’s hand, agreed with them. It landed on the burry pistil, probing with its’ proboscis the way an elderly person might use a cane, then finding no nectar, it flew off-

Only for the petals to snap up, trapping it!

.   .   .

“I find it curious, though.” Whispered Creosote, swatting away a cloud of hummingbirds, “You’ve criticized the Monastery for its’ rigid, controlling, and I daresay, oppressive atmosphere in times past. As reasonable an argument as any. Yet the moment I grant Vera a modicum of liberty, you object harshly.”

Malagasy sighed. “Vera’s different. They’re freewheeling. Careless. And don’t have the sense to leave danger well enough alone.”

Then, thinking about what he said, added “Got a good heart and a curious mind, though. Love them to death. Its’ just… they can be a bit hard to handle sometimes. Definitely their Mother’s child!”

For once, Creosote was silent. A loathsome melancholy shivered through her as she stared at tall, noble Malagasy, seeing in his crimson eyes and deep laugh traces of the woman she once loved. Traces that grew fainter with each returning visit, replaced by this person who was at once her lover yet someone wholly different. But Malagasy had made her (his!, Creosote reminded herself) decisions and she had made hers. The flame had gone out long ago. Nothing to do but move forward.

.   .   .

The next few moments were a blur.

Barbed, black leaves snapped around the moth, binding tighter and together until the poor insect was little more than pulp. The black leaves then swiveled groundward, pushing against the muddy earth until the stem popped free. The flower used these same leaves to scrape the moth carcass from its’ pistil, and turning around, jabbed its’ stem into the gelatinous mess and slurped the whole thing up!

It wasn’t a flower at all, Vera realized, but a mosquito! What they’d thought was a pistil was really the abdomen, the petals were wings, the barbed leaves legs, and the long thin stem was the lance! 

They gazed, mouth agape. What an island Batavia was, where the plants acted like animals and the animals like plants! Sure, other islands had things like that too, but plant-animals and animal-plants were different island to island and these were still pretty neat, as far as Vera was concerned. Of course, they paled next to-!

A sharp itch at the back of their neck bought them out of their thoughts.

.   .   .

It was awhile before Malagasy spoke again. Or maybe only a few moments. Bugged though he was, it had been a long time since he was accompanied by someone who wasn’t filling the air with conversation, and the awkward silence (on their end, at least- the garden was lively as ever.) was eating at his nerves like acid. Somebody had to say something. Anything. Might as well be him.

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“So… are you gonna get in trouble for this?” He instigated, brushing aside hopefully non-carnivorous foliage.

Creosote kept ahead, saying nothing.

“I said, are you gonna get in trouble for this?”

The yellow-eyed goddess-on-earth shrugged. “Vera is a child of Kib, and it is natural a one so young would want to explore. And I, a frail, aged woman, can only do so much to keep pace. So long as she is unharmed, no grievous injury will come to me. “

“And what do you mean by grievous injury?”

“It is nothing I cannot recover from.”

Malagasy stared daggers at her.

“…In the worst case scenario, they’ll lop off my hand.”

“Creo! That’s a big stinking-!”

“It’ll grow back! Do you not recall when I lost my whole arm at that tidepool in-?”

“Yes I do!” Malagasy hissed through gritted teeth “But that doesn’t change the fact they’re disfiguring you to prove a point!”

“Basic discipline, Malagasy. And considering Kib has deemed me worthy of life in spite of my inherited sin…”

Creo’s flimsy justification for the Monastery’s penalties was droned out by the chirping of crickets and shrieking of bats. A blessing, in Malagasy’s eyes. Far better than hearing the same old lecture for the fiftieth time. Sometimes he wondered if it wasn’t even Creo speaking so much as that blasted komodo corpse using her as a vessel to preach inanities.

Creo, for her part, felt steady as the nighttime breeze whistling through the foliage. True, the garden was somewhat hazardous, occupied as it was with carnivorous, motile plants, great bats, and creatures that didn’t quite fit neatly into the taxonomic slots of ‘plant’, ‘animal’ or ‘fungi’, but if Vera was Malagasy’s kid, then it was nothing they couldn’t handle.

“…And if it is any assurance, the garden should be relatively devoid of nuns.” She looked at the moons, or as much moon as could be seen from below the dense canopy.  “Those not occupied with the preserving of manuscripts are occupied with processing tequila, and those that would otherwise be up here now have their hands full tending the children.”

“Are you certain?” Worried dripped from Malagasy’s voice, though not necessarily for himself.

“There is but one individual Vera might encounter.” She said, looking skyward.

A person who would be present at the particular time of night she had given Vera permission to leave, in the particular area they would have wandered off to..

Someone who, Creo omitted, she very much wanted Vera to meet.

“The prodigy.”

.   .   .

Vera took off their shell-gloves and swatted the small of their neck. To their delight, there was a soft crunch, followed by the sensation of something cold and sticky in their hand. Whoever the culprit was, they were crushed like a berry.

And what a culprit it was! Gazing at their hand, Vera saw no insect, as one might expect from this garden, but a bird! A tiny, tiny bird whose gossamer black feathers shone bright under their exposed bloody entrails, and whose head, possessing a lance to rival any mosquito’s, was totally bald!

Unfortunately, they barely had time to appreciate the exquisite beauty of this creature before their ears picked up a rustling in the undergrowth, drawing ever closer to the grove of mosquito flowers.

Vera, not knowing whether this new presence might be friend or foe, wiped the blood-sucking bird off on their dress and scurried up the nearest tree. True, the canopy might hold dangers all its’ own, but experience taught them the more dangerous beasts tended to stay earthbound.

However, what emerged into the grove was no wondrous beast. Well, there were wondrous beasts, several in fact, but among them was a small figure in greying robes. Said figure’s head was hooded; hands gloved. The only thing they exposed to the world were their eyes, which glowed a lonely, soft yellow in the twilight. Under one arm, they carried a wicker basket.

With a hand, the figure shooed away their odd companions, which scampered off into the bush or flew into the trees. Vera let out a gasp. They’d heard legends of girls so in tune with the natural world they could command beasts with a gesture. Though they’d always believed the legends, it never occurred to them it might me here, at this isolated island the world forgot, they would finally meet the enigmatic figure of legend. From their basket the figure drew a notebook and pen. Observing the mosquito flowers, they scribbled something down Vera could not see, then went back to observing before scribbling again. So enraptured the figure was with their task they did not seem to notice the tiny birds that swarmed around them in a dark cloud, hungry lances easily long enough to pierce their robes and into tender flesh

But Vera did. Brushing the back of their neck, they felt the swollen, itchy reminder of their earlier encounter with such birds, and felt no desire to see the beastcaller suffer a similar fate. Revealing themself wasn’t an option: sure, the smelly lady from earlier was nice, but that didn’t guarantee the beastcaller would be. And as their dad so often reminded them, they had a bad habit of getting too close to people. They’d have to be clever. Eyeing some red berries hanging from a nearby branch, Vera snatched them up, snakeing their way along the treetop, trying to find the best vantage point to launch their newly acquired ammunition. Several times their arms and feet came dangerously close to slipping, but at last, they’d angled themselves at the perfect location. A single berry held between their fingers, they focused- steady, steady- then with a great flick launched it directly on target!

Only for the berry to succumb to gravity, missing the mark and instead hitting the beastcaller square in the forehead. Vera’s heart froze as two glowing orbs locked gazes with them. They tried to shimmy down the tree, but in their panic they planted the whole weight of their body on a foothold that was not there, sending them to the forest floor with an undignified thud!

The Beastcaller, thankfully, made no aggressive action, but clutched their belongings close to their chest, not moving a muscle. Small, white spines began sprouting out from beneath their robes.

“Uhhh…hi.” Chuckled Vera, waving. It was as good an introduction as any.

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