Gitch- VII

Allure lead Diana by the hand, though the small village, most of the homes looked no bigger then houses where cybernetic dogs would sleep if it were raining. Allure took Diana into one of these small houses. The small house she saw from outside, sheltered a stairway passage which lead to a small cozy room. The smell instantly reminded her of her father’s old library. There was a Woman sitting by a small fire, the smoke from which was floating up a barley visible passage in the ground. The Woman had very dark skin, with waves of long thick black hair, her plump face looked warm and friendly. “Hel, this is my mother; mother, this is Hel.” The woman stood up, she was very thin except for a large swell at her belly. While Diana was wondering if the bulge was a deformity, she felt herself engulfed in a tight embrace; she struggled to fit her arms around the woman to return the hug. The woman backed off smiled and said, I am Eroia, you can come to me for anything, my skill is in making clothing, if you allow me to measure you, I can make you some new cloths in no time. Diana consented to being measured, at fist it felt strange, to have each of her body parts examined but, after a little while she began to feel the immense care that was almost radiating off of Eroia. 1

After she was done measuring, Eroia began to pull pieces of cloth from a chest she had. “Allure, when you see Grandma, tell her I need more holly and some soft silk plants.” Allure nodded. Diana was confused, “Doesn’t your mother live with you?” she asked Eroia. Eroia laughed, “I don’t think Grandma ever took time enough away from her plants to be anyone’s mother.” Allure began to giggle. Diana resolved that she would have to meet this woman to understand. “Come on, let’s go see her, you will understand then.” Allure said almost if she had read Diana’s mind.2

Allure lead Diana out of Eroia’s house, right in front of it was a large stream of water running fast enough to make some noise. Diana was astonished that she did not see it before. They crossed over a makeshift bridge and walked toward the southwestern part of the village. A huge tree stood out prominently, it was just about as wide as any skyscraper Diana had seen and probably just as tall. There was a door built into the tree trunk and a spiral staircase which lead to what looked like a house built upon the boughs. “It’s too late for Grandma to be in her lower garden,” Allure said as he headed up the spiral staircase.3

The house on the boughs was beautiful, just as large as her own house, Diana thought. Allure slowly opened the door, a tall woman with wild, long, silver hair was administering water to a few hanging plants. Allure stepped in and motioned for Diana to follow. As Diana walked in, her skirt snagged on something and she lost her balance. Allure lent Diana a hand in regaining her balance but the old woman seemed not to notice Diana’s plight.  4

“Watch Fay dear.”  Diana looked confused. “See that plant you were about to walk into?” Diana’s attention shifted to the ugly plant she nearly toppled over. It was not very tall, composed mostly of purple-ish spikes, each about two feet long arrayed protectively around a huge bulge in the middle. “That’s Fay, she’s a fairekin worm hugger. She got that name because her roots go out like this,” Diana looked as to old woman brought her thumb and forefinger to make an unclosed circle, “And if a worm crawls though the root she grasps on to it, and with a little sucker, located in the junction of the two roots, she sucks it dry. This reminds me I should go worm hunting and feed her soon. You should come with me! It’s great fun! Her spikes are so poisonous that so much as touching them will ether make you very nauseous or very dead depending on the amount of exposure. But if you know how to cultivate the plant she gives off an awesome remedy to any illness you could think of!” Diana looked at the plant in disbelief, that ugly thing being so powerful? She didn’t understand how. 5

“As I was saying, Fay is pregnant right now and I really don’t want to hear all her complaints if she gets knocked down.” If the old woman had not just said this as mater-of-factly as she had, Diana would be in stitches with laughter. Grandma probably recognized how absurd her remark would be to any one who had never worked with plants, or maybe she just liked talking, because she went on to explain6

“You see, when any fairekin plant gets that bulge it means it will have a baby. The baby will look human except for the fact that it will look blue or purple, depending on the color of the spikes, and will only be about eight inches long and five inches around at the widest spot. These delightful little children live for six moths, if you talk to the plant every day before it gives birth then the human like child will be able to speak to you. I have heard that there is a way to make them live longer and separate them from the plant, but I haven’t figured it out yet and unfortunately the child has no idea how to do this either. If you let the child die, it will turn into this very fine powder which is the fist component to the remedy I was telling you about. The other ingredient is two crushed up spikes which can be cultivated during the second-to-last week of the child’s life.”  Diana looked at the old woman and wondered why she wasn’t panting from exhaustion.7

The old woman seemed to know a lot about plants, she had them everywhere in the house; there was not a corer of the room to be found which was not graced by the presence of one plant or another. But Diana could not get over how old the woman looked. “How old are you?”  Diana asked with a hint of mistrust in her voice, Grandma turned and looked Diana straight in the eye, “I am ninety one.” Diana could not hide the shock and surprise which that statement brought. “Been living with Sups all your life?” Grandma said in a cooing tone, “I suppose so; you see in the Sup society they don’t want anyone to live past fifty, there are a lot of changes in fifty years, and they can’t have people who remember those changes, so they get rid of them.” This made sense to Diana, seeing as even her Father could remember a time when different families had different color cars; he always complained that there is no real competition if everyone has the same color car. While her brother was being taught, and tried to convince his father that, having your car the same color as all other rich people shows your superiority over the poor people.8

Grandma decided to introduce Diana to each one of her plants; she gave Diana the name and properties of each, it was well past midnight by the time Grandma decided that the rest of her plants could wait for introduction until morning, Diana and Allure heaved a sigh of relief simultaneously and Allure showed Diana to her room where they were to share a bed until Allure could make a new one for Diana. Diana was too exhausted to notice much about the bed except that it was soft and it smelled very pleasurable.9

Drowsily she drifted off into dreams.10