November Bloom

BLOOMS in NOVEMBER

From atop the crumbling dry-stone wall that divided her garden from that of elderly Miss Wheel's, young Amanda Flowers steadied herself against a cold, autumnal wind. She gazed over her neighbour’s garden and potting shed. She had always been curious to know what was inside the shed.

Her parents never commented on the garden. Despite the hours spent gardening by the elderly lady, there was never so much as a bloom or a blade of grass to be seen growing.

Miss Wheel had gone, Amanda did not know for why or to where. Yesterday, at bedtime, her Dad told her that Miss Wheel had ‘passed away’ and that Amanda would not see her again.

Amanda;’s curiosity would not rest; she was determined to explore. Never before had she dared to climb down from the wall to enter the garden.

Casting her eyes around, she thought of the times when she spent hours in her upstairs bedroom, watching Miss Wheel gardening. She remembered skinny legs in black tights protruding below a ballooning yellow dress. A bright blue chiffon sash. attached to her dress, shoulder to waist. Her flowing, dark orange hair was tied up with a length of black gauze. In a haze, it floated above and behind her as she trowelled and tilled.

Miss Wheel was a striking figure.

Amanda saw a uniformly spread layer of soft earth; it covered the garden. It appeared to be the only product of Miss Wheel’s labour. In gardens that she had seen, carefully tended, bare soil would be covered with a speckled green carpet of a season’s growth.

When very little, Amanda’s parents had told her not to believe in ghosts or monsters… but she remained frightened and cautious.

Trying to think about everything except ghosts and monsters She slipped down the wall to land on her feet. In her minds eye, Miss Wheel peered down from an upper window.

Amanda’ss shoes sank into the soil. Setting crisp footprints, she crossed to the potting shed. There was no clear view for her to see inside. Its windows were uncleaned; cobwebs created by the work of generations of spiders let in little light. She made out the outline of a long workbench, supported by a wooden keg at either end. Spaces below were filled by hundreds of seed trays.

She pushed gently on the door, its hinges creaked and groaned: ‘Eheeellllooooo’. She picked up a soft, red house-brick from by the door, placing it into the jamb to ensure that the door could not slam shut and enclose her. She had been frightened by films that told similar, creepy stories.

Dim light showed gardening tools hanging from walls and roof. Behind the bench, a car number plate was wedged between two framed, clouded pictures; the number was TNT961. One picture, a red Pontiac Firebird, bore the number plates. The other picture, a school photograph, it showed children in seaman-like fancy dress. Gathered together, they were having their photographs taken. Its legend stated ‘Pyrates, St Elmo’s, class of 1935’ A framed certificate puzzled Amanda. It was awarded to ‘Katy Wheel for pyrography’.

A low cabinet with three levels of drawers ran on top of the length of Miss Wheel’s workbench. Above one drawer, a card index invited inspection. Amanda studied Miss Wheel’s filled record storage system.

Save for some that bore carefully pencilled names and dates, many cards were illegible.

Ever mindful of the possibility that the Unknown might suddenly grip her, she read cautiously. The first card was dated 1890, the latest was of the present year, written two months earlier, in September.

Amanda pulled open a drawer; labelled ‘LastTry’. Filled with small. empty envelopes, it had also a notebook that explained planting instructions: ‘Plant in soft earth at any time between January and March, NO water. THIS TIME, protect from rain. Expected to bloom early November?’

In the second drawer she found treasure: Miss Wheel’s seeds. Refracting thin sunlight from the open door, they glistened and sparkled. Unprotected in their wooden drawer, they were a coarse-grained, powdery mix of iridescent metallic crystals.

Amanda’s keen, young eyes discerned many shapes; cubes, spheres, pyramids, hexagonal solids and other geometrical solids, the names of which she did not know.

To Amanda they whispered; ‘Keep us, take us home, care for us.’ nShe ran them through her fingers; they felt both scratchy and silky.

Amanda’s attention returned to the card index. The first was over a hundred years old. Written in several hands, she read observations such as ‘Nathaniels work was promising but, once again, no success. Must try less paper content’ and ‘made gutapercha outer coating’. ‘Generates well but still no inosculation; casings irregular.’ The last: a plaintive, recent entry, read ‘Do not know which way to turn for binding. Added alum to max and cuprous sulphate to the min. Once again ground is prepared. No time now for further works; my own is ending. The great work may not continue. ’K.W. My last Summer?’

Amanda considered; she deduced that she had discovered Miss Wheel’s project; that it had concluded but without completion. Therefore, she was fully entitled, entrusted even, to keep the alluring crystals, perhaps to see if they wuld grow.

Covering the drawer with both hands, she withdrew it from the chest. Taking care not to trip on the shed’s threshold, with both hands trying to shield the drawer , she walked backwards, out into the gusting wind.

Her heel caught on the guardian house-brick. She fell. Sitting painfully on the earth, helplessly she watched the drawer spin into the air. Miss Wheel’s crystals scattered. They fell, irredeemably sown on the prepared soil.

Amanda shut the shed door then climbed back to the safety of her garden. She wanted to confide in her parents but knew they would scold her.

Autumn passed to winter. Over her Christmas school holiday, from her bedroom window, she kept watch on Miss Wheel’s garden.

Birds gathering seeds and grubs from her garden spent no time next door. They alighted on bare soil. Finding no growth of weeds or shoots, they flew to perch on Amanda’s roof.

To avoid dropping down to the creatureless garden, stalking pussy cats patrolled the tops of its surrounding walls.

She overheard prospective buyers of the empty next-door property make appreciative comments before saying that although they ‘liked the house,’ they ‘didn’t like’ the garden and that they would ‘think about it.’

Autumn’s dark evenings loomed. In mid-September, when she returned from holiday, nothing had grown. It was as bleak as when she’d scurried away a year ago.

The school’s new year brought new things for her to do with new friends. Miss Wheel’s garden faded from Amanda’s attention until, one Saturday afternoon, from her bedroom, she noticed next door’s soil had a new texture.

Rushing down to her place on the garden wall, she saw a series of fine ripples. At the crest of each ripple there were brownish pimples of growth.

Every day, when Amanda returned from school, she looked for new growth; ankle high, plants were growing and spreading. Their stalks had a dull, sheened, waxy, paper quality. They did not branch like any other plants that Amanda knew; the growths linked together to form an interlocking grid. After two weeks, waist high and growing rapidly, it spread canopy-like overhead.

Toward the end of October, the stems reached the height of Amanda’s shoulder. A knob developed at the tip of each.. Cloud-like veils reminded Amanda of Miss Wheel’s gardening clothes. There was a scent in the air, a dry, acrid smell that seemed familiar to her but that she couldn’t place.

When Amanda unwittingly sowed the garden, she was scared and worried. Now, in retrospect, now that there was growth, she was joyous. She could see clusters of geometric shapes within paper-thin layers of the developing knobs: many had small conical shapes dangling. Surrounding a mass of structures like thin bullrushes, another had cylindrical bodies but with tubules entering. Amanda’s nose wrinkled at the powerful smell that crossed her garden wall.

The nights lengthened. When Amanda came home from school on late October afternoons, she could not see into the garden.

The first Friday of November was Guy Fawkes night. Amandas parents allowed her to go to her friends’ bonfire party but forbade her to have her own: they had no enthusiasm for bonfire building, Guy making, or their daughter’s friends.

Amanda returned from the party with a present from her friend: a packet of sparklers.

In the garden’s cold, waving sparklers in vivid circles Amanda felt lonely and abandoned.

She climbed the garden wall once again. The better to see, she held another sparkler up high. Sparks falling into the garden showed her that many more plants had buds and new growth.

Sparks fell down upon tendrils of Miss Wheel’s creation. From below Amanda’s feet there came a hissing and flickering yellow light, Already the fire was uncontrollable; she knew that there was nothing that she could do… Crackling and spitting, flames spread across the garden.

The structures were not on fire; they were the fire. They burned from the inside; flames traveled along tubules to pods from their parent structures. Firstly, in filaments, then in sheets of light, they settled. From one came a report that shook Amanda’s sgarden wall.

A ball of flames shot high into the air; it exploded in a deafening, hollow bang. Like a summer thunderstorm, the report echoed back and forth between clouds.

Fires spread around the garden. They drove the display for an hour. Neighbours came from their warm houses to see the spectacle. Gazing upward in the cold November air, they stood marvelling at a the sight and sound of skyward-bound bombs and fountains of fiery light. They cried out appreciative, traditional ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs.’

The fire died away; the last glowing tubules crept upward. The entire structure hurled itself at the sky. it hung, burning for seconds before a cataclysmic explosion lifted the roofs of houses, shook windows and rattled doors. Floorboards heaved. In gardens, for miles around, glass panes of greenhouses crashed down.

Above, written in ribbons of light, letters of words, backed by fiery stars and moons, descended to earth. Amanda read the message: ‘Success Nathaniel Wheel 1890’.

Distant sirens of fire engines and police cars sounded over stationary traffic.

A football-sized siver disk spun high above the display. It hung, changing colour before disintegrating. From it burst a shower of glittering crystals.

Silence fell on the town.

Five months after what the newspapers had come to call ‘The November Fire Night,’ the Morning News printed an article prompted by the findings of members of the Royal National Gardens Society. The report read: ‘Gardeners are reporting new varieties of plants found growing on their kitchen gardens, allotments and terraces; they even appear even inside greenhouses. Self-seeding, they are thriving to the detriment of nearby plant life. With an acrid smell of gunpowder, their seeds have the appearance of metallic crystals.