Page 61 of Florescentia

“Whatever name you call it by, you do not know it,” he said. “Everything is connected, alive.”

“Like bees in a hive mind,” I replied, with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

“Everything has an order, even in your world. You people are not perceptive”—he brushed a long claw over my shoulder—“but you, dear Iris, are already known to this place,” he finished, his touch making my markings come to light.

I threw my shoulder away from him, facing him so he couldn’t poke and prod at me any longer.

“There are things here that you cannot comprehend, and they will appear to you in a way that you understand. By dabbling in this world, the more you interact, the higher the risk it will take you altogether.”

“Is this a warning for the Otherside, or for you?” I taunted.

Something touched my leg, wrapping around it.

I glanced down at my feet. One of the roots of the tree had brushed itself against me, looking for more places in the floor to burrow.

I backed up, hitting a hard chest.

“This world holds as many horrors as it does delights.” His voice was in my ear, his dark form materializing behind me now.

“Delights?” I hummed, eyeing the tree. “Are these all Peculiars?”

“Here, they can be more than just shadows.”

I approached the tree. Along the branches, orchidlike flowers grew in the divots. Their petals glowed, and the pollen fluttered around them before falling. The whole assemblage resembled our water lamps, a living thing swirling around in the dark, lighting the way as the entity circled the plant.

By the roots, a different type of appendage. Long vines with large flowers at the ends, a lilylike shape and a stamen like a monstera fruit. It had to be larger than both my hands together.

“You cannot control it.” His shadowy form swiftly appeared beside me. A hiss of a whisper on my other side, then his voice materializing before his shadow. “Don’t,” he warned. “Do you not hear me?”

“I hear you perfectly.” I smoothed my hands along the petals. The veins of them slowly came alight, quivering at the touch. “This is no different than any other ritual.”

Altair was quiet, but the energy from him vibrated in my ear. He was angry, like a wasp. Just as pestering too.

The center fruit, I assumed, was the female part, considering it was coated in a nectar substance. Though the little hexagons along the surface could also be seeds. I wasn’t completely sure, since all the flora in this place was not quite right.

“Can you feel it too?” I looked over to Altair. “Since you Peculiars are all one.”

His shadowy form began to squirm and shift, like something building just under the surface. Then, a change.

The shadows began to form tendons, like muscles spun tight and wrapping around him. Then the ink faded, and he began to resemble the plants around us too. Matching green vines knotting and forming, the dark tendrils turning to roots, but the glow of his eyes remained the same, familiar.

“Are you jealous?” I asked, touching the fruit.

He looked at me, silent.

“You said you take form according to connotation,” I teased, my finger scooping up the nectar before tasting it. “Are you sure you didn’t mean according to attraction?”

“Are you attracted to plant species?” His words were defensive.

“No, but it’s something I’m finding more interesting than you at the moment.” I turned toward him, two other flowers sprouting beside me as I sat among the vines.

“Interesting despite the danger?”

“Well, you’ve been reluctant to give me a reason why I can’t.” I shrugged the robe off my shoulders, going up on my knees.

He lowered himself, as if kneeling before me, though his legs had been replaced by a mass of moving vines instead of vague shadows this time. Even with the movement, he didn’t say he was inclined to help.

I lifted one of the fruiting flowers, bringing it to my lips. The nectar was sweet, a floral undertone like gin. It was a thick enough syrup to scoop with my tongue, but that didn’t stop it from dripping like honey down my arms as I held it.