“No,” Phee said. “I would miss this place if I ever had to leave.”
Oh dear. That wasn’t what he was going for. He’d stepped in it now. “Yes, I can see that.” He looked up into the trees. “Certainly has its charms, I’ll give you that.”
“Populus tremuloides,” Phee said.
Linus squinted at her. “I beg your pardon?”
Zoe covered up a laugh with the back of her hand.
“Populus tremuloides,” Phee said again. “I read about them in a book. Quaking aspens. If you ever see them, you’ll find them in large groves. Their trunks are mostly white, but their leaves are a brilliant shade of yellow, almost gold. Like the sun.” She looked off into the forest again. “Almost like sunflowers.”
“They sound lovely,” Linus said, unsure of what else to say.
“They are,” Phee said. “But it’s what’s underneath that’s most important. The groves can be made up of thousands of trees, sometimes even in the tens of thousands. Each of them is different, but the secret is that they’re all the same.”
Linus blinked. “How so?”
Phee crouched down to the ground, her fingers leaving trails in the loose soil. “They’re clones of each other, a single organism managed by an extensive root system underneath the earth. All the trees are genetically the same, though they each have their own personality, as trees often do. But before they grow, their roots can lay dormant for decades, waiting until the conditions are right. It simply takes time. There’s one clone that’s said to be almost eighty thousand years old, and is possibly the oldest living organism in existence.”
Linus nodded slowly. “I see.”
“Do you?” Phee asked. “Because even if you wiped out the grove, if you tear down all the trees, unless you get to the roots, they’ll just be reborn again, and grow as they had before. Maybe not quite the same, but eventually, their trunks will be white, and their leaves will turn gold. I would like to see them one day. I think they’d have much to tell me.”
“They would,” Zoe said. “More than you can even possibly know. They have a long, long memory.”
“Have you seen them?” Linus asked.
“Perhaps.”
“Sprites,” Linus muttered to himself. Then, “If they’re all the same, how can you tell them apart?”
“You have to see what’s underneath it all,” Phee said. She dug her hands into the earth. “You have to put in the time to learn what the differences are. It’s slow going, but that’s what patience is for. The roots can go on forever, waiting for the right time.” She frowned at the ground. “I wonder if I can…”
Linus took a step forward when she grunted as if wounded. Zoe shook her head in warning, and he stopped in his tracks. There was a subtle shift in the air, as if it’d become slightly heavier. Phee’s wings began to flutter rapidly, light refracting off them in little rainbows. She pushed her hands into the soil until they were covered completely. Sweat dripped from the tip of her nose onto the ground. Her brow furrowed. She sighed as she pulled her hands from the ground.
Linus was speechless when a green stalk grew from the earth. Leaves unfurled, long and thin. The stalk swayed back and forth underneath Phee’s palms, her fingers twitching. He was stunned when a yellow flower bloomed, the petals bright. It grew a few more inches before Phee lowered her hands.
“It’s not a sunflower,” she said quietly. “I don’t think they’d survive here for long, even with the best of intentions. It’s called a bush daisy.”
Linus struggled to find his voice. “Did you … was that … did you just grow that?”
She shuffled her bare feet. “It isn’t much, I know. Talia is better with the flowers. I prefer trees. They live longer.”
“Isn’t much?” Linus said incredulously. “Phee, it’s wonderful.”
She looked startled as she glanced between Linus and Zoe. “It is?”
He rushed forward, crouching down near the flower. His hand was shaking when he reached out to touch it gently, half convinced it wasn’t real, just a trick of the eye. He gasped quietly when he rubbed the silky smooth petal between his fingers. It was such a little thing, yet it was there when only moments before there had been nothing at all. He looked up at Phee, who was staring down at him, gnawing on her bottom lip. “It is,” he said firmly. “Absolutely wonderful. I’ve never seen such a thing. Why, I’d even say it’s better than the sunflowers.”
“Let’s not go that far,” Phee grumbled, though it looked as if she were fighting a smile.
“How did you do it?” he asked, the petal still between his fingers.
She shrugged. “I listened to the earth. It sings. Most people don’t realize that. You have to listen for it with all your might. Some will never hear it, no matter how hard they try. But I can hear it as well as I can hear you. It sang to me, and I promised it in return that I would care for it if it should give me what I asked for.” She glanced down at the flower. “Do you really like it?”
“Yes,” Linus whispered. “Very much.”
She grinned at him. “Good. You should know I’ve named it Linus. You should feel honored.”
“I am,” Linus said, absurdly touched.
“It’s a perfect name for it,” she continued. “It’s a little flimsy, and honestly isn’t much to look at and will probably die if someone doesn’t take care of it regularly.”
Linus sighed. “Ah. I see.”
“Good,” she said, her smile widening. She sobered slightly as she looked down at the flower. “But it’s still nice, if you think about it. It wasn’t there, and now it is. That’s all that really matters in the long run.”
“You can make something out of nothing,” Linus said. “That’s impressive.”
“Not something out of nothing,” she said, not unkindly. “It was just … hidden away. I knew what to look for because I listened for it. As long as you listen, you can hear all manner of things you never thought were there to begin with. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go put so much pie in my mouth, I’ll probably choke. And then I’ll eat some more. I swear, if Lucy didn’t leave any for me, I’m going to grow a tree out of his ears.”
And with that, she headed toward the small house, wings fluttering behind her.
Linus stared after her. “That … was an effective threat.”
Zoe laughed. “It was, wasn’t it?”
“She’s capable.”
“They all are, if only one can see past the flourish above to the roots beneath.”
“A little on the nose, that,” he said.
“I suppose it is,” Zoe said. “But something tells me that subtlety is lost on you.” She turned toward the house, stepping into Phee’s footprints in the soil. “Coming, Linus? I do believe you deserve another piece of pie after your lesson.”
“In a moment,” he said. He looked to the flower again as Zoe went inside. He pressed a finger against the center as lightly as he could. He pulled it away, the tip yellowed with pollen. Without thinking, he stuck his finger against his tongue. The pollen was wild and bitter and oh so alive.