Rosehead

Chapter 34. The Dazzling End

Rosehead, her rosebushes, and the mansion heads all merged into one coiling and uncoiling mass of canes, shanks, and stems, interrupted here and there by a flash of red. The rotunda vanished, and Lilith found herself in the middle of a flower sea that throbbed and thrummed, speaking at once and from everywhere.

"I was waiting for this," it said. "Waiting for you to say it." Its voice rustled, echoing under the night sky. Its leaves brushed her face, played with her hair. The whole garden became fluid, as restless as an ocean before a storm. It shifted and changed, as if it didn't have roots but danced across the earth any way it liked.

Lilith sprung to her feet.

"Who are you?" she asked, bewildered.

"I'm the rose garden. Isn't it obvious?" said the garden, lapping gently. It smelled overwhelmingly sweet, like too much of a good thing. Lilith wanted to bury her face in its fragrance forever.

"I don't understand," she said cautiously. "Please excuse me, but...you were waiting for what, exactly?"

"Waiting for an heir to stop me."

"To stop you?"

"That's right." The garden swished.

Lilith glanced about. "Where is Rosehead? Where are the bushes and the phantoms? Are they part of you now?"

"Everything is part of me. Always," said the garden.

"Thank you. That's very self-explanatory," scoffed Lilith, despite her wretched state. "What did you do to my grandfather?"

"What I do to every Bloom heir, when they prove useless to me." The garden smacked its gigantic lips.

"You ate him?"

"Wish I didn't. Not very tasty, the old fellow. Sinewy and bony. I prefer soft juicy caretakers, haven't tasted one in a while." It lapped around Lilith, ruffling her hair.

Lilith swallowed, her heart hammering. "Dear rose garden. Did I hear you correctly—you said I stopped you? Does that mean you will stop eating people from now on?"

"Here, I will," said the garden slyly.

"But you might continue elsewhere?"

"I might."

Lilith shifted uneasily. It was very disconcerting to stand up to your neck in a moving, living, talking mass of twigs that changed shape and behaved as if it could gobble you up if it so desired. "May I clarify something? I asked Rosehead to stop," said Lilith, "but it didn't work. Why not?"

"Only the heir can command me. You weren't the heir then. You are now." It rustled around her.

"But Grandfather said—"

"You become the new heir when the old heir dies." There was an irritated edge to its voice.

"I see," said Lilith.

"I'm tired of being trapped here," said the garden, licking the fence. "I want to roam the fields. I want to run through the woods. And when I'm done running, I want to find a new resting place." Rising and falling, the thing congregated around Lilith, as if looking directly at her. "I tried to make them say it. I turned greedy. I demanded more blood. They simply obliged. Cowards. Not one of them told me to stop. Until you." Its landscape stretched into a strange semblance of a smile. "You asked me to stop. For that, I thank you. I have fulfilled my last obligation to the last Bloom heir. Seven hundred years is a very long time. I'm bored of this place. Let me go. Set me free," it said, as petals brushed Lilith's face, "and I might spare you."