the garden | michael langdon

chapter six; every rose has it's thorn (and love makes monsters of us all.)

"Just when the earliest sunshine glides through earth's mountain tops, two beings have come into life, not in such an Eden as bloomed to welcome our first parents, but in the heart of a modern city. They find themselves in existence, and gazing into one another's eyes. Their emotion is not astonishment; nor do they perplex themselves with efforts to discover what, and whence, and why they are. Each is satisfied to be, because the other exists likewise; and their first consciousness is of calm and mutual enjoyment, which seems not to have been the birth of that very moment, but prolonged from a past eternity. Thus content with an inner sphere which they inhabit together, it is not immediately that the outward world can intrude itself upon her notice." -The New Adam and Eve, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

-

"Hello, Prim."

Primrose had been cloud gazing on her back at the end of a long day in her garden, when a male voice had broken through her daydreaming and interrupted her solitude. As her body jolted forward to sit up, her eyes were met with the sight of none other than the rising supreme himself, Michael Langdon.

There he stood, hands clasped behind his back with a sly smile, his gaze upon her unflinching. She hadn't been expecting to see him again after their encounter at the warlock school, and yet here he was. She noticed that he was in his school uniform; smart, tailored suit, with a carefully pressed white shirt and thin black tie. His hair styled perfectly, he looked every inch a gentleman, and it made Primrose feel self-conscious to be around him with her dirty, ripped white tea dress and wild untamed hair.

"H-hello." She nervously replied.

"Your garden is very impressive. Am I right in thinking this is all your work?" He looked around the sprawling, flourishing garden with a sense of curiosity.

"Yes, it is." She confirmed, her eyes planted firmly on the ground, too nervous to look at him directly for too long. When Michael crouched down to speak with her on her level, she had nowhere else to look but at him; he smiled softly as she finally made eye contact.

"And am I right in thinking that you perhaps possess more than a mere green thumb?" He chuckled. "Many of these exotic plants should not even be able to survive in this climate, and yet here they are thriving."

She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Y-you are right. Many of these plants I conjured myself."

"Fascinating." He whispered, his face much closer now than it was before. Primrose instinctively backed away, which seemed to amuse him.

"I make you nervous." He stated, standing up once more.

"I'm not used to being in the presence of men, certainly not on my own." He laughed at this; why does he find this so amusing? she thought.

"Yes, I did notice that your mother keeps you on quite the tight leash." He walked over to the rosebushes and leaned down to inhale their scent, deeply. "If I remember rightly, I believe she forbade me to ever talk to you again." He plucked a rose from the shrubbery and returned to face Prim once more, offering it to her.

She stood up to accept his gift, and as their hands made contact around the flower she felt a sharp sting in her forefinger; the flesh had been pierced by a thorn. Dropping the flower to cradle her now bleeding finger, she let out a squeak of pain.

Michael's hand was on hers once more, guiding her injured finger to his mouth. Without warning, he placed it in his mouth and started to suck. Unable to tear her eyes off him as his tongue swirled around the digit, she had to suppress a moan at the overwhelming sensuality of it all.

"Why are you here?" She inquired, breathlessly, as Michael released her finger from his mouth with a wet pop. "New Orleans is very far from California."

"Why do you come here to look at the flowers?" He retorted.

She paused for a moment. "I come here because I like to admire their natural beauty. I like to watch them and look after them. Or sometimes it's because I'm lonely."

"Let's just say I'm here for similar reasons." He smiled softly.

"Primrose?" A voice called from within the house.

"You have to go! My mother won't be happy to know I've been talking to you after specifically forbidding me from doing so!" She panicked, yet Michael seemed unbothered, relenting only with Prim's insistence.

"Prim? Where are you?" The voice called once more.

"Would you mind if I visit you again sometime?" Michael asked.

Primrose looked at the boy before her. He was so angelic looking, and enigmatic. How could she ever say no?

"I think I would like that." She smiled. He returned the smile, and with a snap, he was gone.

Prim looked down at the rose she had dropped, laying on the grass. When Michael had offered it to her, it was red and fresh, but now it was brown and dry.

Dead.

"Curiouser and curiouser." She spoke aloud to herself, picking up the dead flower and concealing it's head tightly within her palm.

"There you are!" Zoe emerged from the porch. "Dinner's almost ready, you know." The older witch turned to head back inside but Prim stopped her.

"Aunt Zoe?" She asked, chewing her bottom lip nervously.

"Everything alright, Prim?" Zoe asked, a look of concern on her face.

"How did you know you were in love with Uncle Kyle?"

Zoe cocked an eyebrow at the younger girl, inquisitively. "Why? Are you in love?"

Primrose began to blush, intensely.

"Oh my god!" Zoe gasped. "Is it the cute mailman? I knew I saw you staring at him!"

"God, no! He's ancient!" Prim exclaimed.

Zoe snorted. "He's like 30, at most."

"See! Ancient!" She laughed. "Seriously, though. How did you know you were in love?"

"Well, when you fall in love..." Zoe hesitated. "When you fall in love, it's kind of like you go crazy." She said, solemnly. "Before you know it, the whole world is different and then you'd do anything for the other person."

"What if the person you love is bad?" Prim asked, quietly.

"Well then sometimes we have to let the people we love go, like uncle Kyle." Zoe said, melancholy evident in her voice.

Prim was only small, but she still remembered her mother explaining to her why Kyle had had to end in fire for hurting one of the other witches.

"What if we don't want to?" The younger girl asked, her voice small and apprehensive.

"I didn't want to burn Kyle," Zoe said, bluntly. "I even considered betraying my coven to protect him. Can you believe that I would think of doing something so detrimental to my sisters and to myself, for some twisted love? The things we do for a love like that are ugly, mad, full of sweat and regret. That kind of love burns you and maims you and twists you inside out."

"It is a monstrous love and it makes monsters of us all."

-

author's note; high fives to anyone who recognises where i pinched zoe's dialogue from ;)