Zera and the Green Man (23 page)

Explosively the lid-like top of the urn shed itself. Zera, attached to her spore and along with the millions upon millions of others, shot up into the air. 

A thrill like none she had ever experienced swept through her.

A breeze blew through the room and carried them all away through the open bedroom window. She did not see herself lying unconscious on the floor.
                                                          
.

Only in her most joyful dreams had Zera experienced what she was now doing — flying! Up and over the Colorado Rocky Mountains she soared on the tiny, triangular ship. She rode the wind past trees, houses, streams, and rivers. Up, then down, then up, up, up again, weightless and free.   

She rode high, where house-sized droplets of water made up moist clouds that bounced around her. Then she plummeted, drying and twirling as she neared the
earth in puffs of sparkling dust. Slow as a ladybug, fast as a lynx, up, then down again. She zoomed past forest needles and leaves; tasted and smelled their greenness, their life. On she went, west.

After scaling and descending the Rockies, she soared through the dry Colorado Plateau. For a while, among the eons-old features of erosion — arches, canyons, cliffs, mesas and buttes — she drifted. Colors sped by, altered by sun and shadow. She flew over and through trees, shrubs, flowers, grass, and she glimpsed animals: mule deer, rabbits, snakes, foxes. 

For a few moments, caught on the back of a hawk, she rose skyward. She tasted the bird’s life, its hawk-energy, radiating from where the spore-ship rested, a single satiny barb on a single white feather. The bird cried out, and its call rang joyfully, vibrating through Zera. The hawk spotted a rabbit and circled, targeted. They dove together before she fell free and was picked up by the gusting wind.

   Through the aquamarine sky, over the land tapestry, she sailed.
Through an array of geologic splendors; past ranches, small towns, and cities. She danced in the cool mist above the Colorado River. The Wahsatch mountain range loomed before her, and up she flew up over these mountains, too. She thought of little but the glorious beauty surrounding her. Time was lost to wonder.

Soon a scorched land of cacti lay before her. More miles
disappeared over desert sand. Zera was awed by the barren magnificence, the light and heat. She skimmed over a city that went for miles, with monstrously large buildings and thousands of swimming pools glowing like neon turquoise. Water that did not belong in this landscape sparkled below her.
Las Vegas
. She felt its energy, its vanity, its emptiness. She reached Death Valley, and saw little stirring below, yet she knew that it, too, held life. She continued quickly, up and over the third range of mountains that day, the jagged, dramatic peaks of the Sierra Nevadas.

Beyond the range, the land was fruitful and rich. Now came noisy, smoky cities, a cacophony of cars and people, then wet, quiet farmlands, then drier forests and meadows. Zera thought of patchwork quilts. This one was made with colorful scraps both living and man-made. 

By late afternoon, Zera drifted lower, over trees in the countryside. The wind became languid, heavy, moving ever-slowly with its special cargo. It floated Zera to the treetops, down to the sweet-smelling grass, then up again, as if it were playing, trying to make its fondness known. Zera laughed at the belly-tickling sensation, like riding on a slow roller coaster.

The clouds gathered and the sky dimmed. As they drew close to an old farmhouse whose silver-gray wood showed only white traces of paint, Zera felt
a heaviness and a charge in the air. It began to rain and the ship carrying her flew between the drops.

Next to the farmhouse stood a gigantic oak tree.
Zera knew the oak was dying, its journey in this life nearing the end. The few branches that were not dead were dry and losing leaves. It smelled more of earth, not of the life of leaves. The breeze gently deposited her into its dark cavity — and she was jolted by a blinding, deafening crash.                                      
.

After managing to scrape the tape off her mouth in the van, Tiffany screamed at full lung capacity until Drew and Bear raced outside. Now, ten hours later, she sat bolt upright, tightly wound as a spring, on one end of the shabby velvet sofa.

Theodore slouched at the other end. He wore his glasses, retrieved from the van that morning so he could memorize the scripted phone call to Void. The call had gone off without a hitch.

Tiffany’s confinement had not. She had terrorized everyone, all day long. She screamed, kicked, hurled herself at her captors, tried to bite, tried to head-butt Lily, and even managed to fling a glass ashtray (with her hands bound) at the window in the front room. The window didn’t break. The captors tried reasoning with her, threatening her, and even tying her to a chair for a few hours, but when they noticed she was crying, they untied her. Theodore watched Tiffany now as she fumed at the other end of the couch, a pink rectangle of chafed skin outlining her mouth. She was a mess, with tangled hair, smeared eye makeup, and wrinkled pink pajamas. Like Theodore’s, her wrists were still bound with the plastic zip-tie, but she had struggled so hard, chafing her wrists in the process, that Drew had to pad under them with foam rubber.

Tiffany angrily tossed her
hair back from her face, but a strand stuck to a sticky spot by her mouth. She brought up her bound hands and ripped it free with a pinkie, all the while glaring at Theodore. “Imagine, your old girlfriend, kidnapping us both,” she snarled in a voice hoarse from screaming. “What do you really have to do with this, Theodore?”

Theodore said nothing. He’d spent hours trying to talk to Tiffany, to get her to see what he was certain about: while the Green Guerillas made a good show of being menacing, they wouldn’t hurt them. But
Tiffany wouldn’t listen. She was determined that Theodore’s calmness betrayed some kind of guilt.

“You didn’t even object when they put the tape back on my mouth!”

“They told you repeatedly to stop screaming. I practically begged you to stop. Just what did you expect me to do?” Theodore held up his own bound hands for emphasis.

“Nothing.
Like you’ve done all day,” Tiffany rasped, twisting her wrists in agitation. “We could get out of these things, if you wanted to. We could try to escape.”

He had tried to wriggle free for hours, and she knew it. Theodore didn’t bother responding.

Tiffany got up and walked to the kitchen door. She pressed her ear against it, eyes squinted. After a minute, she stalked over to the window, muttering, “Can’t hear a thing but that radio. All I’ve heard all day are snatches of conversation, something about ‘equipment,’ ‘live via satellite,’ something about a helicopter.” She faced Theodore. “What do you think it all means? And why are they letting us know their names? Their identities? They’ve
got
to be planning to kill us. And you’re just going to
sit
there.”

“They’re not going to kill us,” Theodore whispered. “I told you this before, when Drew took me to the bathroom after lunch, he said they weren’t going to hurt either of us. I believe him.”

“Go ahead, believe it, Theodore, whatever. They’ve put tape over my mouth, twice. We’re still tied up, have been all day.”

“They put tape over your mouth when you wouldn’t stop yelling.”

Tiffany peered outside, through a large gap between the boards covering a window. “It’s raining. Perfect. Even if by some miracle we do escape, we’ll have to deal with that.”  

Theodore had heard a few things during the day too, and he sensed that while the Green Guerillas might not be dangerous, the mission they were undertaking surely was. He had been told in private he’d be going with them and to not, under any circumstances, tell Tiffany. In spite of what Drew said, he wondered if this would be his last day alive and discovered that he wasn’t too upset by the thought. The nightmare of the night before played in his head continuously — the tree, the accusations, the hatred, the jeers — those horrible plant voices
.
In comparison to the nightmare and what he’d seen in the laboratory, the kidnapping seemed almost tame.

Tiffany moved from the window into one of the chairs opposite Theodore. “There’s something I’m going to tell you now,” she said, “because even if we get out of this I don’t want anything more to do with you.
Ever. It’s over.”

Theodore remained mute. He’d heard worse threats that day from her.

“I happen to know you’ve thought about that crazy woman. I’ve seen that photo album from your high school years that you keep hidden in the garage.” Seeing his surprise, she nodded. “Yes, Theodore, underneath those boxes of science books. I found it a long time ago.” 

She searched my house?
Figures.

Tiffany glared at Theodore, large cat-eyes narrowing. “The two of you at the science fair, at that stupid Christmas amusement park. It was disgusting, both of you all pimply and in love. I kept tabs on that box to see if you revisited those precious memories. And you did.
Many times.”  

When she got no reaction, her voice rose. “The way you acted yesterday cinched it.
The way you treated me. Yeah, I’m a twit all right!”

Lily pounded on the kitchen wall to get their attention. “Keep it down in there!”

In defiance, Tiffany let out an angered scream. She then turned her attention back to Theodore. “I’m convinced you knew something was going on,” she said, growling out the words and refusing to let up. “You were just too weird yesterday, too completely
changed
. This kidnapping crap is all a ploy, just to make you look innocent.” She got up and started pacing, a pink and blonde tigress in bunny slippers.  

“Right,” Theodore whispered, “all of this is a huge ploy, so I can be with my girlfriend from fifteen years ago. She’s
married
, Tiffany.”

Tiffany stopped. “Married? That’s funny.” She threw her head back and laughed.
“Poor Theodore. You know, we had a chance. Langston and Crystal, all those wonderful people we met at Void, treating us like real family, bending over backwards to be our friends, to help us become successful. I had several conversations with Crystal, about what I might be able to do in L.A. for a career if we  . . .” She stopped in front of Theodore. For a moment her face softened and her eyes grew teary. Then, they blazed.  

“A bunch of slimeball criminals! Eco-terrorists, that’s who you’re associated
with! All this time, did you live some kind of double life? Oh, I wish I’d never met you!”

An explosion of white light filled the living room, followed instantaneously by a deafening boom.

Tiffany jumped and screamed. “What was that?” She cowered near Theodore.

Theodore hurried to the window.
“Lightning. The tree’s split apart. It’s smoking!”

The kitchen door flew open. Lily, Drew, and Bear ran into the room.

“Did you see where it struck?” asked Drew.

“Yes, the oak.” Theodore stared out the window at the charred, smoking tree. As the smoke began to disappear in the pouring rain, he made out a figure standing inside the hollow trunk. It was unmistakable, he would recognize her anywhere. His hair stood up on his neck. He whirled toward his captors, his eyes glazed with fear. “Zera’s out there!”

* * *

Zera stood in the middle of the blackened tree, drenched from the pouring rain. The tree felt warm beneath her feet, not hot, although the smell of scorched oak and dissipating smoke was strong. She coughed once and when she closed her eyes she still saw the white outline of the tree. Her ears rang. She remembered drifting into the tree and then a blinding white light and BOOM.
Must have been . . .
her thinking was still scrambled . . .
lightning?

She looked down at the soaked clothes hanging on her now full-sized body — cut-off jeans, a vintage AC/DC T-shirt, and her favorite red sneakers. She remembered the day’s flight, a journey that lasted no time and forever. And now everything changed again, literally in a flash.   

Did the tree give up its life to somehow reconstruct me, in full size?
Or am I really even here?
She felt the rain on her face, tasted it when she licked her lips. She felt the heaviness of her clothes, her hair. She held out her hands, watched the rain pelt them. She smelled the rain’s damp sweetness mixed with the smoke.
I feel real enough.

She spoke silently to the tree.
Thank you.

It was then she saw them; two hooded men
were running toward her, shouting.   
.

Looking out the kitchen window, Nonny Green sipped her second cup of coffee. The sun was halfway up the trunk of the blue spruce; it had to be well after 9:00 A. M.

“I wonder when she’s going to get up.” Nonny directed her remark through the pocket doors of the kitchen to the dogs in the living room. Alice and Cato looked up, cocked their heads. Alice jumped off a chair, trotted up to Nonny’s chair, and laid her head on Nonny’s lap.

“She used to get up with the chickens.” Nonny stroked Alice’s soft, spotted head. “She must be exhausted from yesterday, poor darling.”  

No
nny tried Theodore’s v-phone again and this time she got through to his answering tape. She watched a video of Theodore, looking so professional and serious, telling her, “I am not available at the moment, but I will return your call as soon as possible.”

“Please call me, Ted, I need to talk to you,” Nonny said to the image. She could see her own worried reflection over her son’s on the monitor.

  She finished her coffee and stood up with the help of her cane. She checked the living room’s mantle clock. “Nine forty-five.” Clunking over to the staircase, she called, “Zera, honey, it’s time to get up.”

No
answer.

“Zera.
Sweetie,” she called a bit louder, “it’s almost ten. Hattie and Grandma Wren will be here soon.”

Still nothing.
Nonny looked at the dogs. Alice was back in her lounging position on the couch next to Cato.

“Alice. Go get Zera.” Nonny slapped her thigh.

Alice pricked up her ears but did not budge.

“How about you, Cato, old boy?” tried
Nonny. “Where’s Zera? Go get her.” She waved one arm toward the stairs.

The old black lab slowly got down off the sofa, stretching his back legs on the cushion with arthritic lethargy as he made his way down. He ambled stiff-legged in the opposite direction, to a kitchen counter, on which sat the dog biscuit jar.

“You dogs are worthless. You’d let a one-legged old lady climb the stairs, wouldn’t you? Phooey on you, then.”

Nonny began ascending the steps, holding onto the handrail with one hand and her cane with the other, calling for Zera. When she made it halfway up, Alice bounded up the stairs. Standing on the landing she watched Nonny continue her climb.

“
Now
you take some interest.”

“Zera!”
Nonny called, and then caught her breath. At the top of the steps, Nonny felt a crushing pain in her heart. She pressed her free hand against her chest. “Oh, please, don’t let it happen now,” she whispered. She stood there for a moment, trying to will the pain to stop, but it increased. She lurched to the door of Zera’s room and opened it, then collapsed on the floor. She didn’t see Zera lying on the floor near the terrarium. She didn’t hear the rumble of Hattie’s truck in the driveway. 

Nonny’s heart had stopped.

* * *

Hattie entered the house with Ben and Grandma Wren. “Guinevere! Zera! Are you here?” The dogs were barking wildly, Alice upstairs at the landing, Cato downstairs. Alice ran halfway down the stairs, barking frantically, then back up.

Panic gripped Hattie as she raced up the stairs. Ben followed her.

“Oh, no!”
Hattie’s hand flew up to her mouth to stifle a scream. Nonny, lying in the doorway, Zera on the bedroom floor near her terrarium. Hattie bent down over Nonny while Ben rushed to Zera. Zera was breathing, although unconscious, but Guinevere had no heartbeat. Hattie began CPR and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Grandma, call 911!”                                   
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