A Red Moss Feeding

The air in the Everglades didn't just sit there. It pressed. It was a heavy, wet blanket that smelled like old vegetables and standing water. Jamie adjusted the strap of his messenger bag, feeling the sweat slick his neck.

His digital recorder was already out, the little red light blinking like a panicked eye. He was twenty-four, his hair was a mess of humidity-frizzed curls, and he was currently wondering if a thousand-dollar equipment grant was worth dying of heatstroke in a swamp. He'd been walking for two miles since his Jeep hit a mud flat that didn't want to let go. His GPS was a flickering ghost on his phone screen. Signal was a joke out here. He’d come for a story. Not just any story, but the one that would finally get his podcast, 'Dead Air,' out of the mid-tier charts. The Unity Grove. People called it a commune. Families called it a kidnapping ring. Jamie just called it a lead.

He pushed through a wall of sawgrass that sliced at his forearms. On the other side, the ground leveled out into a clearing that looked too clean to be natural. The trees here were different. They weren't just mangroves or cypress. They were draped in something thick and velvet-textured. A deep, bruising crimson. It wasn't Spanish moss. It looked more like raw steak hung out to dry. Jamie stopped. He raised his camera, snapped a few shots, then switched to video. "Day one," he whispered into the mic. "I’ve reached the perimeter. The vegetation is... weird. There’s a red moss everywhere. It looks invasive as hell. No signs of life yet, but the silence is heavy. It’s like the birds just decided to move out."

He wasn't lying about the silence. In the Everglades, there should be a constant roar of insects, the splash of gators, the distant cry of a crane. Here, nothing. Just the sound of his own breathing and the soft, wet crunch of his boots on the mossy ground. He moved toward a cluster of wooden cabins. They were simple, weathered gray, and arranged in a perfect circle. In the center of the circle stood a man. He was wearing a simple linen shirt and trousers, both stained with the same red hue as the moss. He was tall, with a beard that looked like it hadn't seen a razor in a decade, but his eyes were sharp. Too sharp. They didn't have the glazed look of a brainwashed follower. They looked like they were seeing through Jamie, through the camera, right into the marrow of his bones.

"You're late, Jamie," the man said. His voice was like low-frequency static. It vibrated in Jamie’s chest. Jamie froze. He hadn't told anyone his real name. His emails to the Grove had been under the alias 'Mark.' He lowered the camera, his heart thudding against his ribs. "How do you know who I am?" he asked, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. He reached into his pocket, his thumb brushing the edge of his phone. He wanted to record this. He needed to record this. "We knew you were coming because the Grove felt you," the man said. He stepped forward. He didn't walk so much as glide, his feet barely disturbing the red carpet beneath him. "I am Father Yates. Welcome to the end of your loneliness."

Jamie let out a short, dry laugh. It was a reflex. Irony was his only shield. "Right. The end of loneliness. Is that the pitch? Because usually, that involves a lot of chanting and a very expensive weekend retreat." Yates didn't smile. He just watched Jamie. "You think in terms of transactions. You think in terms of the self. That is the cancer, Jamie. The 'I' is a wall. It’s a prison. Out there, in your world, you are a single spark waiting to be snuffed out by the dark. Here, we are the fire." Jamie took a step back, his heel sinking into a patch of moss that felt uncomfortably soft. It felt like stepping on a tongue. "Look, I’m just here to find someone. Stacey Miller. She’s my sister. Her family hasn't heard from her in six months. Just let me talk to her, and I’m gone."

"Stacey is here," Yates said. He turned his back, gesturing for Jamie to follow. "But she isn't who you remember. She’s more now. She’s part of the answer. You want to see her? Follow me. But leave the skepticism at the gate. It’s a heavy weight to carry in the heat." Jamie hesitated. Every instinct he had, the ones honed by three seasons of investigating urban legends and cult activities, told him to run back to the Jeep and walk until his legs gave out. But Stacey was here. He could feel it. The air felt thicker now, smelling of wet earth and something metallic, like a penny under a tongue. He adjusted his bag and followed Yates into the heart of the Grove, the red moss closing in behind his footsteps like a healing wound.

As they walked, Jamie noticed the others. They were coming out of the cabins now. Men, women, a few teenagers. They all wore the same linen clothes. They all had the same slow, deliberate gait. They didn't look at Jamie. They didn't even seem to notice him. They were moving toward a long table set under a massive oak tree that was completely smothered in the red moss. One woman was carrying a tray of fruit. A man was setting down wooden bowls. They moved in a way that was unnervingly synchronized. When the woman reached for a bowl, the man handed it to her before she even fully extended her arm. It wasn't just teamwork. It was like they were parts of the same machine. No one spoke. The only sound was the rustle of the linen and the wet slap of the moss as they stepped on it.

"They don't talk much, do they?" Jamie muttered, his eyes darting from person to person. He kept his hands on his camera, but he didn't raise it yet. He didn't want to spook them. "Why speak when you already know?" Yates replied without looking back. "Language is a bridge for people who live on separate islands. We have removed the water. We are the land itself." They reached the table. Yates gestured to an empty seat. "Sit. Eat. You’ve traveled far. The transition from the world of the 'I' to the world of the 'We' takes energy." Jamie sat, his skin crawling. The wood of the chair felt damp. He looked at the bowl in front of him. It was filled with a dark, pulpy fruit he didn't recognize. It looked like a pomegranate that had been turned inside out.

He looked at the woman sitting next to him. She was young, maybe nineteen. She had a smear of red moss on her cheek. "Hey," Jamie said softly. "I’m Jamie. I’m looking for Stacey. Do you know her?" The woman didn't turn her head. She just kept staring at the center of the table. "We know Stacey," she said. At the exact same time, the man across from her said, "Stacey is the light of the Grove." Their voices were perfectly pitched, hitting the same notes at the same microsecond. Jamie felt a chill that had nothing to do with the humidity. "Okay," he said, his voice cracking. "That’s... that’s a neat trick. How do you guys do that? The timing?" The woman finally turned her head. Her eyes were wide, the pupils so dilated that the irises were just thin rings of green. "There is no timing," she said. "There is only the pulse." She reached out and touched Jamie’s hand. Her skin was burning hot, and her palm felt slightly tacky, as if she’d been handling glue.

Jamie pulled his hand away, wiping it on his jeans. "Right. The pulse. Got it." He looked at Yates, who was watching him with a look of pity. "You’re scared," Yates said. "That’s natural. Your ego is fighting for its life. It knows that its time is coming to an end. It wants to keep you small. It wants to keep you alone. But look around you, Jamie. Do you see anyone here who is lonely? Do you see anyone here who is afraid?" Jamie looked. He saw faces that were devoid of stress, devoid of the frantic energy of the modern world. They looked like they were in a trance, but a peaceful one. But it wasn't right. It was too quiet. It was too perfect. It felt like a grave. "I just want to see my sister," Jamie said, his voice firming up. "That’s all. No philosophy. No pulses. Just Stacey."

Yates nodded slowly. "In time. The Grove requires preparation. You cannot see the sun until your eyes have adjusted to the light. Tonight, we have the communion. You will see her then. You will see all of us." He stood up, and as if on a silent command, everyone else at the table stood up too. The scraping of the chairs on the ground was a single, unified sound. Jamie stayed seated, feeling like a discordant note in a symphony. He watched them walk away, heading toward the dense treeline where the red moss was the thickest. He reached into his bag, pulling out his recorder. "They’re all linked," he whispered. "I don't know if it’s drugs or some kind of high-level hypnotic suggestion, but they move like a school of fish. And the moss... it’s everywhere. It’s not just on the trees. It’s on them. It’s in them."

He stood up, his legs feeling heavy. He needed to find a way to get a signal. He needed to call someone. But as he looked back toward the path he’d come from, he realized the sawgrass had moved. The trail was gone. The swamp had closed up behind him. There was only the circle of cabins, the red-draped trees, and the unnatural silence of the Grove. He looked down at his boots. A tiny strand of red moss was already beginning to curl around his laces, its fine, hair-like filaments reaching out for the heat of his skin. He kicked it off, a surge of adrenaline finally breaking through the lethargy of the heat. This wasn't a story anymore. It was a trap. And the teeth were already starting to close.

The Discordant Note

The afternoon stretched out into a long, suffocating crawl. Jamie tried to explore the perimeter, but every time he moved toward the edge of the clearing, he’d find one of the members standing there. They weren't blocking him, exactly. They were just... present. A man weeding a garden patch. A woman mending a shirt. They never looked up, but they always seemed to be exactly where he wanted to go. It was like trying to walk through a crowd that knew your every move before you made it. He retreated to the cabin Yates had assigned him. It was small, smelling of cedar and that same metallic tang. There was no lock on the door. There was no electricity. Just a simple cot and a wooden bowl of water. Jamie sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. He checked his phone. Zero bars. The battery was at forty percent. He turned it off to save what was left.

"Think, Jamie," he muttered. "Think. You’re a journalist. You’re a professional. This is just a high-concept cult. They’ve got some kind of pheromone thing going on, or maybe they’re all micro-dosed on something in the water." He looked at the bowl of water on the table. He didn't touch it. He pulled a crumpled granola bar from his bag and ate it, the dry oats sticking in his throat. He needed to find Stacey. If he could just get her alone, maybe he could snap her out of it. He remembered her last TikTok before she disappeared. She’d been talking about 'finding a deeper connection' and 'leaving the noise behind.' He’d laughed at it then. He wasn't laughing now. The 'noise' of the world felt like a distant, beautiful dream compared to the silence of this place.

As the sun began to set, the light in the Grove changed. The red moss started to glow. It wasn't a bright light, but a dull, internal pulse, like embers in a fireplace. It turned the entire clearing into a shifting, crimson nightmare. Jamie heard a low hum. It started at the edge of his hearing and slowly grew louder. It wasn't a human sound. It was the sound of a million tiny wings, or a million tiny hearts beating at once. He stood up and went to the door. The members were gathering in the center of the clearing. They were forming a circle, their arms linked. Yates stood in the middle, his arms raised. The red light from the moss reflected in his eyes, making them look like pits of fire.

"The sun sets on the individual!" Yates shouted. His voice carried across the clearing without him having to strain. "The dark comes for the alone! But for us, there is no dark! There is only the We!" The members began to sway. It wasn't a random movement. It was a wave that traveled through the entire circle. Jamie stepped out of his cabin, drawn by a mixture of horror and professional curiosity. He kept his recorder in his pocket, the mic peeking out. "Look at the trees!" Yates cried. "Look at the Grove! It does not compete with itself! The root does not fight the leaf! The moss does not fight the bark! It is one! It is whole! And we are its voice!"

Jamie watched as a young man stepped forward into the center of the circle. He was shirtless, his skin pale in the crimson light. He knelt before Yates. Jamie realized with a jolt of nausea that the man had small, surgical-looking incisions all over his back and shoulders. They weren't bleeding. They were filled with the red moss. Yates reached out and took a handful of the moss from the tree behind him. It seemed to move in his hand, the filaments twitching. He pressed the moss against the man’s back. Jamie felt his stomach turn. The moss didn't just sit on the skin. It crawled. It pushed itself into the incisions, the red fibers disappearing under the flesh. The man didn't flinch. He didn't scream. He let out a long, shuddering breath that sounded like a sigh of relief.

"We are the cure," the circle chanted. Their voices were a single, terrifying drone. "Individualism is the cancer. We are the cure." Jamie backed away, his heart hammering. He saw the moss under the man’s skin beginning to pulse in time with the glow of the trees. It was growing. He could see the faint, red outlines of the fungal threads spreading out like a map of veins across the man’s back. They were connecting to the nervous system. He could see the man’s muscles twitching in rhythm with the sway of the circle. It wasn't spiritual. It was biological. It was a literal hive-mind, facilitated by a fungal parasite that was eating them from the inside out and replacing their thoughts with its own.

"Oh my god," Jamie whispered. "Stacey." He had to find her. Now. While they were all distracted by the ceremony. He turned and ran toward the back of the cabins, staying in the shadows. The red light made everything look flat and confusing. He ducked behind a shed, his breath coming in short, jagged gasps. He saw a silhouette moving near the edge of the treeline. It was a woman. She was standing perfectly still, her head tilted back as if she were listening to something in the air. Jamie crept closer. The moonlight caught her face. It was Stacey. But her skin was different. It had a translucent, waxen quality, and her eyes... they were glowing with that same dull, crimson light.

"Stacey?" Jamie whispered. He reached out and touched her shoulder. She didn't jump. She didn't even seem surprised. She turned her head slowly, her movements smooth and oily. "Jamie," she said. Her voice didn't sound like her. It sounded like a recording of her played over a speaker. It had no inflection, no emotion. "You’re here. We felt you arrive. We felt your fear. It’s so loud. It’s so messy." Jamie grabbed her arms, his fingers sinking into the soft flesh. "Stacey, listen to me. We have to go. Right now. I’ve got the Jeep... well, I’ve got a way out. We can get help. We can get you to a hospital. This guy, Yates, he’s doing something to you. There’s something in your skin, Stacey!"

Stacey smiled. It was the most terrifying thing Jamie had ever seen. It was a perfect, symmetrical expression that didn't reach her eyes. "There is nothing in our skin that doesn't belong there, Jamie. The moss is the memory. The moss is the peace. I am Stacey, but Stacey is also the Moss. We are the Grove. Why would I want to be small again? Why would I want to go back to being a single, lonely voice in a world that doesn't listen?" She reached out and touched his face. Her fingers were cold, and he could feel the faint, prickling sensation of the fungal filaments trying to latch onto his skin. He recoiled, his skin crawling. "You’re not her," he hissed. "You’re just a shell."

"We are all shells until we are filled," she said. Her voice was joined by another. Yates was standing ten feet away, his arms crossed. "She is more herself now than she ever was, Jamie. She is part of something eternal. You, on the other hand... you are a discordant note. You are the ego that refuses to bend. You are the 'I' that thinks it’s more important than the 'We.'" The members of the circle began to turn. They were all looking at him now. A hundred pairs of crimson-glowing eyes fixed on him in the dark. The humming grew louder, a physical vibration that made Jamie’s teeth ache. The ground beneath his feet seemed to shift, the red moss rippling like water.

"The Grove is hungry, Jamie," Yates said, his voice dropping to a whisper that somehow sounded louder than a shout. "It needs new perspectives. It needs new memories. It needs the strength of the ego to fuel its growth. You didn't come here for a story. You came here to be the story." Jamie looked at Stacey. She wasn't looking at him as a brother. She was looking at him as a resource. "Run," his brain screamed. He didn't wait for a second invitation. He turned and bolted into the dark, the red light of the moss illuminating his path like a trail of blood. He could hear them behind him. Not the sound of feet, but the sound of the forest itself moving. The rustle of leaves, the snap of branches, and that constant, rhythmic hum that was getting louder with every step he took.

The Pulse of the Swamp

Jamie’s lungs burned. The air was so thick it felt like he was inhaling warm syrup. He didn't know where he was going, only that he had to get away from the clearing. He crashed through the brush, his boots splashing into hidden pools of muck. The Everglades were a maze even in the daylight; at night, with the trees themselves seeming to shift their positions, it was a death trap. He looked back over his shoulder. The crimson glow was still there, a soft, pervasive light that didn't seem to have a source. It was everywhere. It was the ground. It was the bark. It was the leaves. He tried to check his phone, but it was dead. The screen was a black mirror reflecting his own panicked face. He shoved it back into his pocket, a useless piece of plastic in a world that had moved beyond technology.

He stopped for a second, leaning against a cypress tree to catch his breath. The bark felt strange—rubbery and warm. He looked down and saw his hand was resting on a thick mat of the red moss. He pulled it away, but a few strands stayed stuck to his palm. They were thin as spider silk but strong. He wiped them off on his jeans, but the skin where they’d touched him was already beginning to itch. A deep, subcutaneous itch that he couldn't reach. He looked around. The silence had returned, but it wasn't the silence of an empty place. It was the silence of a predator holding its breath. He could feel the moss reacting to him. Every time his heart spiked with fear, the red light around him pulsed in perfect synchronization. It was reading him. It was feeding on his adrenaline.

"Okay," Jamie whispered, his voice shaking. "Okay. It’s just fungus. It’s just a biological reaction. I can get out of this. I just need to find the road." He started moving again, trying to keep his direction straight. But the trees were different here. They were taller, their branches intertwining to form a solid canopy that blocked out the stars. The red moss hung down in long, weeping tresses, brushing against his face as he pushed through. It felt like hair. It felt like Stacey’s hair. He pushed the thought away. He couldn't think about her. Not yet. He had to survive first. He came to a small ridge overlooking a depression in the ground. He froze. Below him, the ground wasn't ground at all. It was a writhing, pulsing mass of red.

It looked like a pool of blood, but it was thicker, more structured. He realized with a jolt of horror that he was looking at the Source Pool. In the center of the depression, the moss was so thick it had formed a solid mound. And protruding from that mound were limbs. A hand. A foot. A face, half-submerged in the crimson growth. They weren't dead. They were fused. Their bodies had been broken down and rebuilt into a single, massive organism. The Source Pool was the brain. He could see the nervous systems—bright, glowing white lines—trailing out from the central mass and connecting to the roots of the surrounding trees. The entire Grove was a single nervous system, and the people were just the nodes. The 'Discordant Notes' like himself were the fuel, their individual consciousnesses being digested and integrated into the collective.

"It’s beautiful, isn't it?" A voice came from the dark behind him. Jamie spun around. It was Yates. He was standing on the ridge, his silhouette framed by the red glow. He looked calmer than ever. "The end of the ego. The end of the war within the self. No more 'I want,' no more 'I fear.' Only 'We are.'" Jamie backed away, his foot slipping on the edge of the ridge. "You’re insane," he spat. "You’re killing them. You’re turning people into... into compost." Yates laughed softly. "Is a cell 'killed' when it becomes part of a body? Is a drop of water 'killed' when it hits the ocean? We are evolving, Jamie. The modern world is a desert of loneliness. We have found the oasis. And you... you have so much to contribute. Your memories, your cynicism, your drive... the Grove will use it all to grow stronger."

Jamie scrambled up, trying to find a way around Yates, but the trees were moving. He saw the roots pulling themselves out of the mud like giant, wooden fingers. They were blocking his path, weaving together to form a wall. The moss on the ground began to rise up, forming tendrils that reached for his ankles. "Get away from me!" Jamie yelled. He swung his messenger bag, hitting a branch that tried to snag his arm. The bag tore, his recorder and camera spilling out into the mud. He didn't stop to pick them up. He ran along the ridge, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He could feel the itch in his palm spreading up his arm. It was a cold, numbing sensation, as if his blood was turning to ice.

He tripped over a root that hadn't been there a second ago and went sprawling into the muck. He scrambled to his feet, but the moss was already on him. It was climbing his legs, its fine filaments piercing through his jeans and into his skin. He screamed, a raw, primal sound that was swallowed by the swamp. He clawed at the moss, but it was like trying to pull off his own skin. Every time he tore a piece away, more grew in its place. He looked up and saw the members of the Grove emerging from the trees. They were all there. The woman from the table. The man with the incisions. Stacey. They were moving in perfect unison, their eyes glowing with a unified purpose. They didn't look like people anymore. They looked like extensions of the forest.

"Welcome home, Jamie," they said. The voice didn't come from their mouths. It came from the air. It came from the trees. It came from the moss itself. Jamie felt a sudden, sharp pain in the back of his neck. He reached back and felt something cold and wet latching onto his spine. It was a thick strand of the moss. He tried to pull it off, but his arms wouldn't move. His nervous system was being hijacked. He felt a wave of dizziness wash over him, his vision blurring into a smear of red and black. His thoughts were starting to fragment. He remembered his third-grade teacher. He remembered the smell of his first car. He remembered the way Stacey used to laugh. And then, he felt them—a thousand other minds reaching into his, pulling his memories out like threads from a sweater.

He fell to his knees, his body no longer his own. He watched as the members of the Grove closed in around him. They didn't touch him with their hands. They touched him with their minds. He could feel their peace, their terrifying, empty peace. It was a void that wanted to be filled. He saw Stacey kneeling in front of him. She leaned in, her forehead touching his. "Don't fight it, Jamie," she whispered. "The noise is almost over. Just let go. Become the We." Jamie tried to scream, but his jaw was locked. He could feel the moss growing into his mouth, its earthy, metallic taste coating his tongue. His last individual thought was a desperate, frantic 'No,' but it was a small, weak thing. It was a single spark, and the dark was very, very large.

The Source Pool

The transition wasn't a sudden snap. it was a slow, agonizing dissolve. Jamie was aware of his body, but it felt like a distant country he was losing a war for. He felt the moss threading through his muscle fibers, wrapping around his bones, and tapping into the base of his brain. It was a cold, precise invasion. He was being mapped. Every secret, every petty grudge, every dream he’d ever had was being uploaded into the Source Pool. He could feel the other minds in the Grove—the 'We.' It was a cacophony at first, a roar of a thousand voices all talking at once, but then it settled into a low, rhythmic hum. He felt the woman who had sat next to him at dinner. He felt her grief over a lost child, now smoothed over by the moss. He felt the man with the incisions and his relief at finally belonging. He felt Yates, who wasn't a leader so much as the primary antenna, the first to truly surrender.

They were dragging him now. He couldn't feel his feet touching the ground, but he could feel the collective effort of the group. They were a single organism moving a damaged cell toward the center. They reached the Source Pool. Up close, it was even more horrific. The mound of fused bodies was pulsing with a deep, bioluminescent light that matched the rhythm of Jamie’s own dying heart. He saw faces he recognized from missing person reports—people who had vanished into the Everglades over the last decade. They were all here. They were the brain. They were the memory bank of the Grove. Their skin had long since merged into a single, continuous sheet of pale, moss-streaked flesh. They didn't have lungs anymore; they breathed through the leaves of the trees. They didn't have stomachs; they fed on the nutrients the moss pulled from the swamp.

"The Discordant Note must be silenced," the collective thought echoed in Jamie’s mind. It wasn't a threat. It was a statement of fact, like a body deciding to heal a wound. Jamie felt himself being lowered into the pool. The red mass was warm—unnervingly warm, like bathwater. It closed over his legs, then his waist. He felt the filaments of the Source Pool reaching into his pores, connecting him to the central hub. He tried to hold onto himself. He focused on his name. 'I am Jamie Miller. I am a journalist. I live in an apartment in the city. I have a cat.' But the memories were being stripped away. The cat was gone. The apartment was a blur. The name 'Jamie' was starting to sound like a word from a foreign language.

He looked up one last time. He saw the summer moon hanging over the Grove, a bright, silver coin in a sky that was too clear. The stars looked like holes poked in a velvet curtain. For a second, he felt a flash of pure, unadulterated terror. He was dying. Not just his body, but his soul. He was being erased. But as the moss reached his chest, the terror began to fade. It was replaced by a strange, hollow calm. Why fight it? The world outside was so loud. Everyone was so angry, so alone, so desperate for something that felt real. Here, there was no desperation. There was only the pulse. He felt Stacey’s mind touch his. It was a gentle, welcoming sensation. 'We are waiting for you, Jamie,' she thought. 'The Grove is almost complete.'

He felt his consciousness expanding. He wasn't just in the pool anymore. He was in the trees. He could feel the wind rustling his leaves. He was in the water, feeling the movement of a gator a mile away. He was in the dirt, feeling the slow, patient growth of the roots. He was the Grove. The 'I' was finally, mercifully, gone. He felt the last piece of Jamie Miller—a small, stubborn memory of a summer day at the beach—flicker and go out. He was no longer a journalist. He was no longer a brother. He was a node. He was a memory. He was the moss. His face, still recognizable for a few more minutes, slowly sank beneath the surface of the Source Pool. The red growth bubbled over his eyes, filling the sockets with glowing crimson filaments.

Yates stood at the edge of the pool, his hands folded. He looked down at the spot where Jamie had disappeared. The ripples in the red mass slowly smoothed out. The Grove was silent again. The hum had reached a new level of complexity, a new depth of harmony. The 'Discordant Note' had been resolved. "Welcome," Yates whispered, though there was no one left to hear him with human ears. The members of the circle turned back toward their cabins, their movements even more perfectly synchronized than before. They walked in a single, unified line, their feet making no sound on the velvet carpet of the forest floor. The summer night was at its peak, the air heavy with the scent of blooming flowers and the metallic tang of the moss.

Deep within the Source Pool, the new data was being processed. Jamie’s knowledge of the outside world, his maps, his understanding of digital networks—it was all being translated into biological terms. The Grove was learning. It was realizing that the world of the 'I' was vulnerable. It was realizing that the 'noise' could be silenced, one person at a time. The roots of the trees began to push further into the muck, reaching out toward the distant road. The moss began to spread, its tiny, red fingers finding purchase on every branch, every stone, every blade of grass. It wasn't just a commune anymore. It was a frontier. And the frontier was moving. The Everglades were just the beginning. The world was full of lonely people, and the Grove was very, very patient.