The Conservatory

The iron trellis was slick with rain and algae. Edmond lost his footing halfway up, his sneaker sliding uselessly against the wet metal. His shin slammed into a rusted bolt. The pain was bright and immediate, a sharp spike that made his vision blur for a second. He didn't scream. He didn't have the breath for it. He just hissed through his teeth, a wet, angry sound lost under the drumming of the storm.

He hung there for a moment, chest heaving against the cold brick. The rain was unrelenting. It wasn't a romantic drizzle; it was a punishment. Cold water ran down the back of his neck, soaking his hoodie, making the fabric heavy and stiff. He could smell the storm—not the clean scent people talked about, but the reek of wet asphalt, sulfur from the city drains, and the metallic tang of his own adrenaline.

He needed inside. Now.

He hauled himself up another foot, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on the window ledge. The wood was rotten. It gave way under his grip, crumbling like wet cake. He swore, shifting his weight, digging his nails into the gap between the frame and the brick. With a grunt that tore at his throat, he heaved himself up and over the sill, tumbling onto the floor inside.

He landed hard on his shoulder. Something crunched underneath him. Glass. Old, brittle glass hidden in the dirt.

Edmond rolled onto his back, gasping. The air in here was different. Still. Heavy. It didn't smell like the city outside. It smelled of deep, aggressive growth. Rotting mulch, stagnant water, and something sickly sweet, like flowers left too long on a grave. It was warm, too, a humid, suffocating heat that made his wet clothes cling to his skin like shrink-wrap.

He lay there for a long time, staring up. The roof was a skeletal grid of iron ribs, the glass panes mostly gone or shattered, replaced by the grey turmoil of the sky. Rain fell through the gaps, pattering onto the leaves around him. It felt like being inside the ribcage of a whale.

"You're crushing the wandering jew."

The voice was flat. Unsurprised.

Edmond scrambled back, his heels kicking up dirt, heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He fumbled for the flashlight in his pocket, his hands shaking so bad he almost dropped it. He clicked it on.

The beam cut through the gloom, illuminating dust motes and falling rain. It swept over tangled vines, massive ferns that looked prehistoric, and cracked terracotta pots.

Then it hit her.

She was sitting on a rusted wrought-iron bench, legs tucked up under her chin. She looked... messy. That was the first word that hit his brain. Her hair was a dark, tangled knot, stuck with twigs and what looked like spiderwebs. She wore a coat that was three sizes too big, the wool moth-eaten and stained with green chlorophyll smears. She held a pair of gardening shears in one hand. They were huge, rusted, looking more like a weapon than a tool.

She blinked in the light but didn't look away. Her eyes were dark, ringed with exhaustion.

"The plant," she said, pointing with the shears. "Under your elbow. You're killing it."

Edmond looked down. He was indeed crushing a purple, trailing vine into the mud. He shifted his weight, moving his arm. "I... what?"

"It bruises easily," she said. She lowered the shears but didn't put them down. "Like a peach. Or a shin. You hit yours pretty hard outside."

Edmond stared at her. His brain was misfiring. He had expected rats. Maybe a security guard. Not this girl who looked like she’d grown out of the compost heap. "You heard that?"

"Sound carries," she said. "Especially when the glass is broken. Why are you here?"

"I needed..." Edmond faltered. Why was he here? The fight with his dad. The slamming door. The miles of walking in the rain until his blisters popped. The need to just be somewhere that wasn't *there*. "Shelter. It was raining."

"It's raining inside, too," she pointed out. She gestured vaguely to the roof. "Roof's leaky."

"It's drier than out there."

She considered this, tilting her head. "Marginally. I'm Maren."

"Edmond."

"Okay, Edmond. You can stay. But don't sit on the plants. And don't touch the Datura. It causes hallucinations and cardiac arrest. It's the one with the trumpet flowers over there." She waved the shears toward a shadowy corner.

Edmond swallowed. "Okay."

He didn't move. He sat in the dirt, the flashlight beam wavering in his grip. The situation was absurd. It was terrifying. But he was also too tired to run back out into the storm. The adrenaline was fading, leaving him cold and shaking.

Maren went back to what she was doing. She was pruning a dead rosebush, snapping the dry wood with the shears. *Snip. Snip. Snip.* The sound was rhythmic, oddly soothing in the damp silence.

"You're bleeding," she said after a minute. She didn't look up.

Edmond touched his lip. It came away red. He must have bitten it when he fell. "It's fine."

"There's aloe over there. By the broken statue. It helps."

Edmond hesitated, then pushed himself up. His legs felt like lead. He walked cautiously over to the spot she indicated. A massive aloe vera plant spilled out of a cracked urn, its spikes thick and fleshy. He broke off a small tip. Gel oozed out, cool and clear. He dabbed it on his lip. It stung, then numbed.

"Thanks," he muttered.

"Don't thank me. It's the plant doing the work. I just introduced you."

She finally looked at him again. A small, crooked smile touched her lips. It made her look younger. Less like a witch, more like a tired college student. "You look terrible, Edmond."

"Thanks," he said again, drier this time. "You look... cozy."

She laughed. It was a sharp, barking sound. "Cozy. Sure. I live in a glass box filled with poisonous weeds. It's the height of luxury."

"You live here?"

"Squat," she corrected. "'Live' implies I have a lease and a toaster. I have neither. I have shears and a sleeping bag."

Edmond looked around. Now that his eyes were adjusting, he saw the signs of habitation. A waterproof tarp strung up in the driest corner. A pile of books wrapped in plastic bags. A camping stove. A distinct lack of trash. It was tidy, in a chaotic, organic way.

He walked over to the bench, keeping a respectful distance from the shears. "How long?"

"Three months. Since the winter broke. It was cold then. Had to sleep in two coats. But now..." She gestured around. "Spring. Everything is waking up. It's loud."

"Loud?"

"Growing is loud," she said, intense now. "Roots cracking pots. Vines strangling the brick. It's violent. People think flowers are nice. They're aggressive little bastards. They want to live. They'll eat this whole house if I let them."

Edmond looked at the walls. Ivy was indeed forcing its way through the mortar, crumbling the brick dust onto the floor. "So you're... stopping them?"

"Managing them," she said. "Negotiating."

She stood up. She was shorter than he expected, but she moved with a wiry, nervous energy. She walked over to a table covered in small clay pots. "Come look at this."

Edmond stepped closer. On the table was a tiny, pathetic-looking plant. It had two leaves, pale yellow, drooping sadly.

"It's dying," Edmond said.

"No," Maren whispered. She sounded reverent. "It's trying. It pushed through the concrete in the basement. No light. No water. Just pure spite. I brought it up here."

She touched one of the leaves with a dirty finger. Gentle. impossibly gentle.

"It doesn't know what to do with the light yet," she said. "It's shocked. It thinks it's a trap."

Edmond stared at the sprout. It was ugly. It was weak. It reminded him of himself, standing in his dad's kitchen an hour ago, trying to explain why he couldn't just *be* what they wanted him to be. The suffocating pressure. The darkness.

"Does it make it?" he asked. His voice cracked. He hated that.

Maren looked at him. Really looked at him. Her eyes were dark pools, reflecting the flashlight beam. She didn't offer a platitude. She didn't say *'Of course, hope springs eternal.'*

"Maybe," she said. "Probably not. But it's here now. That's the point. It got this far."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a slightly crushed pack of crackers. She held it out to him.

"Want a saltine? They're a bit stale."

Edmond stared at the crackers. Then he laughed. A short, choked sound that surprised him. The absurdity of it. The gothic ruin, the storm, the girl with the shears, and a pack of stale saltines.

"Yeah," he said. "I really do."

He took a cracker. It was soft, chewy instead of crisp. It tasted like cardboard and salt. It was the best thing he had eaten all day.

They stood there in the dark, eating crackers, listening to the rain hammer against the glass ribs of the roof. The tension in Edmond's shoulders began to unspool. The panic that had been driving him, the need to run, slowed down to a dull throb.

"My dad threw me out," Edmond said. He hadn't meant to say it. The words just fell out with the crumbs.

Maren didn't flinch. She crunched on her cracker. "What for?"

"Dropped out. Engineering. Couldn't do it. The math... it just didn't stick. I wanted to draw. He said I was wasting my life."

"Are you?" she asked.

"Maybe. I don't know. Feels like it."

"This plant," Maren said, gesturing to the yellow sprout. "If it stayed in the basement, it would be dead. But it would be safe. No wind. No predators. Coming up here... it's risky. The sun might burn it. I might accidentally snip it. But it's not a waste."

She looked at him, her expression fierce. "Movement isn't waste, Edmond. Even if you're just moving sideways."

Edmond felt a stinging behind his eyes. He blinked it away, focusing on the dirt under his fingernails. "You're weird, Maren."

"I know," she said comfortably. "I talk to vegetables."

"Better than people, sometimes."

"Much better. Less judgment. More photosynthesis."

A heavy drop of cold water splashed onto Edmond's nose from a leak above. He wiped it away, smearing dirt on his face. He probably looked insane. He didn't care.

"Can I stay?" he asked. "Just for tonight. Until the rain stops."

Maren looked around her kingdom of rot and green. She seemed to weigh him against the solitude she clearly prized. Then she nodded.

"You can take the hammock chair," she said. "But shake it out first. Spiders love it."

"Thanks."

"And Edmond?"

"Yeah?"

"If you see a vine moving when there's no wind... don't stare at it. Just look away."

Edmond froze. "You're joking."

Maren grinned. It was a wide, slightly manic grin that showed too many teeth. "Maybe. Maybe not. This is a Gothic conservatory, isn't it? Gotta keep the mystery alive."

She turned back to her work table, humming a tune that sounded vaguely like a nursery rhyme but darker, slower.

Edmond walked over to the hammock chair in the corner. He shook it out. A large, hairy spider scuttled away into the shadows. He sat down. The fabric smelled of mildew, but it held him.

He watched Maren working in the pool of flashlight beams. She was repotting the yellow sprout now, her hands moving with surgical precision. She was talking to it, a low murmur he couldn't catch.

He leaned his head back. The sound of the rain was deafening, a roar that wrapped around the glass house, isolating them from the world outside. The city, his father, the failed exams—they all felt very far away.

He felt a strange sensation in his chest. It wasn't happiness, exactly. It was too jagged for that. It was more like the feeling of finding a coin on the sidewalk, or seeing a weed flower in a crack in the pavement. A small, unexpected spark.

He wasn't alone. He was cold, he was wet, he was a failure, and he was sleeping in a spider-infested chair next to a girl who might be crazy.

But he wasn't alone.

He closed his eyes. The smell of the wet earth filled his lungs. For the first time in months, he didn't feel like he was drowning. He felt like he was just... waiting to grow.

"Hey Maren?" he mumbled, half-asleep.

"Yeah?"

"The yellow plant. I think it's gonna make it."

There was a pause. Then, a soft clinking of pottery.

"Yeah," she said. "Me too."

The rain continued to fall, washing the grime off the glass, bit by bit.