Golden Autumn - Part Ten
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
I’m in a good mood tonight. Tired out after doing my unexpected double shift, but happy with how the baby shower flowers I did came out. Most of all, though, just full of relief that everything went so well with Kent.
I hum softly to myself as I finish up the dishes, with Luna stretched out on the kitchen windowsill to supervise. The saucepan seems to let out a happy sigh as I give it a hard scrub with the pan brush, like a contented cat enjoying a good scratch.
I dry the saucepan off, settle it comfortably onto its hook for the night, and turn to finish off the cup of tea that Aiden made for me. It’s a chilly night outside. Fog is misting the windows, and there are still a few crickets chirping out in the garden. It’s getting late, after a long day. I’m glad to be home, wearing my pajamas.
I add my mug to the sink, turn around, and freeze, surprised to find Aiden standing in the kitchen doorway. I hadn’t heard him come in, so I thought he was still upstairs. And the expression on his face -
My heart misses a beat, filling with sudden alarm. “What happened?”
“I - did something stupid,” Aiden says slowly, his blue eyes full of guilt and panic. “Like, one of the only things that actually makes you get really mad.”
My heart sinks, my eyes growing wide. “Aiden?”
He flinches, then answers very slowly, quite obviously having to force himself to say every word. “I - I broke a pot with one of your plants in it.”
I take in a sharp breath, then rush across the kitchen, pushing him out of my way. “Aiden, you didn’t!”
“I’m so sorry!” He follows after me anxiously as I stride across the living room, his deep voice agonized. “It was a total accident, I don’t even know how it happened!”
“You have to be careful with plants, babe! They’re liv-”
“Living things, I know! I didn’t mean to! Maybe it’s going to be okay? It’s still standing basically upright! Shit, Jamie, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry-”
I’m already halfway up the stairs. “Which plant was it? One of my hanging ferns? Did you hit your head on the pot?”
“No, it’s the - the ruby tree I gave you…”
I freeze on the staircase and swing around to face Aiden, my eyes going perfectly round. He winces with his whole face. He knows the magical gem plants he gave me are my favorites.
My whole heart flounders with wild frustration and dismay, but the guilty look on Aiden’s face instantly takes the momentum out of that. No wonder Melanie could never stay mad at him for anything. I hate to see him look so sad, but it does make the hue of his eyes its own unique shade of beautiful blue.
“Aw, it’s - it’s okay, Aiden. I know it was an accident.” I lean down to kiss the top of his head, then spin around and set off up the stairs again. “Let’s just go take a look at it. Maybe you’re right, maybe it’s fine! What happened?”
“Seriously, I don’t fucking know!” Aiden says miserably, following right behind me. “You had asked me to move it away from the window…”
I did, because I noticed that the tiny glowing flowers had disappeared from the ruby tree, and been replaced with tiny crimson fruits. I also noticed that birds from the garden have been eating them.
We don’t know if eating fruit from a gemstone plant has some kind of effect on animals, so I thought it might be better to take the ruby tree away, put it where the birds can’t reach it. I tried to move it myself, but when I tried to lift the pot I couldn’t budge it. I thought it would stay a miniature tree forever. The ruby tree had other plans, as it turns out. It’s been growing, and it’s gotten really heavy. Like, strangely heavy.
“I thought it was just heavy by your standards, not mine,” Aiden explains, rushing after me down the upstairs hallway as I break into a jog. “I tried to pick it up and I couldn’t move it. I thought the pot was stuck to the floor, so I gave it some more force-”
I let out a dismayed groan. “This is what I get for dating a gym bro! I brought it on myself!”
“A gym bro, really?” comes his indignant voice from behind me. “All I did was try to pull it up, and the whole pot just fucking fell apart, I swear! Like it was already broken!”
I glance at Aiden over my shoulder in confusion, push open the bedroom door, then freeze, staring at the ruby plant.
A breath of relief escapes from me. The ruby tree is still standing perfectly upright, balanced in a heap of soil and broken shards of clay. The canopy of delicate, sweeping branches is undamaged, the jewel-like, crimson growths on the curved trunk still glowing softly in their little clusters. It’s a miracle.
I race across the bedroom and drop to my knees, putting my arms around the little tree so it isn’t resting its weight on its unsupported roots. How are they not crushed already, given how heavy the tree suddenly is?
“Okay, Aiden, I need you to rush down to where I keep the gardening stuff and grab me a new… what the fuck, why is it so heavy? I can’t even lift it up off the floor!”
Aiden rushes over to help. I let the tree go so he can pick it up instead, then stare at it in confusion when it doesn’t move. At all. Like it makes no difference that I was holding it.
Aiden puts his arms around the ruby tree and starts trying to lift it. My hand instinctively flies out to catch his wrist.
“Hold on…” I drop my gaze to the heap of soil, my eyes narrowing. “What the fuck…?”
I carefully start moving handfuls of soil away from the roots of the tree. Aiden keeps his hands on its curved trunk, holding it in case it falls over. But it doesn’t, and my digging hands finally get most of the soil and broken pieces of clay out of the way so we can see what’s going on.
Aiden and I both sit back, staring in thunderstruck silence.
We were wrong. The ruby tree hasn’t suddenly gotten heavy. We can’t pick it up because it’s taken root.
The pot was already broken, just like Aiden thought. The roots must have shot down right through it, then bored down into the floorboards. Thick, woody roots are growing on top of them and into them, like our flooring is raw earth and not solid wood.
Aiden and I stare at each other in stunned bewilderment, then simultaneously look at the ruby tree again.
My eyes follow a root that’s grown up onto the wall. We couldn’t see it before, the way the pot was angled. The low-hanging branches of the tree kept it hidden. Aiden’s eyes trace it, too. He wordlessly pushes aside the dresser that the root is growing towards. We both gasp softly when we see the branching roots that have quietly grown up and into the wall behind it.
I leap to my feet and rush for the hallway again. Aiden follows me down the stairs, where we stop beneath the part of our ceiling beneath the bedroom. It’s only barely noticeable, but there’s a tree root that’s grown through it. Visible on this side.
“Aiden?” I stammer, sprinting back towards the stairs. “What-?”
“I don’t know!” he sputters, bewildered and alarmed. “I had no idea!”
I half expect my vision to have cleared by the time we get back to the ruby tree. I expect to find it back in its pot, small and delicate like it was before. But there it is, taller and wilder, broken free from its initial confines.
Comfortably taking root in our house.
~~~~
“Okay, so good news,” Noah says, straightening up and dropping some tools into Raj’s toolbox. “So far as we can tell the roots haven’t grown through any gas lines or anything electrical in your walls. It’s weird, actually, it’s like they’re going out of their way to avoid that stuff.”
“The bad news is, I don’t know if we can remove these roots without seriously damaging your house.” Raj is feeling the wall with his fingers, his angular brows furrowed. “It’s like it replaced the parts of the wall that were here before. At least the roots are strong enough to hold up the places where they took over the existing support. They’re like solid hardwood, I think. Is it okay if I cut a little piece to see, Jamie?”
“I… I don’t know.” I’m down on my knees in front of the ruby tree, carefully feeling it with my fingers. “I fully have no idea what’s going on, so just give me a second before we do anything.”
“Really?” Noah glances at Aiden, who’s sitting on the bed, looking guilty and bewildered. “So Aiden doesn’t know, even though he’s the one who did the magic to make this thing, and Jamie, you don’t know either, even though you’re the plant man.”
Aiden shakes his head helplessly. “A lot of the time I don’t know everything about what my magic did.”
“And I’m - thinking,” I answer slowly, feeling a leaf between my fingertips.
The changes and growth in the ruby tree have been happening very gradually, and since I tend to my magic plants every day it’s been easy not to notice the scope. It’s only looking at it now that I remember what it looked like before, and realize just how much it’s grown.
The ruby tree started out about the same size and structure of a bonsai. Not anymore. Now it’s more than twice its original size. I noticed that it was growing and needed a larger pot a few times, and didn’t think too much about that. It’s a young tree. It only made sense for it to go through some changes in its first year. I just didn’t realize how much it had changed.
In my defense it’s not growing at all like a normal, standard plant. Plants don’t usually look fully formed and completely mature, then proceed to prove they were actually in their adolescence. They don’t usually sink deep roots right into your home when you’re not looking, ones so powerful and persistent that pots and walls and floors can’t stop them. It went right through them like they were never an obstacle.
“Did you start using some kind of new fertilizer on it, Jamie?”
“No.” I sit back on my ankles, meeting Aiden’s baffled eyes with a matching expression in mine. “I’ve actually been wondering how it can possibly be doing so well, because it doesn’t want anything I try to give it. It didn’t drink at all when I watered it, so I stopped doing that. I’ve almost never had to change the soil for the pot, like it doesn’t want the vitamins and minerals in it. It didn’t make a difference if I moved it in or out of the sunlight, either. It doesn’t seem to want or need anything. So I don’t know why it’s…”
Not just growing, flourishing. Despite the temperature falling as summer drifts away, the tree looks like it’s been growing in the richest soil, heaped with natural fertilizers, by a font of crystal-clear water, in a tropical greenhouse perfectly created for its exact needs.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a plant look so happily healthy as this one. The deep green leaves, falling in their rippling curtains - they’re thicker than homemade paper, glossy to a shining glow. The little red fruits that were there all summer are gone, but there are flower buds waiting to open everywhere, growing in thick clusters, already more than twice the size of the fruits. Profusions of richness so heavy that they weigh their branches down. The sultry scent of their perfume is already escaping, and none of them have even unfurled yet. I don’t know when they’re going to blossom, but already they’re on track to be three times as big as the original tiny flowers that grew on the tree.
“You’re one hell of a gardener, Jamie,” Noah says, like he’s noticing the same thing.
“But I didn’t - I can’t take the credit, dude, I’ve barely done anything!” I sit back on my ankles again, completely at a loss. “It hasn’t wanted anything!”
“Okay, I’m gonna cut a tiny piece from one of these roots,” Raj says, rummaging around in his toolbox. “The carpenter in me is dying to know what this wood looks like.”
Noah quickly catches Raj’s shoulder as he goes to cut it. “Slowly, yeah? It’s magical, we don’t know what it does. It might bite you if you hurt it.”
My eyes widen in alarm. “Oh, I’m gonna panic if that happens!”
“That is a very unlikely possibility.” Aiden catches Raj’s eye, then nods at Noah. “Don’t take ideas from the man who told Kent he should finish a joint in one rip before working his shift at the flower shop.”
“As he should have, dude,” Noah protests indignantly. “Gabby agreed with me, she said that was ill advice!”
Aiden’s eyes sparkle with silent laughter. “No, man, she said it was ill-advised.”
Noah’s pierced eyebrows furrow in confusion. “Are we not saying the same thing?”
“My husband is right, brothers,” Raj jumps in, clasping Noah’s shoulder. “Good to be careful. It could be some Little Shop of Horrors shit, we don’t know.”
“I haven’t seen that movie. Sounds pretty sexy hot from the title, though.”
“No, I said horrors, Noah.”
“No plant made by my magic is going to bite someone,” Aiden interrupts firmly.
“I’ll be careful,” Raj promises, with a warm smile up at Noah.
Aiden comes over to watch as Raj carefully cuts off a piece of one of the many roots, one that was reaching towards the wall but not quite there yet. Thick, golden, sweet-smelling resin immediately oozes out, slicking the side of Raj’s blade and spilling onto his fingers.
It has a strong fragrance. It’s like breathing directly from a bottle of cologne, and I’m standing all the way back behind Raj.
Raj and Noah both draw back in surprise, then lean in closer in perfect tandem. I find myself doing the same thing, taking another deep breath. Aiden drops down to his knees next to Noah, inhaling deeply. We all take a few seconds of dazzled silence to just breathe it in.
“Wow,” Aiden sighs dreamily. “What is that?”
“I don’t know, but it smells amazing,” Noah breathes, his grey eyes glassy with amazement. “It’s kind of like Melanie’s perfume, and - that warm smell like a woodworking shop.”
“It does smell like Mel’s perfume, how strange is that?” Raj is looking at the resin on his fingers with admiring eyes. “I don’t smell anything like a woodworking shop, though. It’s more like - that stuff from France you put in your hair after you shower, Nohea. But stronger, like when there’s some on your fingers after you just did it.”
“Wh-? No it isn’t, dude. That stuff is cédrat and cedarwood, it doesn’t smell like this at all.”
I glance at Aiden in bewilderment. He looks at me in blank confusion, too. I’m guessing the resin doesn’t smell like any of that to either of us, going off of his expression. I was actually startled by how much it smells like vetiver, rose water, a trace of salt sweat and sex, warm spices from the kitchen, the vintage scent of aged paper…
Raj sits up on one knee and turns the little piece of wood over in his hands. “Hard to see what this really looks like with the resin on it. Mind if I take it home, Jamie?”
“Yeah, go for it…” I trail off, shaking my head dazedly, then get to my feet. “Give us a second, you guys.”
Aiden follows me out into the hallway, where I stop to stare up at him with wide, questioning eyes.
“I don’t know,” he rumbles, leaning back against the wall and folding his muscled arms across his chest. “I’m just still relieved that the pot was already broken.”
“Stop it!” I groan-laugh, leaning back against the wall across from him, meeting his blue eyes. “I’m sorry I was so hard on you, when you didn’t even do anything.”
Aiden’s eyebrows arch up high. “You’re under the impression that you were hard on me about it? Goddamn, you’re sweet.”
“Holy shit, Aiden.” I let out a helpless laugh, then gesture wildly at the ruby tree. “How did this happen?”
“You tell me, flower boy. You’d have the best guess out of all of us. This is your area of expertise.”
I blush a little, then take a second to calm down and think, running a hand through my hair. Aiden’s eyes flit up to follow my fingers.
He brushes my hand aside, then buries his fingers in my hair instead. “Here, let me do that. I’ll take care of it for you.”
“What-?” I let out a startled laugh as he messes up my hair. I shove his hand away, then take my phone out of my pocket. “Aiden, seriously! Did you give the plant an extra burst of magic by accident?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I guess it could’ve happened while we were having sex? Who are you calling?”
“Luca. We need-”
Luca answers my call before I can explain further.
“Hey, Jamie! How’s it going?”
“Hey, man! I’m sorry to call you this late.”
“It’s okay, I was up,” Luca says, with his usual cheerful brightness to his voice. “I’ve actually still got a few hours left in my shift. I should warn you that I may have to jump off the phone if someone needs an ambulance.”
“Shit, I’m sorry, are you busy?”
“No no, it’s okay. Pretty slow night, actually. I’m giving a patient a tour of the hospital at the moment. I’ve noticed that when people have to stay in the hospital for a while, sometimes just knowing their way around helps them cope. It’s a little thing, but it can go a long way for some patients, so I try to make time for it.”
I tilt my head to the side in surprise, full of fondness for Luca. “You’re very perfect for Roger, you know that? Kindred spirits, you two. Always so determined to go the extra mile.”
“Aw!” Luca laughs, sounding startled and flattered. “Well, my patient has fallen asleep in the wheelchair, so I’m free to talk while I get him back to his room. What’s, um - what’s up?”
“Why’d you ask like that?”
“Just wondering what prompted you to call me at this time of night. From your voice it doesn’t sound like an emergency, but usually when you call me it’s about something I would never predict.”
“Oh, it’s - not a big deal, um…” I fall silent for a second, struggling for a good way to put it. “A magical tree grew through our house, and Raj got some mystery resin from it on his fingers? So I just wanted to make sure that that’s fine. Medically speaking.”
There’s a brief pause from Luca’s end of the line, and then a little laugh. “Wow, I… I don’t-”
“Well said, Keane,” Aiden groans softly, running a hand over his eyes.
“Is it an evil tree?” Luca asks, sounding very excited.
“Well, I don’t know if I think of any tree as evil-”
“It’s a ruby tree,” Aiden jumps in, taking my phone from me and putting it on speaker. “We’re not sure why it’s growing through the house, but it doesn’t seem, um - malicious.”
“Okay… I’m not sure what that means. Wait, ruby tree… that little one in your bedroom? Oh, I remember that one! Roger gave me a kiss in front of it on one of those nights when we came over to your place for dinner.”
“Aw!”
“Yeah, that tree isn’t evil,” Luca decides. “If Raj doesn’t seem to be experiencing any ill effects it’s probably okay. Just have him wash it off. Make sure it doesn’t get in his eyes or his mouth, just to be safe. And keep me updated. Because I’m concerned! Not because I’m curious about the effects of magical resin on a person’s skin. That’s the, um - secondary thing.”
Aiden and I exchange a relieved glance.
“Thanks, Luca, we will!” I answer warmly. “Talk soon.”
“Alright, but that doesn’t answer any of our other questions,” Aiden points out once I hang up. “Like why it grew into our wall, or why it’s thriving when we haven’t done anything to it. Should we summon Will and Kasey, see what they think?”
“I’m not sure they want to be disturbed right now. I left Kasey with an article she wanted to read about ropemaking techniques in the Federalist period, and Will gave her most of his energy so she has enough to turn the pages herself. I tried to summon her earlier and she said something about Queen Anne’s War that I didn’t understand, because personally I hadn’t heard of that war.”
Aiden makes a whatever kind of face. “You can’t be expected to keep track of every war that ever happened in Britain, dude. I haven’t heard of that one, either.”
“No, apparently that one was in America.”
“Really?” Aiden gives me a troubled look, clearly alarmed. “God. The education system in this country is bad.”
“That, and Kasey absorbed all the knowledge, left none for the rest of us. She said a whole thing about ropewalks in Boston, and resistance against the Crown - I couldn’t follow. I don’t know what a ropewalk is. Point is I think she’s focused on other things for the night.”
“Okay,” Aiden laughs, shaking his head. “Then we might need to ask her and Will about the ruby tree in the morning, because I don’t know about you, but I don’t get it.”
“Maybe it’s… plants are really sensitive to their environment. What have we done around the ruby tree recently?”
“Specifically around it? Nothing. Guess I was leaning on the dresser this morning rereading the poem that you wrote m- that I stole from you.” Aiden shrugs his powerful shoulders in confusion. “Nothing out of the usual. I do that all the time.”
I gaze up at him silently, lost in adoring warmth, then deep in thought. My mind has wandered to the actual ruby aspect of the ruby tree. The malachite tree came from a stone that symbolizes protection, but the ruby tree…
Raj and Noah are on their knees next to it, staring at it in fascination. Raj is working the resin off of his fingers and onto a rag from his toolbox. He looks a little regretful about it. He turns his head to make a sad face at Noah.
“It smells so good, I don’t even want it off.” He wraps the piece of wood up in the rag and tucks it away into his toolbox, then leans his head against Noah’s shoulder. “Why do I want to make you something out of this wood so badly, all of a sudden?”
“Shut up,” Noah laughs softly, the corners of his mouth dimpling. “Jesus, what a night.”
“I know. Checking on walls to make sure a magic tree didn’t hurt them.”
“Qu'est-ce qu'on fait?” Noah laughs, with a helpless shrug.
Raj breathes out a laugh, too, closing up his toolbox as he lifts his head. “I don’t know.”
He’s given up on trying to pronounce any French out loud, but it seems to me like he’s still trying to learn more, if he understood that question from Noah. Noah is looking at him with obvious warmth in his eyes, maybe thinking about the same thing. Raj smiles softly back at him, meets his silver gaze with clear adoration in his own.
One of the flower buds on the ruby tree unfurls a little more. Right before my eyes. It grows fuller and heavier, showing the tiniest sliver of a vivid crimson petal within.
My eyes widen, growing intent on the bud as the realization strikes me.
Aiden was standing by the ruby tree this morning, reading my poem… Roger kissed Luca in front of it…
“Oh my god, Aiden!” I slap a hand to my forehead, spinning around to face him. “We have been feeding the ruby tree! Even Roger and Luca have fed it - Raj and Noah are feeding it right now! No wonder it’s growing!”
Rubies symbolize different things across different cultures and times, but in the way Aiden learned his gemstones - it means passion.
“Passion, Aiden,” I whisper urgently, catching a handful of his shirt. “And it’s been in our bedroom, all this time!”
He blinks hard at me, then shakes his head, a faint blush climbing his cheeks. “So - hang on - you’re saying that we-?”
I catch his wrist and lead him back into our bedroom. “Let’s put it to the test!”
Aiden stumbles after me in confusion as I stride up to the tree. Raj and Noah see us coming and move out of the way, then stare at us in surprise when I lean up, get my arms around Aiden’s neck, and kiss him deeply. Aiden’s cheeks immediately begin to burn - especially because Noah wolf-whistles and Raj goes “Oooooh!” - but he kisses me back, and after a second I break away, panting, to look at the tree.
I drag in a sharp gasp, staring at the root that Raj cut. New growth has already covered up the place where it was sliced before, reconnecting the two separated pieces of root. The only evidence that it was ever cut at all is the resin left on the bark.
“See!” I stammer, pointing at it.
Noah and Raj lean down to stare at it in disbelief.
“Whoa, Jamie!” Noah looks up at me with wide eyes, obviously impressed. “You are a sick gardener, dude! I’ve never seen someone make a plant grow that fast!”
“Oh, my god.” Aiden sinks down to sit on the bed, dazedly rubbing his eyes. “Okay, I see what happened here. Not sure we solved the problem, though. It’s just gonna keep growing, the rate we’re feeding it.”
“Until it reaches its mature size, anyways,” I manage, lifting my eyes from the root to look at him. “What are we gonna do? Just have a tree branch growing in through our window, and now also a second tree growing into our bedroom walls?”
Aiden cringes apologetically. “Is that cool?”
I let out a helpless laugh, leaning weakly against the dresser. “At least we’ve confirmed that the tree isn’t evil.”
“In that case, good luck with your friendly bedroom tree,” Noah yawns, getting back to his feet and stretching his arms over his head. “We’re gonna go back to bed. Exciting as a magic tree attack is, we’ve still got a baby, and that’s still tiring.”
Raj gets up with a nod of agreement, collecting his toolbox. “Thanks for the cutting, Jamie! I’m curious to see how it carves.”
“No problem - thank you for confirming our house won’t collapse or explode!” I call gratefully after him and Noah. “I know it’s late. We appreciate it.”
Raj and Noah call out their goodbyes, give us a wave on their way out. I wave back, then turn to Aiden. He looks like he’s trying not to laugh. Biting his lip, his blue eyes sparkling.
“Oh, don’t!” I groan, flinging myself at him. He lets out a startled huff of laughter as I flatten him onto the bed, but catches me easily in his arms. “I can’t believe it. I never should’ve put this tree in our bedroom! What was I thinking?”
“To be fair, it seems like there’s more than one kind of passion that feeds the tree,” Aiden points out. “It can’t only be sexual passion, because Raj and Noah fed it together. Passion has a lot of forms, right? Maybe the tree will take any of them.”
“Oh, true.” I let out another helpless laugh, snuggling my face into Aiden’s neck. “In that case I guess this would’ve happened no matter which part of our house we put the tree in.”
Aiden doesn’t answer, but I feel his cheek round out with his smile. He kisses the top of my head softly.
“At least the malachite tree is growing sort of normally,” I murmur, half to myself. “That’s good. I gave one to my mom because I’d like her and my dad to learn about all this gradually. If the malachite tree started growing into the walls of her house we’d be in trouble. But I guess the gem plants each look different from each other, and they were grown from stones with different meanings, so it only makes sense they’d all exhibit unique behaviors…”
I trail off, lapsing into delighted, fascinated silence. A rumbling huff of slow, deep laughter breaks from Aiden.
“Excited, plant boy?” comes his teasing voice.
“Yes! Even though I recognize that one of my plants may have done some structural damage to this house that we rent, and that’s probably not great. Especially given I was upset with you for breaking a single pot earlier.”
Aiden lets out a groan, then another huff of laughter.
“We should’ve realized there would be a learning curve,” he murmurs, trailing his fingertips up my back. “No guidebook to being a magic gardener, is there?”
A magic gardener, I repeat silently, lifting my head to stare down at Aiden in surprise.
Is that what I am? I’ve thought of myself as someone who tends to magic plants, but my mind hadn’t quite put it that way before. I guess I do look after Aiden’s Guardian Tree, and now I have the gem plants in my care, too. They’ve all been doing well, growing steadily. In the case of the ruby tree, absolutely thriving…
A slow smile spreads across my face. I press my nose into the soft warmth of Aiden’s neck, so he can’t see my expression.
I’d been quietly a little worried, with my anniversary with Aiden coming up. The fire and passion we had when everything first started between us is still burning just as powerfully in me now as it was then. I felt like the same was true of Aiden, but - this is also the longest relationship I’ve ever had, and Aiden doesn’t always say how he feels out loud.
I don’t know. It’s just good to know that the ruby tree is perfectly happy growing here, that passing time hasn’t faded it or dimmed its brilliance in the slightest. It’s showing no signs of getting weaker with time at all. It’s doing better than it ever has before, actually. Growing a little more every day. Reaching new depths, stretching for loftier heights, sinking down deeper roots.
“The only thing is, Aiden, if we ever don’t feed the tree enough and it dies, our - our house might fall down.”
Aiden breathes out a soft laugh, folding me closer into his arms. “Don’t you worry yourself about that. It’s never gonna happen. Never.”
He says it in that voice it’s impossible to argue with. Like it’s simple, inarguable. The only possible truth.
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