I cannot believe you’re dead, Mother. I cannot believe you’re not sitting up from your deathbed to count the crinkles on my tunic and the unplucked hair on my chin. I still brace for impact as I roll out my harvesting knives and lay out my jars and pouches, expecting to hear how I’m doing everything wrong, wrong, and wrong again. Never mind that you knew nothing about my trade or my life after I left.

What was I thinking, returning home to perform your harvest? Every corner of this room, of this house, screams of the life you had without me: the tapestries and throws from every corner of the continent, the knick knacks from faraway beaches and mountain slopes, kaftans and shawls and beaded necklaces, mementos of your solitary adventures. Well, you’ve left for your final adventure now, and I’m here waiting for your corpse to bloom.

What kind of nekrophyta will appear first, I wonder? Every body has its own unique harvest. Will it be a patch of thoughtnettles on your forehead? Coppertraps on your fingertips? You were headstrong and stingy, but one can never really tell until the blooming begins.

Huh.

A silverbell? I wasn’t expecting that. Like miniature daisies with silver petals, those delicate little flowers spurt from the vocal cords of people who loved to sing. I’ve never heard you sing. I don’t even recall you raising your voice; poison is better delivered in slow, cautious motions, and you used your words with the skill of a Master Poisoner. But it’s still a silverbell. If dried and powdered correctly, it can bring good coin.

Let’s begin, then.

Wait a minute. There’s something more here. I should have looked closer, but keeping a safe distance from you has become my second nature. Now I spot the parasite curling around the silverbell: a bloombane. A corrosive little fungus that plagues many nekrophyta, but has a preference for silverbells. Yes indeed, that’s fungus on the flower. I see its grey streaks marring the surface of the silver petals. And I can almost hear your voice in my head, Mother.

See? It wasn’t my fault I never sang to you. It was the parasite.

But that’s not how the necrophyta work, Mother. Their spores exist all around us: in the breeze, on the ground, on every surface, caught in our hair and in the fabric of our clothes.  They lie waiting for the moment of death to spurt, but won’t bloom on barren ground. Silverbells won’t grow on those who hated to sing, and folicacti won’t grow on the feet of those who didn’t enjoy traveling. Nothing cannot create something.

The parasite chose you for a reason. Its spores wouldn’t thrive after death unless you’ve watered them often while still alive. Even after I’ve cut it off from your throat, it grows delicate, translucent pseudopods seeking moisture—seeking my tears. It likes what it likes. You have watered it often—spoiled it, even—with enough of my tears to grow such a splendid specimen. This bloombane alone can pay for six months of my daily expenses.

I don’t care.

I-don’t-care-I-don’t-care-I-don’t-care.

Well.

I don’t think I can do this.

The Harvesters’ Guild invites its members of good standing to perform the harvest of their departed relatives as a courtesy. But stomping on a rare specimen, hurling the nearest breakable item against the farthest wall while ugly-crying is not how reputable harvesters carry themselves. Perhaps this would be a good time to call on one of my colleagues to take over, before the nekrophyta wilt on the corpse. They are good people, all of them. Friends. Family, even. Perhaps they’ll find it in their heart to lie and tell me that something—anything—bloomed on your body that indicated you loved me, even for a little while.

Of course you’d quit half-way.

And of course you’d say that.

No, Mother. I won’t quit. Not this time. I might not excel in many things, but I’ve learned how to cut. How to sever. So, I’ll do just that. First, I’ll cut your voice from my thoughts. Then, I will weep, I will bruise the nekrophyta, I will ruin a few of them—or a lot—but I will finish this. I will harvest the sticky coppertraps from your fingertips—tight with your purse, tight with your heart—and reminiscence of everything you’ve made me earn during my childhood: scraps of allowance and pittance of affection. I will cut the folicacti from the soles of your feet and allow myself the luxury of jealousy, one last time, for all the adventures you had without me.

And once everything is stored as neatly as I can manage, I’ll roll up the tools of my trade, pick up the harvest, and arrange for the cremation. And then, dear Mother, I’ll walk out of my childhood home for the last time and thrive in all the lives you never thought me worthy of living.

* * *

Ⓒ Christine Lucas